Liae Blog

Dell SONY HP – Deal or no Deal I am not Alone

Ok. You’ve decided that portability is the future. So you have probably given up the idea of gadgets that stay in your home. Hence, you are with devices such as Iphone or Ipad, powerful notebooks for your gaming and HD video editing, and perhaps for extra show off even PSP 3000, and I could add more to the list without thinking, really.

When it comes to getting a gadget top of the the line, of any kind, you will always want to make sure that your hard earned money buys you just what you wanted. Once you purchase a product, you are in for it — THE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION.

To make it short to what I am trying to bring here, let’s put two companies together. DELL vs SONY, and that your desire is to get a powerful notebook for a budget price, some where around $500 to may be $800. If you customize yourself, even the so called Alienware M11X comes second to SONY VIO; just pick that 1GB AT Graphic in the option, plus you get more hard disk space here. Now I don’t work for them, but I have some of their products, both SONY and DELL. Finding what’s good is as difficult as finding a needle in a hay stack. Reviews of be it any products aren’t to your liking for these are done by so called TOPS GURUS who claim that everyone understands benchmarks and that’s what decides whether our wallets should have a whole or a benchmark stamp!

Dumping everything that I just wrote, CUSTOMER SATISFACTION is as important as the product itself. Often notebooks seem to be designed in such a way so that they only last so long. Why you ask my friend? Because, by the time your notebook is dead, company already has another product in line. The Economy is pretty simple; give customers something for a while, then make sure they buy again after a certain period of time. Otherwise, company won’t be selling much. To understand this; actually; for myself. I drew this text based circle.

your notebook. x is days since last purchased.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x
x
x x
x
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with all that heat inside your laptop and hard disk designed to last so and so days…. x are coming near. Boom ! So my friend, if you have a new notebook, use it like as if it’s it’s the last day of the PC’s life. Run all kinds of programs and let it do everything. If you can prove to the manufacturer that their product is working great during the warranty period, you are pretty much ok. If not, you will get a new one. So, don’t keep those fancy newly purchased gadgets untouched. Let it even plough the ground… but make sure such use is allowed in the warranty.

Are you confused or guessing me that I am a confused ? You are not alone my friend. When you are buying computers, it’s not easy to decide which one to pick unless there are real user reviews or the actual product and or scores from highly respected agencies that keep track of everything; performance, support and you name it.

I would recommend that you spend a lot of time reading, watching review videos, etc, learn a lot about a company, product, and then finally decide. Also take the time before you hit that Checkout button. Companies do what they love to do; put 99 cents instead of a dollar just to give our brain a cent of relaxation, then remove everything else and let you decide. How would you feel if you spent nearly half a grand on a notebook, later you received unsatisfactory customer support, and your notebook won’t boot, and to your surprise, your PC doesn’t even have a hard disk. It’s more than great that companies offer users what burger king says “Have it your way!”. If I am making an online purchase after deciding on a machine, i will make sure that it does have everything that you wanted on the machine, like the hard disk.

Should I engrave or not ?
It’s nice that manufacturers can give us a engraved notebook, but be weary that you may not be able to return the notebook as per their terms. If you fancy engraving, you can do this yourself with stickers from Wal-mart.

Does it have a CD/DVD Drive ?
Like I said, to get your attention, prices are reduced so are the components of the notebook. To me, it is really sickening that a manufacturer would go to such a level that they would exclude even a CD drive from your notebook? How on earth will you play a game tomorrow or recover your PC ? Well, most copy the OS on a separate part of the hard disk (in technical term, partition section (one hard disk would have name like C: and D:, probably D: would be where your OS and other files would remain and if things went horribly wrong with your notebook, you could restore the OS back to factory setting. Most external hard disks for notebook aren’t that expensive, prices range from $45 to $100 depending on style, size, and their type such as read/write as well as the speed at which it can read or write.

