Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Laptop: 15.6" 1920x1080, i5-1035G1, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Expired

Target had a model at $339.99 very early in the season that checked all the boxes for a long-term, budget/productivity laptop.This deal has expired and the price has floated up a couple hundred dollars(!).

Those were HPs.. I'd pay extra for a Dell over HP any day. IMO this deal is better.

but when you're talking about decent equivalent systems which have potentially very long functional lives (true for this Dell or any of the HPs to which I linked) then time will eventually diminish these distinctions.

No HP I've owned have ever had "long functional lives." That's the point. https://static.slickdealscdn.com/ima...lies/smile.gif The problem is whether you attribute "short lives" to brand or software. Your PC reboots randomly--- is it HP or Microsoft? I suspect most people chalk it up to Winblows from that last security update. And since we're talking laptops, a great majority probably don't leave it on 24/7 so problems like these remain unnoticed.

Overall, [b]while I'm inclined to suggest that an enterprise-oriented laptop is usually the best investment of laptop dollars the current resale market has obliterated the price advantage of off-lease laptops.

You're making an exception for "HP consumer" and "HP enterprise." I don't think that's a fair comparison and I don't see it that way.

Which is more reliable? a $350 HP or a $350 Dell? It's that simple. For me, it's Dell in a heartbeat.

If you're saying that $1500 HP enterprise laptops are totally reliable and you shouldn't judge the HP brand by their budget $350 consumer laptops, that's an absurd way of evaluation because you're giving unfounded credit to HP for producing crappy consumer laptops. Why should their "budget" line be excluded from the brand? In that case, HP should spin off their crappy line and call it something else then.

This is perhaps a bit more extreme than what I'd read into your prior post. I'd taken your comment asa general ding on cheap consumer laptops, as I'm personally ambivalent about the quality of any of the mass-market, retail laptops available today. I find the range for most brands competing in this space tops out at OK, but quickly descends to not great and then instant e-waste. Clearly you are much more passionate about your preference for Dell.

In defense of HP I'm typing at this moment on an HP Spectre I've kept around as a daily driver for over 5 years (despite this being a model plagued with overheating issues). Like any major OEM they have a lot of variability between their retail, professional, and premium product lines. I think your basic argument (assuming I understood it) is solid: a poorly built laptop can often become problematic in ways that aren't always attributed to the hardware itself (especially considering Microsoft's track record for borking PCs on updates).

Unfortunately most of these discount laptops (regardless of the brand on the box) are going to be minimally engineered, but fortunately their prices are (more than ever) a reflection of that.

I've personally had one other HP, a model targeted at the professional market, that I did have to replace the fan on it (a labor of love, as it was gifted to a family member, but also causing me enough grief to swear off doing it ever again). In the same time I've used a plethora of Dell enterprise laptops which were mostly built like tanks (unlike my XPS, which was beautiful but doomed... which probably should have given me more pause before I bought my Spectre - sometimes premium laptops feature more premium design than premium engineering).

Overall, while I'm inclined to suggest that an enterprise-oriented laptop is usually the best investment of laptop dollars the current resale market has obliterated the price advantage of off-lease laptops. On top of that, the solid price/performance of some of these sub-$400 retail laptops would represent a decent investment even if the device in question barely managed to crawl over the two-year milestone. I also recognize that not every buyer is looking for a project (since even a "clean" off-lease laptop might need a good cleaning and even some attention paid to the state of the thermal pads and adhesive).

Good luck!
Jon

What thermal pads or paste do you suggest any links would be great.
Thanks

I'm a terrible resource for that: up until this past spring I was still working with the same tube of Radio Shack thermal paste [radioshack.com] (technically Silicone-Based Heat Sink Compound) I've been using since forever. This only updated recently when I failed to bring some along during a recent trip and a friend gifted me the remainder of his tube of Arctic Silver.

Clearly I don't worry about getting the highest performance product, but rather replacing stuff that does eventually dry out after years of repeated use.

Good luck!
Jon