sjmarcy

Because they are marketed and purchased as commodities with no expectation of long use or resale value. And buyers tolerate problematic OS issues which negate money saved long run for no net savings.

Meanwhile *some* companies have a 90% market share of the over $1K devices. While gaining overall market share.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

If the company is paying for it, you might at least try to get one of the Latitude E6220s. They start at $1,550 but come with i5 processors and Win7 standard, and will support 8GB of RAM. Sadly, the SSDs are now optional (they were standard on the E4200) but they're still very nice looking machines.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Not an option...while I would love a machine like that, I don't really need it at triple the cost. Keep in mind that I'm working at a small business (<20 employees total) so things like computer costs don't "disappear"...they directly affect our cash flow bottom line.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

It's just interesting, from an insider's perspective, as someone who works with embedded controllers.

When the Via C7 came out seven years ago, it was pretty much universally acknowledged as defining the absolute bottom-end of what could plausibly be called a general-purpose microprocessor. Not quite intended to compete with the microcontroller market (although it has now penetrated that segment as competition against the ARM9) it was more of a platform for ultra-simple "computer-like" devices running embedded Linux; pocket PCs and whatnot.

As an example, the XO-1 was one of the machines in the "One Laptop Per Child" project, which was targeted at producing a $50 laptop that could be mass-produced and given away to children in third-world countries. It was also designed to be powered by a hand-crank generator, to give you an idea of the market segment.

The 1.5 build of this machine (the second major generation) used a C7 processor. That processor was more powerful than the E-240.



You would be referring to Dell, I assume.

Agreed, they pretty much dominate the higher-end marked in terms of statistical penetration. Sony and Apple both do a good job appealing to "lifestyle" consumers, and they do make nice machines, but in terms of the business market (enterprise computing in particular,) Dell has done an excellent job. I have to credit them with being the first company to really understand that it's not just about the hardware, it's about the support and infrastructure. Everything from their Enterprise-class sales organization to their corporate-IT-friendly platform management tools really makes them an easy sell in the corporate market, which is appealing as, from a vendor/customer standpoint, they tend to yield the highest initial margins and require the least end-user support.

And on the used / refurb market, their machines are pretty hard to beat right now. Not the best choice if you want to play games or require the absolute best movie-watching screen available, but for general-purpose computing, they offer a combination of performance, build quality, and value-for-dollar that is hard to match. The fact that they tend to enter the secondary market by the millions as off-lease machines after just two or three years of service is also a huge plus, as it means that service parts are cheaply available.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

If I wanted to get my memory from geeks.com as well, this stick would do the trick, right?

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...00-MCT&cat=RAM

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Yes, that meets the specs for the E4200.

yellowihss

iTrader: (20)

Perfect timing for this thread. I was looking for 2 laptops for my brother and I for work. Needless to say I ordered 2 of the E4200, and 2 of the 4gb cards.

Thank you very much for the info.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Placed my order about 30 min ago. Thanks Joe.

Clos561

iTrader: (3)

i bought one of these a few weeks ago for tuning/school. works great. 263 shipped to my door.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-10.1-...arter/16933624

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I really need to speak with Dell and ComputerGeeks.com about setting up some kind of commission structure here. Four converts in four days is better than most stereotypical Mac / Linux proselytizers!

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Did you get it in Strawberry, Blueberry, Papaya or Banana Cream?

I'm curious to hear your observations on performance and battery life. It seems like the market is absolutely flooded these days with 1GB N550/N570 Atom-class machines in the $250-$300 range with teeny little 3 cell batteries. I've honestly never used one, always wondered how they would do for general-purpose "snuggling on the couch looking at redcloud with the BF" sort of uses.


If I were buying a new tuning laptop, I would absolutely get something like that machine. Until TS comes to the 'Droid, I cannot imagine anything better for that purpose.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Yup. My plan is to make the new Dell my work/general purpose laptop, and then strip my Lenovo S10 down to nothing but a barebones XP install with the AEM tuning and logging software installed.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

The S10 in particular interests me due to its tablet-convertible nature. How does that work for you? IOW, do you find it comparably intuitive to something like an iPad or a 'driod machine? My old tablet (a Fujitsu 3400 running Win2k) left a lot to be desired in that regard. Even if the touchscreen itself wasn't a piece of crap, the OS / apps package basically just used the stylus to emulate a regular ole' mouse, and the on-screen text input was no better than then standard OSK.exe app that comes with Windows.


Also, how's the daylight viewability?

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Sorry...mine is not the newer S10-3t, just a regular old S10 (no dash) I bought second hand a couple years ago. Can't help with your questions regarding tablet use.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Oh, right. I forgot there were two different versions. I was thinking of the Fuji LifeBook T-series where they were all twist-tops.

One other option to consider, assuming you don't require bluetooth support, would be to run Win98 or Win2k. It's astounding what happens when you put a really old OS onto a semi-modern machine. Blazingly fast.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Dammit, now there's a free shipping code that wasn't available when I ordered. Bastards.

yellowihss

iTrader: (20)

I ordered 2 of the same e4200, and when I opened them up to install the 4gb cards, they are different. Can someone tell me the difference. What is that mess of wires in the top left of the top image.

I do see that the top one came with a 128gb ssd instead of the 64gb that was advertised.

Here is the part all the wires go into. http://i.pchub.com/uph/photos/item/6...802_0Y010J.JPG

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/

Dell Financial Services is all gear that is returned off 2-3 year leases from big financial institutions that upgrade there hardware every 2 years. I bought 12 referb desktops and LCD's from these guys for a local non-profit for under 3k shipped. Fantastic deals if you search around, plenty of laptops if you know what you want and search around a bit. Stock changes daily. I had one LCD fail in the first 30 days, they refunded and paid shipping, no questions asked.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

Antennas for A/B/G/N WiFi and also antennas for the MiniPCIe WWAN cell card, should you choose to add one later. Looks like possibly bluetooth as well... that's an ***-ton of antennas.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Yeah, since these are refurbs, the specs on each one vary a bit based on how they were originally configured. Remember that Latitudes are totally customizeable at the time of purchase, and apparently they don't bother ripping out the optional bits when they refurb them. Mine, for example, came with 3GB of RAM instead of 1GB. (Great deal on the 128 SSD, though- those weren't very common.)

These machines had a shitload of different wireless options. There were a couple of different WiFi configurations (some of which used diversity antennas) plus WWAN. Also, your top machine has the "ON" module (lower-right quadrant) which is basically a whole sub-computer that lets you do simple **** like check email and browse the web in an ultra-minimal environment (to achieve extremely long battery life) by leaving the main processor and memory completely off, and so that module has its own antenna leads as well plus the switchboard.

Info on ON: http://en.community.dell.com/dell-bl...n-arrives.aspx