Make sure you get everything not upgrade later?
Why? Because upgrading is another hassle and your company may not give you the good customer service either.  For gaming and video editing, you don’t need a lot of RAM but you do need a dedicated graphic card, so get a graphic card at least 1GB either ATI or NVIDIA brands. On board graphic cards are okay but they are designed for simple tasks such as photo editing or watching a movie.

Get a Hard Disk at least 500 GB

Why? Because with the advance in notebooks, programs are huge in size these days. Even for a game that may not require a true HD graphics, users are hungry for it, so images, videos, and music, just to name a few type of files, all come in BIG size. Even a decade ago, nobody could have imagined that a game could be of 3GB in size. A powerful gadget without any powerful software is like a meal without a salt. Do you think you will be satisfied with just one application, to name one, say Adobe Premier Element ? No way is your answer. I know it. You will probably want to play a few good games with great graphics. If you are getting a notebook with 100GB disk space, please laugh right now. It’s a joke. And if there is a red or green color saying you are saving so and so, you really aren’t. They have knocked your notebooks’ knee to the floor for that price and now it’s up-to you to bring it up.

What Processor should I pick ?
Anything less than i-5 is a joke, for are serious about a powerful notebook for HD Video editing.

For playing games, other configutations will work even dual core.

Here, I mean 1080p for HD. If you are one of those lucky rich ones, go for Intel I-7. And your question is what about AMD ? AMD is okay and as for notebook, I personally don’t recommend processor from AMD because of heat issues I have learned from forums and websites. I have had an HP notebook with a good configuration about 2 years ago with AMD, I ran all sorts of heavy programs, games and even though everything was saggy, it was worth it–for they replaced my processor. You might like the hangover story: I was playing FIFA 2010, and all of a sudden, it just went off. Since then, I could not start. HP support was nice although, the call was from India, someone was telling me to do this and that even open the chest of my notebook only to find out later that processor must have died.  Read the last para if you are interested on how to increase the life of your laptop.

Should I buy accessories that are listed ?
It’s up-to you.  There are many great ways to sell. If you have them hidden, you won’t be selling anything. I personally would not buy mouse, keyboard and stuff like that because I can get them later at a cheaper price elsewhere.

How much RAM should I get or should I get more RAM and not worry about Video Graphic Card ?

As they say, more the better. It’s true. But a specific motherboard can only handle so much of RAM. 4MB to 6MB should be fine. and RAM doesn’t help you alone in improving your notebook performance for gaming or video editing. It rather helps you run multiple applications faster. 2MB is of yesterday, so FORGET about it. If there is an option, increase the RAM.

Should I go 32 bit or 64 bit ?

If you say yes, then you already know the answer.
Would you like to move towards the future ? Don’t worry, programs made for 32bit may also run on a 64bit system. It is the processor that dictates whether you have a 32 or 64 bit operating system. You know it and everyone does — When a processor can handle more bits (information) result will be –Faster performance.

Should I have mango or Apple ?

Apple products often are well built, tightly integrated and knowing that you can both run windows operating system and many other applications on Apple notebook such as Apple Mach Book Air, it’s surely an option for those lucky ones— for apple one thing always remains the same:  Brand name costs. When I compared the specs of Apple with other machines, other machines actually have much better ones and also price is lower. Why is Apple so expensive? Ask Apple. As the web trend has shifted from text based contents to Multimedia such as Videos and Audio, Apple should re-think about slicing price for it’s brand NAME to capture a market that is so hungry. Who would not buy Apple if they could even slice $400 for 4 months for the Mac Book ? HD Videos with H.264 codec with .mov container, videos look great even on smaller frames. Apple comes with iLife and a host of other OS Ready programs for photographers and video makers, so Apple can’t be further from your reach for peace of mind and sure enough– HD Editing.

What SCREEN SIZE should I pick?
For a notebook, anything that doesn’t give me 1980 x 1080, is not worth it. Reason? If you have followed so far, you can understand that this post is talking a lot about video editing. For true HD, why not get the screen that supports what you have been recording ? Would you like to watch your final 1080p project as it looks ?  Of course.  You can also use 720p (1280×720 screen size.) If they are showing you screen by inches, scroll down to see supported resolution and get to know better. You can always increase the resolution of your screen, but if your screen is already small, screen performance will be degraded. Compare your products side by side, often you seem to get better deals on one item from one company than the other, like monitor size, hard disk size, etc.

