My new computer has it, Ill tell people how much I hate or love it when I get it.

Here's where someone with access to YouTube would link to a Debbie Downer SNL skit.

I don't want to get his enthusiasm down, but I had a terrible experience with Dell and my friends who had similar models also had issues. They just weren't well built at all, and there are better brands out there that don't cost much more that I would go with first.

 

But enjoy

I don't want to get his enthusiasm down, but I had a terrible experience with Dell and my friends who had similar models also had issues. They just weren't well built at all, and there are better brands out there that don't cost much more that I would go with first.

 

But enjoy

 

Right your anecdotal evidence doesnt really sway me much as my family and I have bought over 10 dell computers in the last 15 years, and Dell has been nothing but amazing if there were any issues, including when they completely replaced my computer 2 weeks after the warranty was up.

 

That is in comparison to when I bought my Alienware (before they were owned by dell) computer and they basically told me "tough break". Ive owned basically every brand of computer from IBM to Apple, so it wasnt about the brand, it was about the graphics card, processor, etc. Its not about price which is why I asked if Alienwares were overkill for normal use.

I don't want to get his enthusiasm down, but I had a terrible experience with Dell and my friends who had similar models also had issues. They just weren't well built at all, and there are better brands out there that don't cost much more that I would go with first.

 

But enjoy

 

Did your Dell laptop play Crysis? Probably not.

 

From the looks of his Dell's specs, his certainly can.

Edited October 31, 201213 yr by chw42

A bit late, but good luck with Dell, unless they've improved drastically in the past few years I would never buy one again.

They are built poorly and most likely the owner will have to replace something at some time, historically the hard drives have been bad.

Yeah the way I ensure against that is to pay for extended warranty. All the comparable computers I could find were more expensive than the Dell+ warranty and it wasnt like the other brands were rated higher.

 

Hard drive is the least of my worries as I already have external back ups and if it was up to me Id have just got some small hard drive that worked well, as compared to a huge hard drive I dont need.

 

That being said necessity sometimes forces your hand. Ill have the computer by Monday and if I need to get another one, I can always give this to my parents.

Right your anecdotal evidence doesnt really sway me much as my family and I have bought over 10 dell computers in the last 15 years, and Dell has been nothing but amazing if there were any issues, including when they completely replaced my computer 2 weeks after the warranty was up.

 

That is in comparison to when I bought my Alienware (before they were owned by dell) computer and they basically told me "tough break". Ive owned basically every brand of computer from IBM to Apple, so it wasnt about the brand, it was about the graphics card, processor, etc. Its not about price which is why I asked if Alienwares were overkill for normal use.

 

My family used to always buy Gateways, but now we all stick with Dell (my brother went Lenovo because he got it for like $200). Never had real problems.

Right your anecdotal evidence doesnt really sway me much as my family and I have bought over 10 dell computers in the last 15 years, and Dell has been nothing but amazing if there were any issues, including when they completely replaced my computer 2 weeks after the warranty was up.

 

That is in comparison to when I bought my Alienware (before they were owned by dell) computer and they basically told me "tough break". Ive owned basically every brand of computer from IBM to Apple, so it wasnt about the brand, it was about the graphics card, processor, etc. Its not about price which is why I asked if Alienwares were overkill for normal use.

I get it's a small sample size on my end, but I didn't just buy the lowest cost Dell, I upgraded on of their most popular models at the time (upgraded processor, graphics card, memory, etc). At the time I wanted that laptop to replace my need for a desktop (of course it wouldn't be able to play the much higher spec games), but for the most part it played what I wanted to play but 9 months after owning it, it started to just shut down whenever it got stressed from playing videos, games, etc for more than 15 minutes. I got a stand and usb fan to help cool it and that didn't help much either, pretty much the fan they put in it and the ventilation in general sucked ass so when you upgraded the components it couldn't handle it. That's a pretty s***ty design flaw.

 

And Dell isn't the only brand I won't buy, HP is right there as well. A girl I dated had an uncle that worked for HP, and they bought her an HP laptop for college. Well, the thing was A) a s***ty design (bulky, styling didn't feel right when using it), and B) broke down hard after 1 semester of use. She sent it in to HP and they put delay after delay on it, her uncle gave her his PC while he went to go fight with the customer service people to get it done. I find that ridiculous that HP couldn't even take care of one of their employee's issues.

 

But like I said, hopefully they've been better and it works out for you.

Too busy or lazy to upgrade. You can always download a preview version, fire up VM Player or VirtualBox and try it for yourself.

 

yea. i guess we are getting windows 8 at work so i can wait.

Its no problem, like I said I was more looking for information on the specifications, less on the brand. Brand is a personal preference, and its generally built on our own experiences. So since Dell has been good to me, I think they are good. But if I had the issues you referred to, maybe I wouldnt think they were so good.

 

And the issue you are talking about, its basically what happened with my Alienware. The components got so hot that the laptop could melt plastic.

i'm thinking about getting an ASUS gaming laptop

Ok, so my laptop is now struggling to play high-quality videos smoothly. When I am editting on Sony Vegas, the playback is choppy. I need to pretty much close all my other applications and restart my computer to begin working on a video (even then, it's still stuttering). Now when I render the video and play it back (compressed video), it plays fine and smooth.

