It's pretty much a general rule if you drop any hard drive from any distance, it could potentially ruin the drive. Even if you had a cage for your drive, it would still have some type of impact on it.

The reason we use Dell's at work: parts are easy to find and instantly replacible. Isn't that something you'd want?

Also, hard drive failures are usually from wear and not from manufacturing defects, most places give you a year if your drive craps out - some places give you 5 years. Honestly though, a hard drive is not more than $100, it's not the drive that's important, it's what's on the drive that's important (e.g. your data). That's what parity and data back up are for.

Not to mention, Lenovo parts are damn expensive. In fact, a lot of parts from IBM are really expensive. Think of it this way: You're going to the track, you can either have a Miata and break a bunch parts on it, replace the parts for cheap, or you can own a BMW Z3 2.5i, break a ton of crap on it and have to get the parts at an expensive price. I think this is a pretty similar comparison, yes, the BMW is probably a better car - but the cost to replace parts is huge, wouldn't it be easier to own a car that handles well and has easy to get replacement parts? (This is just a comparison, I actually don't know if it's easy to get Miata parts, but I'm sure it is).

I'll agree with you though, it is about what you want to do with your laptop and what kind of budget you're on - but they're not garbage machines.

 

lol

 

Dells are great computers. Although if you don't buy them when they're really cheap, you're definitely getting ripped off.

Price references I've seen:
600m recently around $500
700m all time low at around $650
6000 I've gotten centrino refurbs for less than $600(a while back)
9300 ~900

Recently on EPP, 6000 got to like 500 or something, dunno if those were honored if they were a mistake...but yeah, look on dell outlet as well.

600m is a great all around laptop, weight/screen real estate/price
700m/710m decent, but you can do better with smaller and ligther.
6000 decent, but I would go with $400-$500 special
9300 pointless - see below


I would look at each of the major retailers such as Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, etc. They have weekly sales of laptops in the 400-600 range(cheaper better, no sense in spending $700-$1000 on a laptop, unless you're looking for sub 4lb laptops(that I can relate). The really big ones with 17" screens(ie inspiron 9300)...whats the point? Get a desktop with a 20"-24" screen + cheap laptop). The $400-$500 are usually some good deals, and its cheap enough you would be like whatever, and have enough money left over to build a nice desktop for your serious gaming needs.

if you want a serious reliable and wellbuilt laptop, get a panasonic toughbook, aka a f'ing brick

 

lol