Maybe you should be praising the HD manufacturer and not Dell...

Yea, you would think.  I was disappointed once with their service.  When my Wife's keyboard on her laptop went out, they sent a new one and wanted me to replace it!  I did (so actually I learned something).  But I sure wish they would have done it.  I do not like touching stuff not under my warranty.

Sorry for not seeing your facetious tags.  I have sent a message to the admins about that (and the sarcasm one). but they have not fixed that one yet.

Thanks for the clarification.  And no problem.  I once thought of getting a job with them, but found I like networks more than servers.

I will not argue about the servers (love them!) and I did put in the sub title, YMMV.  I know not everyone loves them and many for good reason (basically the same way I cannot stand compaq).

I was happy to see that my local School district dumped Apple and went to Dell, but that was because the clown who signed the last Apple contract was in their back pocket.  He left and so did Apple.  So Dell wins some and loses some - which is good.  if they ever get too big, that is when the consumer starts losing!

Never thought of that!  Hmmm...........

On laptops, I have that problem with almost every brand!  But I do 1 of 2 things.  Ubuntu or create a CD with them (for the ones that have a "wipe and restore" partition).  At least the drivers are not hard to find on the web sites (of HP or Dell).

Well - as long as the holes line up, I guess the MBs can be as proprietary as they want.  15years ago I tried fixing MBs, but found it was just a lot cheaper to buy a new one.  Now on the slim line cases, that is sometimes a challenge!  So I try to stay away from those type from all vendors.

So to summarize - you have a great screen you bought several years ago - and a new laptop to run it?

True.  It is a standard Seagate (I have had problems with Seagates back in the 90s, but not recently).  Pretty much all laptop vendors use off the shelf HDs from reputable manufacturers (The School district I talked about in an above post that bought all those Apple computers?  Many were surprised to find IBM HDs in them!).

My PC experiences:

1. Local brand 1992-1996 - No problems, good computer

2. Dell 200 Mhz PC 1996-1999 - Not a bluescreen or a problem with hardware whatsoever. I payed a lot for that one and got a lot back

3. HP/Compac PC that I got from work. 1999-2003 Worst piece of hardware ever created. If it went into sleep mode only a hardboot could wake it up. CD/DVD drive never worked and had to be replaced. Lots of other problems.

4. 2003 - present day. Dell again. No problems whatsoever.

5. 2008 - IBM (my first laptop). Worked fine, now used my a coworker with no problems

6 2008 - present day. Dell Latitude D830 laptop at work and home. Again quality. No problems whatsoever.

I know that there is always a bit of luck involved (no harddrive has ever crashed on me - except on a computer I accidentally dropped at work), but I will stick with Dell as long as my experiences are good. Have just delivered a spec to my boss for my next Dell laptop. 15,6 inches with SSD drive (yay) .

Honestly the way I feel about PC's is that all of the manufacturers are kind of crap.

If you want a good computer, learn how to put together a computer, it's fun and pretty simple these days. It's all pretty much plug and play now. It's like building your own hot rod, only much cheaper and less labor intensive. Plus you'll be able to save money, and won't have to deal with manufacturer bloat ware and crappy BIOS if you build your own thing.

Only reason to buy a manufactured machine is to get a laptop in my opinion.

Agreed 100% 

The only non monk-built systems I have are notebooks.  I even dumped the blade servers I used to run (due to constant heat issues) and built my own servers.  Great way to get really in-depth hardware knowledge which always comes in handy.

That is really the nut of the case.  Luck.  I might have had bad luck with a Dell and now not even acknowledge them.  But as it is, my bad luck has been with servers and not from Dell, so I do swear by them (and with the servers too).

I will say (for the storage crowd) that the best storage on the market, bar none, is NetAPP.  They are the best supported hardware in the business bar none! (and no I do not work for NetAPP )

But you bought shares???

I used to do Tech Support with Dell.

Needless to say, my job was to do everything I could to convince people it was their fault and not send parts when things were under warrenty.

I was part of the Your Tech Team contract, which you had to pay another $180 for. ALL just for talking to someone in the US.