alt Hacker NewsAsk HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?
I have been purchasing used/new Lenovo/Dell laptops for the last 7 years, and I have noticed that the build quality of recent models is concerning.
Lenovo: Ex-company gave me a NEW Carbon X1 around 2019, and the battery only lasted for less than a year (!). On the other side, I bought a used 2017 470S from the same company, added more RAM, didn't touch anything including the SSD, and I'm still using it in daily coding. I did buy a new battery last month so technically the old batteries lasted for about 7-8 years.
Dell: I bought 3 laptops + 1 desktop from Dell Refurbished (So the quality should be consistent). 2 laptops + 1 desktop are older models, and 1 is Precision 5550 (2021) that I bought last December. Everything works fine, except for the 5550, which has issues with battery (dropped from 31% to 4% in a few seconds) and (more deadly) charging port (doesn't charge from time to time). Even if I bought it new in 2021, I would be surprised that it only lasted for a bit over 4 years.
The other issue is that 5550 uses USB-C ports. I blame on myself not checking it closely before the purchase. I really hate those ports. Why is everyone copying from Mac?
What's my option? I can't really justify the 2,000+ CAD price point for a new laptop, especially if it lasts less than 5 years. I'd prefer a "low-end" workstation with 32GB memory, but because of the price point I can only afford a 16GB non-workstation one. I don't do gaming any more but I still prefer a good integrated video card. I can't afford Framework and other Linux laptops because they are expensive and usually don't operate in Canada so delivery is expensive too.
I did buy a used Macbook Pro M1 16GB (2021) from my current company last month. I haven't used it but I'm confident that the hardware is good. The problem is I don't really like the software, so I figured I still need a Linux box.
Did you find any sweet spot?
Comments
I would say yes. Having been a big fan of Dell and having used it's laptops for both professional and personal uses over many years, I have moved off it to Acer. Couple of reasons - the first is that there is a price premium which I cannot seem to justify and second is the teething / niggling issues which I have had to face in pretty much every Dell I have owned. Sometime, it will be too long a time to wake up from sleep or a random crash which requires me to fetch bitlocker key from my account so that I can boot it up again to driver update issues to the fan continuously running for no reason etc. I had, by chance, a good experience with Acer in the past and since then have purchased a couple fo them more and the experience has been seamless and pleasant. I do hope Dell ups its game as it was an iconic and innovative brand but there is less now to differentiate it from competition and so no reason for the premium to be charged.
Are you really complaining about old battery packs and USB C ports as bad engineering? I think you should try the framework laptop because then you have no excuses about the trivial things.
As someone also trying to get out of (or at least less dependent on) the Apple ecosystem, the laptop market sucks! Everyone but Apple is making the same garbage-tier, shoddy, plastic laptops with bottom of the barrel components that I'm sure are engineered to just barely work enough to avoid immediate product returns.
I'm starting to accept that if I want a development workstation class machine, I need to build a tower from components.
I bought a Dell XPS M1210 laptop in 2007. About a year later the laptop died. From what I could gather, the soldering on the NVIDIA 7400 graphics card had failed. Some people were apparently able to reflow it but I had no such luck.
In my opinion Dell laptops have never been good. But I never bought another one since that happened, so maybe I've missed out.
The quality you get for the money from Mac's is truly unmatched by any other laptop out there - why not use a VM on it for other OS & software?
could try asahi? i think it's pretty good on the m1.
lenovos remain good if you get a high spec thinkpad. maybe get a few year old high spec thinkpad new/refurb off ebay with a three year service contract (search "p1 gen 6" on ebay)? i think you can always re-up the service contract on new ones as well.
I don't know about Lenovo but Dell is so cheap, they've shrunk the diameter of even the case screws. All their laptop touchpads fail to draw a straight line over time. On their Insiprions, I know if the CMOS battery dies, the laptop will no longer turn on. Dell is absolute junk.
I went with an expensive XPS (their "carbon skin model") with the top config 3 years ago. The touch screen failed in less than a year, the battery become useless in 2 years and I am now in my second charger which is failing. The unit feels tired/old though the performance on what matters (cpu/memory/nvme) is still solid so far. I guess anything not made by Dell is holding on.
The market is splintered into high-end work laptop, low-end work laptops, gaming laptops. Only Apple has the brand value to be in the first set. Everyone else is in a market for lemons.
>The other issue is that 5550 uses USB-C ports. I blame on myself not checking it closely before the purchase. I really hate those ports. Why is everyone copying from Mac?
It's not copying Apple. It's that every port does everything, including charging. It is standards-compliant.
As just one example, you no longer need to lug a laptop charger with you; there are no longer "computer chargers" and "phone chargers", but one charger that can charge everything, often simultaneously via multiple ports. When you combine this with a docking station, one cable truly does all.
It is wonderful. Embrace it.
I am resisting the urge to detail my insane story with my most recent Dell XPS purchase. Long story short, I will never again buy a Dell laptop. I went months without my machine during a critical time. I kept getting it back in worse shape than it was before I sent it for repair. After months of pure insanity, I just accepted that I'll never have a properly function touchpad again. At least they finally got a working motherboard put in it. I'm feeling waves of rage and anger just thinking back to what they put me through. Never again. I won't even accept a Dell as a work laptop again. Never.