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At 01:59 PM 9/6/96 -0400, Mark Rees wrote:
>Basically the same price-what would you buy? Any suggestions?
I faced the same decision just a few weeks ago.
I bought a 560.
Why? For one thing, I had a really hard time finding a place to
*buy* the DEC! I feared that might be the same problem when it came to
getting memory, etc., not to mention drivers in the future.
When it came down to it, despite the DEC being a slightly thinner
machine (but a smaller screen--I think 11.3" or something), I have to admit
it--I trust the IBM machine more.
Its not so much an "IBM vs. DEC" issue (DEC is a fine company, in my
book), its a matter of market share. I learned long ago that buying a
non-major notebook (and lets face it: DEC isn't a big player in the
notebook market) meant "dead end" when it came to parts, upgrades, memory,
etc. There are plenty of good companies that I would buy a desktop from
(Gateway, Micron) that I *wouldn't* buy a notebook from (same list) for this
reason alone. Notebooks are far more proprietary and if you're some little
off-brand thing, nobody's going to make "stuff" for you.
I have a private little list of notebook manufacturers I *would* buy
from, but its flexible. In a nutshell: Toshiba, IBM, Compaq. Second Tier
"Maybes" would be TI, HP. Total wannabe's in the NB world include DEC and
Sharp--maybe "Winbook". Then there's garbage like Sager. They sell these
things, but how often do you find a place like PEP that will upgrade them or
see a listing of memory prices for notebook machines and see your machine's
make or model even *listed*?
So unless you're *really* in love with the less-popular brand's
model, I wouldn't recommend buying it.
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Randy Whittle rwhittle@usa.net
USC Graduate School of Business http://www-scf.usc.edu/~whittle