A few years ago I used to work for one of the big computer firms here in Spain. I formed part of the sales team and we always had the very best laptops money could buy at our service.
Now I am working for a smaller company the time has come to buy laptops for the two salespeople we have working here.
Looking for a laptop.
We must never forget that the life of a laptop will usually be moving around all over the place, coming in and out of bags, cases, suitcases, etc. Staying in the boot of the car forgotten some summer days and being opened and closed continuously while the coffee sits just two fingers away on a wobbly desk.
But it seems now everything is much more focused on design. When checking all the suppliers of laptops I have seen very nice looking computers, but when you feel and touch them they do not seem to strong at all. I think I know why they are no longer as sturdy as they used to be. The answer is that when I was working for the firm a few years back only business people had laptops. Nobody else would ever think about buying a laptop. Laptops were used for business.
But now times have changed. Just about everyone has a laptop. That's great actually! Students, factory employees, secretaries, shopkeepers... Just about everyone has a laptop.
There is a 'but' though. To make laptops accessible to the normal working man the price has decreased substantially, and so has the quality. At least that is the way I see it.
A few years back when I went into a PC supplier looking for a company laptop for me, apart from the specs I would open and close the screen pulling from just one corner, ask about the dampening on the disk drives, check if the computer with the cover closed could withstand a reasonable amount of weight and check if the laptop could be trusted as a machine that will receive bumps, scratches and not be treated with care by the employees.
This time around when I have gone looking for a laptop apart from the specifications I see that most screens are way too flexible, most laptops look really weak and it's best not to bother about asking about dampening and anti-shock features because the shop clerk will never know anything that hasn't got to do about what O.S. it has installed or the GB of RAM you can pump it up with.
And yes, I have visited what are considered the best Computer shops here in Spain and have looked at all the best makes of laptops out there. They now have 'business edition' laptops but honestly, I can't really tell the difference between a business quality laptop nowadays and a cheap consumer laptop. I don't even find magnesium cases are that sturdy, they all usually fail at the hinges or have weird Keyboards that are really tough to get along with if you touch type. Having a strange Keyboard is as bad as having weak hinges for me.
In the end we ended up buying two 'business edition' laptops. Four months later they look like they have been in the middle of a battlefield and we have had to have one replaced because the screen decided to go green after two months using it.
It is true I have spoken to many people that manage to keep their modern laptops in good condition even if they travel around with it. But they are not treated like we used to treat them. I can remember the way we used to treat laptops and yes, they were scratched, but apart from that they were holding on perfectly. Nowadays, from what I'm seeing, they have become much more delicate and can't handle being treated harshly as well they used to handle it.
I've had a chance of speaking with my ex-company CEO about this over a coffee and he agrees that the quality has dropped substantially. What they do now is renew them every six months with a leasing plan that covers it. He says holding on to them for more time nowadays would be crazy.
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