[GTALUG] ThinkPad P15 -- crap?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Jun 28, 2021 at 01:13:28PM -0600, Slackrat via talk wrote:
> Thanks for the confirmation Len.

I glued the screen hinge attachment point on my wife's ideapad 4 times
in 12 months she used it before I gave up and got her the T430.  Who puts
screws into tabs of a plastic case to hold a screen hinge?  On the
thinkpad the screen hinge is attached to the frame of the machine.
The ideapad specs wise was a better machine than the T430 but the T430
lasted years without breaking.

> The specs looked good and the price was right so at 82 years of age I
> thought I'd buy something which would be probably be my last new
> computer.
> 
> I have an array of someones' "thrown away", "given away", "junked"
> machines but did want something brand new.
> 
> I currently have:
> 
> (1) a Dell Latitude E610, recently acquired, which I treated
> to a $40 new battery and a full Slackware 14.2 install and now, apart
> from running a trifle warm, is waiting to be given away to some deseving poor
> individual.
> 
> (2) a Dell Vostro with a straight Slackware 14.2 install plus only
> Opera-Developer and the Radio Application along with a few of my
> radio-related scripts to show the Q-Codes and UTC/ZULU for any TimeZone.
> Azimuth and Station call signs are built into the Radio App.
> 
> (3) a Dell Optiplex 980 box with 22TB (2x5 + 1x12) USB drives which is my video/music
> box.
> 
> (4) a MAC of at least 10 years vintage. I gave  up on Mac OS for various
> reasons and since it refused to install Slack but ;ove the large screen. It now has Ubuntu 10.4
> and it's used as a machine I can use at bedtime, mainly  for Youtube.

I had enough of slackware around 1995.  A couple of years dealing with
SLS and slackware is enough for a lifetime.  I prefer things that work
a lot better than that.  I put up with redhat for about 5 years before
it got too buggy to tolerate and Debian got stable enough to be installed
and nothing has shown itself to be better than that yet.

> So for a new Main Machine, I rejected HP as they advertize their USxxx
> Standard machines, but when you get them they are optimized for, in my
> case Portugal. And the local model is significantly different from the
> USxxx model. Luckily Portugal has a 14 day, no questions asked moneybsck
> (Not voucher) rule. I lucked out there.

Is it just the keyboard they screw up or other parts as well?

> So casting around, by then trapped in Canada by the CovidScam, and after
> reviewing the specs went for the IdeaPad 330 with 17 inch screen.
> 
> Mea Culpa.
> 
> Also I have two hand-held cell phones, an Iphone and an el-cheapo
> android as android supports the latest Radio App whereas iPhone only
> runs an older incompatible version.
> 
> I'll return to Portugal as soon as it opens up for travellers from Canada
> and will probably buy a DELL on/under the desktop box computer.

Well Dell certainly makes some awful desktop machines full of proprietary
parts (so you can't replace the power supply since nothing else will
have the right connectors).  They are not all like that but some of
their cheaper models certainly are.

-- 
Len Sorensen