>
> I am toying with the idea of getting a notebook
> workhorse. Dell Precision M4300 looks interesting.
> Lenovo T61 is another contender.


I was recommending Dell to many few years back until my laptop failed just
RIGHT-AFTER the 1 year warranty period expired.  And since had heard about
failure of the same kind and the Just-In-Time failure from my friends.

Even I was desperate for a walkin repair for my laptop, but there was no
physical repair shop in SG.  Dell took a week to fax back their official
quote for a compulsory onsite repair.  Minimum is SG$200 onsite fee
regardless if they can fix it, and as mine needed a board change the total
was about SG$1700 almost the same price as a new laptop back then, and
repair time of about 1-2 months.  But their fax spam and email spam started
on the very day I asked for help, and still raining on me after 22 months.

Comparing to SamSung laptop I got from a trade show, it came with a 3 years
warranty, a superb battery life and a local repair shop that took just 0.5
day to swap my motherboard.

So consider getting a good deal from a trade show, with long warranty, and a
LOCAL repair shop.  Especially so if you let your kids use your laptop,
regardless of your instructions they will use it to play game and
stress-test the keyboard/motherboard to the max.

Cheers, Ling SM
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