Originally posted by lazyfiddler
Hey Winston,
Many thanks for the info on Compaq and the office address in Adelaide.
Also thanks for highlighting the IT show coming soon. Yes... will likely get the notebook then.
Could u advice me some more? What do u think of Acer? I am actually narrowing down my choice notebook from these 2 brands.
Err....Personally I would not recommend Asian brand unless it's Fujitsu, Toshiba.
That includes Acer, Whitebox, Mitac, FOSA..and the other taiwanese brands.
(Like I said, it's PERSONALLY, so some people may disagree with me)
Being in a tech support environment has made me, fearful of Acer's and it's sister company, Benq's products.
IBM, Compaq, HP, DELL, Toshiba are pretty good.
Oh and one thing to note.
Driver support is VERY important.
Sometimes your laptop may come with Windows XP Home bundled and the manufacturer will give you a CD with the drivers.
But as years go by, Microsoft will come up with newer OS and hence you will need new drivers for your laptop to use the newer OS, like modem drivers, network card drivers, display drivers...etc
Some of the taiwanese branded laptops..their website is so lousy that they only give you drivers for only ONE type of OS only (the OS that it is bundled with) and no more drivers for other newer OS. so you cannot use newer OS with the laptop.
a few Years back, I was attracted by the low price of this Mitac laptop and was almost going to buy it, but I decided to take down it's model number and check the website.
the website was lousy and only had Windows ME drivers and no Win2K drivers.
I was put off by the website's support and drivers update and went for a Thinkpad instead.
Check the manufacturer's website and you will find the better brands like IBM, Toshiba, HP and Compaq (now they are one)..etc have better website, easy to navigate and they continue to provide driver support even for laptops that are out-of-production for a few years.
I hate to see the manufacturer indicate, "Sorry there are no new drivers for this model as it is out-of-production"
My friend's old Lexmark printer did not have Windows 2000 drivers and when he called the company, they said his printer was very old and not going to release any drivers for it. and suggest he buy a new printer!!!
A perfectly useable printer, cannot be used just because the maker decide not to make windows 2000 driver and force them to upgrade.
HP's old deskjet printers and Espon's old Stylus Pro printers are still supported by Windows 2000 and XP to date.