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H/PC Vanguard Posts: | 2,579 |
Location: | The Lone Star State | Status: | |
| So, the sad day arrived where my trusty Dell Studio laptop broke. It has been a great laptop and it helped me get through graduate school... My wife was using it the other day and...well, maybe I should mention that the left hinge on the screen was a bit broken already. I had asked her to not close it because I was going to repair it. She ended up closing it out of habit, and completely broke the opposite hinge. Sadly, I had to push it up against the wall behind the desk to keep the screen visible. Well, yesterday she felt bad and offered to let me get a new (er ) one. I went to a couple of stores, and even though the prices were okay, I knew I could get more for my money other places. I found a Dell Inspiron 15. They wanted $250 but I was able to get it for $150... after re-imaging the hard drive and upgrading the memory to 16gb, this little thing is great. For $150 you cannot really go wrong.  Edited by Yoldering 2016-03-15 1:56 AM
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Global Moderator H/PC Oracle Posts: | 12,668 |
Location: | Southern California | Status: | |
| Nice deal (and nice wife  ). |
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Global Moderator H/PC Guru Posts: | 7,188 |
Location: | USA | Status: | |
| I've had a Dell Inspiron 1501 forever...old duo-core, but it is like a tank and always works. Slow in comparison to your new toy. But they make good laptops...and IMHO, much better built than anything I've ever owned from HP.
So take your old laptop base and mount it behind a flat screen tv and turn it into a smart TV with wireless keyboard. Don't most of the "studios" have HDMI output? |
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Subscribers H/PC Vanguard Posts: | 3,678 |
Location: | Japan | Status: | |
| Quote Yoldering - 2016-03-15 10:55 AM
So, the sad day arrived where my trusty Dell Studio laptop broke. It has been a great laptop and it helped me get through graduate school... My wife was using it the other day and...well, maybe I should mention that the left hinge on the screen was a bit broken already. I had asked her to not close it because I was going to repair it. She ended up closing it out of habit, and completely broke the opposite hinge. Sadly, I had to push it up against the wall behind the desk to keep the screen visible. Well, yesterday she felt bad and offered to let me get a new (er ) one. I went to a couple of stores, and even though the prices were okay, I knew I could get more for my money other places. I found a Dell Inspiron 15. They wanted $250 but I was able to get it for $150... after re-imaging the hard drive and upgrading the memory to 16gb, this little thing is great. For $150 you cannot really go wrong.
My dad used to use a Inspiron 8200 back in the days, with Pentium 4m , I think 1.7GHz... :- )
16GB memory! That's really cool. And $150! Very nice deal.
What I hate about Macbook Pros (which I use ) these days is that you can't upgrade the RAM since it's soldered onto the motherboard. Edited by stingraze 2016-03-18 8:33 AM
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H/PC Elite Posts: | 733 |
Location: | England, UK | Status: | |
| If it had been me I would have put the laptop aside until it had been repaired. I'm sure you were able to recover any data from the hard drive. Life goes on. |
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H/PC Vanguard Posts: | 2,579 |
Location: | The Lone Star State | Status: | |
| Yes Rich, it has an HDMI. I actually needed a much lighter laptop anyway. The Studio is a monster. The Dell 15 is really light by comparison.
I still have the Studio hooked up to the TV, to watch TV episodes. We watch Supergirl yesterday. My wife and daughter actually really like that show. Edited by Yoldering 2016-03-19 12:43 PM
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H/PC Newbie Posts: | 3 |
Location: | Canada | Status: | |
| I have one of those Inspiron 15's (with Windows 8.1, but shhhhh.... i love that OS. i need more H/PC in life tho) And they be awesome. |
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H/PC Vanguard Posts: | 2,579 |
Location: | The Lone Star State | Status: | |
| Yes, this has turned into a great laptop. I just wish I had increased the size of the hard drive when I first got it. |
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Administrator H/PC Oracle Posts: | 17,979 |
Location: | United Kingdom | Status: | |
| Yoldering,
Why don't you open her up, yank it and throw a SSD in? Disassembly looks like a bottom plate removal job, so nice and easy. |
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Global Moderator H/PC Guru Posts: | 7,188 |
Location: | USA | Status: | |
| I've actually replaced all my laptop drives with SSDs...much much faster and cooler... |
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H/PC Newbie Posts: | 3 |
Location: | Canada | Status: | |
| I'm waiting for my warranty to expire to SSD up my Inspiron. I have SSDed a Aspire laptop, and it is fast. |
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Global Moderator H/PC Guru Posts: | 7,188 |
Location: | USA | Status: | |
| I'd change it anyways and if it dies then put the original drive back in and send it off for repair....there's no way anyone can tell if you change out a fixed disk...  |
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Subscribers Factorite (Elite) Posts: | 171 |
Location: | BC, Canada | Status: | |
| Agreed. An SSD is a necessity and improves almost any setup.
I use a 2008-vintage Lenovo R500 with Debian, and it's still very quick. It boots in about 10 seconds and with AdBlock Plus and NoScript added to Firefox, web browsing is good. |
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Subscribers H/PC Vanguard Posts: | 3,678 |
Location: | Japan | Status: | |
| Yes, I confirm upgrading to SSD is superb.
My experience is swapping a hard drive out of old (2010) modded HP server ML115G5 with Phenom II X4 2.6GHz and 4GB RAM to CFD's 240GB SSD (which has Toshiba SSD in).
The boot time of Ubuntu 16.04 modded HP ML115G5 is comparable to a Macbook Pro 2014... :-)
I am considering swapping my old 2009 Macbook Pro to SSD, but kind of afraid I might break it. lol
Edited by stingraze 2016-10-30 8:59 AM
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Administrator H/PC Oracle Posts: | 17,979 |
Location: | United Kingdom | Status: | |
| Quote Rich Hawley - 2016-10-29 9:57 PM
I'd change it anyways and if it dies then put the original drive back in and send it off for repair....there's no way anyone can tell if you change out a fixed disk... Agreed. Just keep the old drive safe and go for it as long as the HDD is in a user serviceable position. If it is a machine where you have to fully disassemble it in order to get to the storage, then no, that would void the warranty. If it is two screws and a dedicated user serviceable slot, don't wait. |
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