I'm considering a new laptop, looking for experiences.

[Ben Scott]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Bill Freeman <ke1g.nh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can anyone offer personal experience stories on the Dell Inspirons?

  For what I expect you expect in a laptop, I recommend the Latitude
line instead.  Inspiron is their consumer line, designed for people
who buy based on price and the color of the lid.  Latitude is the
business line, designed for people who are buying a tool.  Among other
things, the Latitude has: Easier hardware servicing, parts
interchangeable across models, longer product lifecycle, some
stability in chips across models, and a mildly higher price.

  Most significant for this crowd: Dell offers Linux (Ubuntu)
pre-loaded and factory-supported on the Latitude line.  They support
some other distros, too, officially or unofficially.

  Dell has a website devoted to their Linux support
(http://linux.dell.com/).  They offer drivers/diagnostics/utilities
for Linux, and maintain RPM/YUM and dpkg/APT repositories with that
software.  Dell engineers contribute code to the kernel for some of
their hardware.  (e.g., the MegaRAID driver is, or at least used to
be, done by Dell staff.)  Dell runs mailing lists for Linux users.
Some of the Dell engineers read and post, so you may even end up
talking to the guy who wrote the code.

  It's the best treatment of Linux users I've seen from a major
vendor.  (Some of the boutique vendors doubtless do better.)

  If you do end up buying Dell, be aware that they offer two levels of
support.  The base level is your typical guy in or around south Asia,
speaks English with a thick accent, and is reading from a script.  The
"Gold" or "ProSupport" or whatever it's called now is someone in North
America, speaks English well, and is willing and able to help.  It's a
few hundred dollars more.  It's worth it the first time you call.

> Any bad experiences with the i7 CPU?

  You're looking at the wrong part.  CPUs are commodities these days.
Core logic chipset, video chipset, disk controller, network controller
are what matter.

-- Ben