I just recently acquired an old Core 2 Duo Dell Latitude D630 and is it fantastic! The Keyboard feels better than even "modern" desktop keyboards and it feels like I could bang on the keyboard all day and zero keys would fly off. There's a physical wireless switch to be more secure for paranoid people and save battery life. It has a real com port and there's a Docking Station with a parallel port and a firewire port. So if I ever want to interface with a MiniDV Cam or hook this up to some industrial machinery or a 80's dot matrix printer, I can! (Ok, not killer features, but it's a nice legacy touch) I can upgrade this sucker to a 12-cell battery and remove the optical drive and replace it with another battery! Seriously, why aren't there modern laptops like this? I can understand not having firewire, a real com port or a parallel port because they're legacy as hell, but what's so "legacy" about a shit load of removable batteries? If you can upgrade this sucker to last 6 hours with it's ancient 35w core2 duo, a CFL backlight and an idling Nvidia Quadro, it would last a hell of a lot longer on modern hardware.
My only nitpicks are is the battery bay is in the front one of the ram slots and the two mini pcie slots are under the Keyboard, but it feels like a real solid machine though it's no Thinkpad T520.
Thinkpads all day, I had the chance to get a butterfly keyboard thinkpad at one point, shoulda wasted 50 bucks on it, didn't even have a single USB port
I have a 107C you can just have. Needs some repair though. It worked when I got it then it went into storage until I got around to it but now it doesn't turn on :C
I mill never find the quality my HP NW8000 has in any other machine ever again. All the cooling is in its own zone, the battery bay is an easy quick switch, decent GPU for what it is, a multibay, sd card/firewire/all that shit. Indultrial laptops don't exist anymore because somehow in the last 7 years it went from quality to "Throw it away and buy new! NEW!!!! DO IT NOW OMGGGG!!!!!"
Gpu's, laptops, Fiat cars (well fiat has always been shit but, eh, you know), all sorts of shit. Hell I saved a Core 2 gaming laptop and its still a great machine. If you offered me a macbook for that machine I would kick the shit out of you.
At this rate everything will be as a service and built with DANGER HAWT AIR at the vents :I
Ahhh D630's... Probably can do a tear down on it blind folded the amount of times I've work on those. They are great rugged laptops. Only issue I've been seeing are the ones with the Nvidia chips. They tend to get pretty warm and end up dying quicker then the models with intel integrated graphics. And I agree with you on the ram, it'd be nice to just have them both in the same spot. But removing the keyboard is pretty easy.
Well, it's an ultrabook, I'm not a big fan of those, but I'm not going to say that design sucks, it's just something different, but those volume keys and the backlit keyboard.
I used to have a Thinkpad T410, and wew, the keyboard on that thing was so damned satisfying to type with, was built like a tank and extremely heavy. I could probably kill someone with it just by dropping it on their foot. Although the Thinkpad Carbon looks pretty damn cool. Wish I still had that laptop.
Personally I think the modern ThinkPads aren't bad, but they are nowhere near the original IBMs. I have worked on a couple of models since Lenovo took over (T500, T510, T530, W540) and they are increasingly a bit worse. Including touchpad, removal of the ThinkLight, driver stability, key layout (where are special keys). Not my cup of tea.
To get to the topic title: I only buy business laptops. Better support, more durable. While the current offerings from large vendors like Dell and HP are probably not as well built as they were 10 years ago, it still is way better than consumer stuff. Also, when something breaks, a service technician shows up at my house the next day carrying replacement parts. And he fixes it. No couriers, no waiting.
Yeah, business grade laptops are better than what you get at target, but why have the business grade features been downgraded over the years?
Have they downgraded from business grade machines to a consumer grade machine that isn't a piece of shit, but sold in the business section to businesses and power users?
I hate them. You need to carry around an adapter with you just to connect to projector (vga) or ethernet. For a work laptop, this means if I forget to bring the stupid adapter with me I can't really use my laptop in meeting rooms or the lab.
I came into a deal on craigslist that landed me with about two dozen Thinkpad T400s, T61ps and a W500. The W500 is now with @dje4321 but I can finally pull together one of the T400s as well, now.
I'm ok-ish happy with my HP EliteBook 840 (G2). At least all the ports are there. And the docking is hard-wired or PCI-e and not USB3 (like Dell for example). I have to say that my model is quite sturdy. Not as good as the old ThinkPads/HP bricks, but still, this one is light and feels pleasant when carried, not like a bag of concrete.
I think the case with your Folio is that even business users want their systems to be thin. Consequence is that you lose ports. Your company could have gone with a bigger model, but I get the draw to these slick looking things. No-one thought about day-to-day use probably.
Could be. Laptops have to be cheaper and thinner and more portable. My old EliteBook 8570w was much sturdier than my current 840 G2. However, it was very, very heavy. And probably more expensive to make. Servicing was a pain, many daughter boards etc., the new one only has one board with everything on it. Only removable parts are battery, disk, RAM, wireless cards.
I think it's just the "ultrabook" style that ruins laptops. The "real" business laptops still have the features/durability you're looking for.
Most dell latitude series laptops have that "docking port" thing at the bottom (not the ultra-book style ones). A battery can actually be placed there to suplement the weak normal one (which can be upgraded separately) and all continue to be pretty sturdy.
For the battery, they are like $100 on ebay and I was about to get about 15 hrs with both inserted when it was new. Although now it's down to like 10-12 hrs, you were right that upgrading the battery makes modern laptops "last a hell of a lot longer."
In terms of durability, I've never had one break and I've routinely dropped them onto ceramic (2-4 feet) and ran over one with my bike. The mechanical HD died, but none of the SSDs I've dropped ever have. They are also easy to repair from parts on ebay.
So yeah, it's just the "ultrabook" "macbook air" style that hurts battery life/features. They are just too small to put decent ports, do not expose the battery or offer extra battery ports, are too fragile overall and very difficult to repair. Consider this when purchasing your next laptop. Cosmetics VS Functionality.
