Worst laptop design I have seen yet.

I know that companies love to save money to increase profits. In the world of computers, the best (worst?) example of this that I have seen so far is low end HP desktop PCs that are sold at Best Buy. Inside, there is only a small laptop style motherboard measuring about 7 inches square, The CPU heat sink and fan is a ridiculously small joke, and the power brick / power cord is the same style you'd find with a laptop, with the plug-in connector. There is no traditional desktop power supply in the case. In addition, the computer case is made of paper thin aluminum, and there isn't a single cord or wire inside that does not absolutely have to be there.

But now I've found a laptop that is of an even worse design. The Toshiba Satellite C55-B5299.

It's your typical cheap low end budget laptop that can probably be found in Wal-Mart for people who can't afford anything better. It has only one RAM slot instead of two, and it seems to be very picky about what type of RAM is installed. For a full overhaul and faster installing of Windows Updates, I replaced the stock 2GB RAM stick with a 4 GB stick (two separate ones), and the laptop wouldn't boot with either one. The power light would blink off after about 5 seconds. I had to load it all and update it on the stock 2GB of RAM. It took a while.

Even more amazingly, the battery pack doesn't snap into place with release tabs, it is 2 screws holding it in. And the motherboard has NO CMOS BATTERY at all. So if you remove the battery pack, the BIOS and clock settings return to default, every time.

This computer doesn't even have a DVD drive. It has a blank plastic block off plate instead.

I got this computer to work on from a previous customer. They had hard drive problems and sent it into Toshiba for repair. Toshiba stuck in a "refurbished" hard drive and sent it back. The POS drive barely worked and my testing computer couldn't even see the thing to test it. So I swapped it out for a good replacement I had on hand.

What a lousy design, whoever built it should be fired. but they probably got a pay raise for saving Toshiba thousands of CMOS batteries and their mounting clips.

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dhay13

my last job my manager bought ALL desktops and laptops at wal-mart or best buy. the VP of engineering went over my managers head when he wanted to replace CAD workstations and came straight to me to build and purchase them. my manager hated that and asked me why i had to spend $3000 on a desktop. he said i could have went to wal-mart and got one for $500...lol. he knew nothing about IT. this is the same guy that had no idea what APIPA was (he was confused when he saw a 169. number on a workstation and asked whose network it was connected to. he also told me you couldn't have more than one DC on a network. and we had no A/V on any servers cause he said 'well we don't surf the internet with the servers'. i am so glad i am out of there!

tpatt100

Yeah I had a manager that didn't like a price I quoted for some Cisco equipment. He shows me a screenshot of his results from Googling the stuff in the list, using the "shopping category" and asked why the big price difference. Guess he never heard of support contracts....

scaredoftests

Walmart computers? <shudders>

NetworkNewb

dhay13 wrote: »

wanted to replace CAD workstations and came straight to me to build and purchase them. my manager hated that and asked me why i had to spend $3000 on a desktop. he said i could have went to wal-mart and got one for $500

Lol, I can only imagine people trying to do their job using CAD software on a $500 computer from Wal-mart.

fmitawaps

Even spending $3000 on a CAD desktop is insanely overpriced. Just build it like you would a good gaming PC, but with even more RAM. Done. $1500 tops.

dhay13

the VP wanted a name brand (went with Dell) and the software company had a listing of requirements i had to follow. it may have been $2500, can't remember now but it wasn't cheap. my manager purchased a cheaper computer for the CAD dept before i started there and it never performed as they needed so he told me to be sure it would surpass anything they could throw at it, even a few years down the road. the video card was the most expensive part

TechGromit

Another trend I noticed at places that sell consumer laptops is no RJ-45 port. While wireless is useful for mobility, I still prefer a wired connection when possible. while 802.11n in theory can support up to 300 Mbps, your lucky to get 50 Mbps in the real world. Toss a couple of walls in the way and take another performance hit. Wireless might be OK for web surfing, but for any serious data pushing, I always like to have a nice Cat.5 cable.

fmitawaps

What these VP's don't understand is that by going with a name brand like DELL, even if it is an expensive computer, it is still full of the cheapest crap parts that DELL could get with their volume discounts. It has a warranty? So what? If you custom build a PC and something fails, those parts have warranties too, just swap it out and continue on.

If the goal were to build an excellent CAD/CAM computer, I think buying aftermarket is definitely the way to go. Better parts, most customized to the needs, and less expensive.

And I hate these new laptops that are so thin they can't even fit a DVD drive or Ethernet port. Too thin is not a good thing.

tpatt100

I bought a physical copy of Turbo Tax a few weeks ago, got home and realized that the last time I used a DVD drive was last year when I bought a physical copy of Turbo Tax lol.

External DVD drives and ethernet cards are great since I just share them between new laptops or desktops the 1-2 times a year I need to use them.

dhay13

I agree with the custom PC. i custom built 4 or 5 new servers when i worked there and never spent over $1000 (not including OS) . but this VP did not like my manager and i had just started there. i built a gaming PC for my step-son a couple years ago that was overall better than the CAD Dell i bought and only had about $1000 in it, with an SSD drive. the other issue was that the CEO/owner had to approve the purchase and a custom built would have been out of the question. the only way i was able to build the servers was that i had a $500 limit without approval so i ordered parts a few at a time until i had everything. it wasn't worth dealing with the red tape to get the approval

tpatt100

Custom built servers? meh, I liked buying premier support from Dell so they can send a tech to fix/replace broken hardware while I drink coffee.

wd40

If you have 10 machines in the company then custom built machines will be fine.
If you have 50, having custom built machines is the worst thing that you could have.

if you have 50 or 50000 Dell machines, and you have 5 standard models,you have a hardware issue with 1 PC => you call Dell, 500 machines are faulty, you still call Dell, you decide to upgrade the OS, just test 1 PC from each model and create an image.

You can't do that if you have custom built machines.

dhay13

we only had 12 servers total and 4 were managed by the software vendor and support contracts so only 7 or 8 we had to worry about. and 2 of those were Dells

Priston

I just got a pc refresh at work. I have to say, the trackpad on the Lenovo W541 is going to be a pain to get used to. While typing my left hand sits on top of the trackpad. When I type it likes to click and change my cursor position. It's also missing the 2 buttons on the bottom of the track pad. (I wish there was a way to remove the trackpad from the W530 and put it on the W541)