I have a refurbished Dell laptop, which I bought about 2 years ago, and managed to get pretty cheap. You may need to upgrade it a little, with a bit extra GB RAM, but if you can get one cheap enough they can be a very good option! Once you start getting the 'blue screen of death', then you know the computer is on it's way out. I had that with my pc and had to do quite a few system recoveries (losing all the stuff on my hard drive - so suggest getting an external hard drive as well) before finally losing patience and getting a new one. There are some very good laptopos out there new which come pretty cheap - but would certainly investigate the refurb market first (and the police auction lots) as there can be some very good bargains out there.
Oh, and as for Dell... have had very little problem with my laptop, but do know they occur. Where I work, we had a big lot of Dell Desktops come in, and in the space of about a year had 2 hard drives go on me. Our IT phoned up Dell and mentioned we had quite a few of these that this has happened to, and their response was pretty much; yeah, that can happen now and again!
Norway - Couple of downsides to Android:- 1. Lets Google know everthing about you - where you are, what sites you go on etc. Probably the same with Apple and OSX, but they do not own the worlds biggest search engine. 2. Open OS's are great, but with all of the different hardware platforms and versions, they inevitably have compatibility issues 3. Apple's control of the OS & App's means that they have very little risk on Virus and Malware. Android is a hackers dream, open OS & App's - get a Virus on a mobile phone and it will spread 1,000's of times faster than on a PC. 4. If Google move into producing mobile devices, you might think differently. But after all, with all the patent infringements that Apple is persuing against Samsung & HTC - it surely is true that "Imitation is the sincerest of flattery"
BHD I assume you have done all of the defragmentation and other maintainence functions. Have you looked in the task manager to see what is running as well, I have had to remove Apple Mobile programs from my laptop and pc as they eat all of the CPU and are a secret download when you update itunes. Mozilla Firefox can get itself twisted sometimes and eat CPU space. If your blue screen is a new thing you could go back to a restore point from a few days before the blue screen started. If you run Windows that system organises its own so you could be lucky there.
As mentioned W-y each to there own the open platform encourages development and a fast timeline from conception to consumer! 2) there are many decent security suites for smart phones and tablets etc! 3) agree with the compatibility issues but this is getting sorted fast , like Honeycomb for the new gen tablets! 4) Not the copyright issues is tenuous at best and the law courts will ultimately throw it out for what it is American style trade restriction and running scared of competition! only have to look at American automotive industry for clues! Cant even build helicopters these days ffs! Think were going to have to agree to disagree on this one ! your in the apple camp I`m in the Android camp !!
BHD, save your cash and just buy a new hard drive for the laptop, all you need to do then is "purchase" the OS and office suite, you can drag your data from the old drive via a USB caddie (under twenty quid at Maplins), there are many free anti virus options on the interweb, you could even upgrade the memory and do it for less than the repair quote.
This may not work very well, depending how old the laptop is. The graphics card & memory may not be able to run Windows 7 very well. Problem with trying to update an old laptop is that you will only give it a bit more life and then you are in the same position again. I personally would just a new one. Take this advise from someone who builds PC's.
BHD, have a look at this... http://www.priceminister.co.uk/offer/buy/80630350/lenovo-ideapad-s10-3-netbook-intel-atom-n455-1gb-ram-250gb-hdd-win7-starter.html If you look down the page, there is a code to bring the laptop down to £139.99, which is a very decent price.
Norway - Apple already have injunctions out in the EU against Samsung and HTC for patent infringement - they will need to design their own products and stop ripping off the innovators
Like I said suppression of free trade , there are more than one car manufacturer , more than one supermarket chain , More than one TV manufacturer , you get my drift!
It's not free trade if someone has copied your design and development of a technology and you have patented it - that is unfair competition when Samsung have ripped off iPad designs and have not had to pay the R&D costs. No different from Sony having the patent on BluRay technology and if you wish to build and sell a BluRay player, you have to pay Sony a royalty on every product you ship.
Think the samsung tablets now and the ipad2 are vastly different! Going back to innovators! I think that title belongs to HTC the amount of new models they are churning out is incredible! Although I agree with Apple on that score simplify product range I phone and Ipad and laptops !makes better business sense to me ! But the new ideas from all the manufacturers is staggering , I dont see how Apple could expect to maintain a monopoly on a certain style of technology and not expect everyone else to jump on board that at the end of the day is Market forces in action !
Norway - Every company has patents and copyrites and they should be observed, otherwise it is just plain and simple thieving. Apple do not own a monopoly on a technology or design, but they own the rights to recover their development costs. So anyone can develop a Tablet or Smart Phone using standard flat screen technology, but if you copy the design of another company into that product, then you are a thief, nothing more nothing less. They should design and build competitive products and not copy and steal from others..