 

Is it safe to assume I need to upgrade the RAM on this baby? Or should I delete crap off the laptop and do a disk fragmentation and clean up? The laptop is 4 1/2 years old and has 4 GB of RAM running an Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 @ 2.20 GHz, and it's a 32-bit OS.

Right your anecdotal evidence doesnt really sway me much as my family and I have bought over 10 dell computers in the last 15 years, and Dell has been nothing but amazing if there were any issues, including when they completely replaced my computer 2 weeks after the warranty was up.

 

That is in comparison to when I bought my Alienware (before they were owned by dell) computer and they basically told me "tough break". Ive owned basically every brand of computer from IBM to Apple, so it wasnt about the brand, it was about the graphics card, processor, etc. Its not about price which is why I asked if Alienwares were overkill for normal use.

 

Yeah I have owned Dells for over 10 years now, and had zero hardware problems.

Yeah I have owned Dells for over 10 years now, and had zero hardware problems.

Let be honest too, its not Dell that has the issues. They are rebranding 3rd party hardware for the most part, so a bunch of faulty hitachi drives isnt really a "Dell" issue. Some people get terrible Macs and I've never had an issue. Computers are meant to break and arent meant for long term use.

 

 

For my money if I had to buy myself a laptop I would 100% buy a Macbook air, probably the same one I have for work. Its just flat out awesome.

Ok, so my laptop is now struggling to play high-quality videos smoothly. When I am editting on Sony Vegas, the playback is choppy. I need to pretty much close all my other applications and restart my computer to begin working on a video (even then, it's still stuttering). Now when I render the video and play it back (compressed video), it plays fine and smooth.

 

Is it safe to assume I need to upgrade the RAM on this baby? Or should I delete crap off the laptop and do a disk fragmentation and clean up? The laptop is 4 1/2 years old and has 4 GB of RAM running an Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 @ 2.20 GHz, and it's a 32-bit OS.

 

Your laptop is outdated.

 

It's probably not the RAM if it worked fine before. Try a defrag.

Let be honest too, its not Dell that has the issues. They are rebranding 3rd party hardware for the most part, so a bunch of faulty hitachi drives isnt really a "Dell" issue. Some people get terrible Macs and I've never had an issue. Computers are meant to break and arent meant for long term use.

 

 

For my money if I had to buy myself a laptop I would 100% buy a Macbook air, probably the same one I have for work. Its just flat out awesome.

 

Hitachi drives suck in general. I got a 5400 rpm drive with my ultrabook and it overheated and broke in about 2 weeks. I ordered a Samsung SSD afterwards and it's been worth every penny.

Your laptop is outdated.

 

It's probably not the RAM if it worked fine before. Try a defrag.

I was going to say install something that would tell if he's maxing out his RAM. I had a problem with videos and it turned out it was a function of my video player.

I was going to say install something that would tell if he's maxing out his RAM. I had a problem with videos and it turned out it was a function of my video player.

 

Well, I have 4 GB of RAM, and my computer can hold up to 8 GB (2 x 4GB sticks). I'm just not sure if I want to spend the $150 to upgrade my RAM if I am not sure if it's going to change a whole lot. I just want to be able to continue editting videos on this baby, since I do so much video editing in my major.

Well, I have 4 GB of RAM, and my computer can hold up to 8 GB (2 x 4GB sticks). I'm just not sure if I want to spend the $150 to upgrade my RAM if I am not sure if it's going to change a whole lot. I just want to be able to continue editting videos on this baby, since I do so much video editing in my major.

Its 150 on amazon?

Its 150 on amazon?

 

Newegg. I didn't start looking around yet because I didn't know if I should pursue it or not. Amazon probably has it cheaper.

Newegg. I didn't start looking around yet because I didn't know if I should pursue it or not. Amazon probably has it cheaper.

Take the part number and put it in Amazon's search. I found my imac memory at about half of what it was on the other sites. Under 100 for 4 gigs.

Take the part number and put it in Amazon's search. I found my imac memory at about half of what it was on the other sites. Under 100 for 4 gigs.

 

You guys are paying nearly $100 for 4 GB of RAM?

 

DDR3 will cost you around $25 for 4 GB, even for SODIMM. DDR2...well that's another story. I'm assuming Joe's laptop uses DDR2. If that's the case, it'll cost you a little more, but not $150.

 

This is a common frequency for most laptop DDR2 RAM: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-CT51264AC800...+GB+SODIMM+DDR2

Edited November 1, 201213 yr by chw42

You guys are paying nearly $100 for 4 GB of RAM?

 

DDR3 will cost you around $25 for 4 GB, even for SODIMM. DDR2...well that's another story. I'm assuming Joe's laptop uses DDR2. If that's the case, it'll cost you a little more, but not $150.

 

This is a common frequency for most laptop DDR2 RAM: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-CT51264AC800...+GB+SODIMM+DDR2

No, thats what I was telling him. I paid very little for brand name RAM for my mac when CDW, Newegg and the crucial website wanted to charge me more than 100.

No, thats what I was telling him. I paid very little for brand name RAM for my mac when CDW, Newegg and the crucial website wanted to charge me more than 100.

 

The last time I saw 4 GB of RAM at nearly $100 on Newegg was 2009 and that was when people started transitioning to DDR3.

Yeah, I can get 8 GB off Amazon for like $100-115. I am just wondering if you guys think it will really make much of a difference in my video editting or not. Being a college kid, being able to afford it means asking for it for Xmas.