[wplug] (OT) Laptop Durability

[Kuzman Ganchev]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 01:53:23PM -0700, Mark Haney wrote:
> How long do they generally last? (I would probably be carrying it back and 
> forth between school and home daily.) Are there certain brands that have 
> a good reputation for durability? How easy is it to have failed parts, such 
> as a bad hard drive, replaced? 

I have one I bought 2 years ago (a little more). It was a refurb -- not
sure what year it was manufactured, but it's a pentium 1 if that helps.
Never had any problems (I took it to Paris, where it was with me for a
year -- in my bag every day, including going to Germany, Switzerland
etc.)

I've replaced laptop hard drives -- for a dell inspiron, it's easier
than replacing a desktop drive. I assume this is true in general also. 

> Of course one reason I'm interested in this is because laptops are 
> expensive and I want to use it as long as possible! Another reason, 
> though, is that I'm thinking about purchasing a refurbished laptop to save 
> some money. Has anyone had any notable experiences with refurbs?

A friend of mine bought a refurb, and the keyboard flaked out after
about a year; he opened it up and found what he could only describe as
goo beneath the keys. Removing it didn't fix the problem and he had to
purchase a new keyboard. As I  said, I've had no problems with mine,
despite numberous adventures, and things like spilling water on it. 

Kuzman
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