OK. I am not out of the woods yet. This final tip(s) is for those who wish their laptop to last longer:

0. Do not engrave your notebook although they look nice, don’t they? Having your own name to show off is cool but there are other better ways to protect your notebook if your purpose is not lose it if it gets lost or stolen. Get a facial-recognizable software for log in or finger print or even smart chip like the IBM notebooks that can be turned off remotely but they come with a price tag.

1. Get a notebook cooler pad, put it under and provide extra cooling for your notebook no matter what it’s made of. These coolers use USB Port, they are easy to use and they can help your notebook’s heating system. Heat can kill a notebook.

2. Get a nice bag with stripes so you can put your notebook in a tight condition. Not all are designed to handle tough conditions. It’s best not to put any liquid stuff in your notebook such as ink pens etc. You never know what can flow and when and where. If you need to have them, put them in a separate bag.

3. Make it a habit to put your drinks etc away from your notebook. A friend of mine busted his recently purchased expensive notebook while he was using it on the floor. His Radio was playing a great music. From his Chat Room excitement, he jumped up, a glass rocked, soda poured in through the keyboard like a river, notebook started singing with fire works, he started opening his tool box later. Nothing helped. Not even warranty. Radio still kept playing the song, later a very very sad song.

4. I say : Know what the warranty covers. No need to spend half of the product cost on additional warranties but if you love peace of mind add extra warranty if you are so rich.

Final Thoughts :

What if, in a year or  two, your notebook becomes old and you are ready to sell it?

As everything is moving and mobility is the future, and if mobile devices such as iPhone or Android or Windows Based Phones or Blackberry or any phone for this matter can be attached to external devices like monitor, external hard disks, mouse, keyboard, flash memory, perhaps we can see lesser categories of notebooks and every category is affordable and powerful.

What’s stopping this from happening ?

Tomorrow, users will have a choice to get what they want and companies will compete for customer satisfaction rather than lousy deals with hidden surprises.

WAZZUP WITH ME ?

Have I got any powerful notebook to write all this? The answer is no. One of my friend does and I use it often, I am trying to get one so, once a week you can find me browsing all sorts of sites and reading reviews on customer satisfaction. SONY VIO seems to coming closer my heart although Alien was inspiration. With SONY VIO you seem to get a lot; large screen size, large disk space, and also the option to add 1GB Graphic Card. Doing something similar to Alienware, even the smallest one, price is expensive, also the M11X so called cheap cheap doesn’t come with a CD/DVD drive (I was laughing out loud ! ) HP ? still not sure. when I get mine, i will share with you. right now?

Still doing research on customer satisfaction as well.

I AM CONFUSED AS EVERYONE ELSE IS May be you are not.

WHICH NOTEBOOK IS GOOD FOR HD VIDEO EDITING ?
Hard to decide if your budget ain’t $1500 !!!
But there seems to be away around to get it for under $800.

If you have any similar experience, I would love to hear from you.
If you are an Alienware user for gaming, could you share your experience on HD video editing (I am talking about large files 1980×1080 with .m2ts file extension). Please share your experience how you have found their support. I am worried because a friend of mine spent $2700 for Alienware and complains about unsatisfactory customer care. But he talks a lot about how powerful his notebook is. And another friend has SONY VIO, played one of my game just for fun. And game lags. I looked everything seems to be okay in his configuration, except he forgot to pick the 1GB Graphic Card. Now he blames Intel for making a horrible Intel HD Graphic Card. I told him, no, you picked the wrong one. As for HP, I have a desktop and it’s doing okay. But it’s not the top of  the line.

Please don’t tell me nor anyone else here that you can’t do video editing on a notebook.
Why not?

Well, who is at home these days?
And  Besides desktop should history.