[sf-lug] zareason advice about laptops

[Chris Mason]

That's pretty great that they didn't try and sell you a new laptop, as
(stereotype incoming) most vendors would.

The general trend for HP/Dell/etc laptops is that they fail 6 months
to a year after the standard 3 year warranty runs out. I suspect this
is not completely a coincidence. It reminds me of the old Ford/Chevy
trend of cars failing after 100k miles. Toyota forced them away from
this business model.

I decided long ago that, if I ever need a laptop, I will purchase from them.

One challenge they face is that (stereotype incoming) Linux users tend
to be more frugal than others. It's wise on their part that they
embrace this, and focus on brand loyalty instead.


Chris

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 9:41 PM, jim <jim at well.com> wrote:
>
>
>   lately i've become worried about my two-to-three year old
> zareason laptop and sent email to zareason asking if they
> could help me pick something from their current line as a
> replacement. earl malmrose replied with some very helpful
> information:
>
> "Thanks for checking in with us. Your laptop should have a good amount
> of life left in it. Something simple like a dead keyboard can easily
> (and affordably) be replaced. The primary weak spot on almost all
> laptops is the screen hinge. Keep an eye on that.
>
> "Another weak spot long-term is the hard drive. Fortunately most
> failures are gradual. If you have an up-to-date Ubuntu, the Disk
> Utility is really good at monitoring the hard drive health. When the
> hard drive is near failure, it will notify you. Don't ignore the
> warnings if they pop up.
>
> "And finally, backup backup backup. I swear by DropBox. Put all your
> important files in the DropBox folder, then whenever you connect to
> the Internet, it syncs/backups everything in the DropBox folder. No
> manual effort. Automatic. That's my kind of system. 2 to 3 GB of
> storage is free, or you can upgrade to 50 GB of storage for $10/mo. It
> even stores old versions/deleted files/etc. that can easily be
> retrieved like a month later.
>
> "SD cards and flash drives have virtually no wear levelling features.
> Don't depend on them lasting with frequent writes. Go ahead and use
> them for weekly or monthly backups.
>
> "--Earl Malmrose  www.zareason.com
>
> "We also have some forums started at  zareason.com/forums
> You can post questions there."
>
> JS: I'm using ubuntu 10.04; I didn't bother looking at
> the System > Administration > Disk Utility until after
> reading earl's email. Wow! I like it!
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> sf-lug mailing list
> sf-lug at linuxmafia.com
> http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/sf-lug
> Information about SF-LUG is at http://www.sf-lug.org/
>