Cracked Compaq Laptops?

gwn asks: "I have just over 100 Compaq Armada 100s laptop purchased early in 2001. Over 60 have developed cracks in the lid just above the left hinge and at the front corners. I had one of these on a VP''s desk, no abuse, and it cracked. Compaq has denied any other reports of this with any other customer, just my problem they say. They have stopped giving me a hard time when I send these in for repair and they are repairing for free. This is still a royal pain in the rear and does cost me money. Lately, they started coming back with Compaq Notebook 100 labeled screens and it got me thinking they are running out of parts. It can't just be mine that are cracking. Does anyone else have a Compaq Armada 100s or Notebook 100 with cracking case problems?"

Comments

Compaq Experiences

[Xunker]

I have a second hand Armada 7800 series (7380DMT), And it' been remarkably solid for the amount of abuse I've put it through. I'd venture a guess and say that the models you're dealing with probably has the problem that many Vaios have where the screen hinge and other high-stress points are not reinforced with metal/enough metal.

My Armada, circa 1999, has only had issues with the rubber feet coming off (the glue is worthless) and the doors on PC Card slots breaking (broke within a week of my buying it, later last summer).

Pathetic laptop cases are everywhere

[Omega Hacker]

I had a Dell Inspiron 7500 for a couple years. Not only did the lid plastic crack in several places, but the hinges holding the entire LCD simply broke, three times. Dell finally got so sick of fixing my laptop they sent me a 8100 instead, which will be going back to them shortly, again, to fix a broken LCD connection that causes the screen to flash mostly green, but recently blue and red as well.

Unfortunately, the ability of a laptop to hold up to even normal use doesn't seem to be a feature that is ever dealt with in reviews, making it very hard to determine which brand or laptop to get without significant word-of-mouth data.

Re:Pathetic laptop cases are everywhere

[eyepeepackets]

Yuppers, that's why I still have (and love) my IBM i1472. It's old, it's slow (366 MHz Celeron) and it's built like a friggin' tank!

Granted, the original hard-drive is long gone (replace with a higher capacity drive) and ditto the original RAM, but otherwise, the original machine.

Re:Pathetic laptop cases are everywhere

[haplo21112]

Inspirons are consumer models, they are actually expected to be moved less and opened and closed less, and remain in docking stations for more than 75% of their life according to the On site DELL guys here. The Latitude series on the other hand is built to survive a nuclear war...(well figuratively anyway)...I have had three, all of which lived with out a hitch for 2 years plus without a hitch...

Re:Pathetic laptop cases are everywhere

[Analog Penguin]

Ironically, the Titanium Powerbook has had its share of problems, too; that's a pretty thin sheet of Titanium. There are reports of hinges that actually rip (!) and cause massive repair bills (there's something about the design where the part that rips is the bigger part; lots of people are mad about that). The iBook is supposed to be more durable (polycarbonate plastic), but my latch broke after an 18-inch fall (inside a pillowcase AND a bag, no less), and would cost $500 to fix. I hear the old clamshell iBooks are indestructible, though.

Notebook 100

[Tomah4wk]

I have a notebook 100 which i have put heavy demand on (carrying in a bag to university every day) for the last two years and have found it to be very solid. It got damp in the rain which killed the CD-ROM drive, but thats my fault. The case has proved to very sturdy, the machine gets a little warm, mostly the hard disk and battery but they have both been reliable (battery life is very poor). I believe the armada 100 is in fact exactly the same machine, but it depends on when/where you bought it. I doubt many people put their laptops through as hard a life as i do, so i must say im suprised to hear of your problems. Guess i might just be lucky. Ive just upgraded to an IBM Thinkpad, also seems very study, hope i get a good 2/3 years life out of that as well.

Re:Interesting....

[Drakino]

And they cost less than comperable PCs (which, actually there aren't any because Intel Processors run at 1/3 to 1/6 speed on battery power and are slower to begin with)... yet have higher reliability.

What? You mean my PIII 850 slows down to 280mhz? I don't think so. Try to 700 (only if I want it to), and that will still outpreform MS Office under Virtual PC on a $2500 Powerbook (ie the 667 model).

I am an avid user of both Mac and PC machines. I know what I am talking about, you on the other hand are one of the poor brainwashed Apple zealots. Try to at least bash the competition properly.

And I'd like to point out that my Compaq laptop (Also an Armada M700) has been great. Armada laptops in general (and their new name Evo) have been great machines. A wide varity are used by my teammates, and I haven't seen any need a repair beyond the battery or a replacement "eraser head" for the mouse. Plus it has three buttons, great for middle-clicking for tabs in Mozilla. Thats one thing that drives me nuts about the Powerbook. Professional laptop, one button mouse. Let me know when I can run programs like OS X and pro apps properly on a Powerbook without an external mouse or keyboard shortcuts to use context menus, and I'll consider one.