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Here are my reviews of the sites:
HP - home page links right to the correct main category. From there on, nightmarish.The "notebook" graphic on the main page is a bad link. I had to click on the "small & medium businesses" link in a sidebar to get to listings of their products.
So I find a base model that appears to fit needs, so I click on "customize". hah. "Customize", in HPland means you can choose accessories. Apparently adding more memory is right out. Even their list is weird because they show you their product IDs in bold, then the explanation of what it is. (ie DC915A HP Top-load nylon case [Add $49.00]). Maybe it is just me, but I could care less what the product ID is - it just makes choosing the right stuff harder.
The cart is powered by JS so if you check something the page lags for a bit whilst the little price floaty thing automagically updates
Anyhow, of the 3 models I selected, HP appears not to allow their customers to add additional memory. So... no HP laptop for me.
Sony - Sony's kind of hidden, since not all the models offer customization. The first model I picked limited its "customization" to configuration 1 or configuration 2. Finally I stumbled across a model that had truly customizable features, however, the pages are fairly larger and everytime you select or change a feature has to refresh and has significant "hang time" while it loads the new page (just to rewrite the price). Anyhow, the configuration I wanted was at the upper limit of my budget, so I decided to move on.
IBM - home page led me right to their laptops. But, it is little hard to get a "straight answer" from IBM. I picked my base model, and chose to customize it. However, none of the options listed had the prices, so I went through the entire selection process only to discover that I had built a $4000 laptop (twice my budget!). Props for having another option to let the user select features and price limits and letting the site narrow down the list of products that matched my specific criteria. However, I couldn't really get a notebook with the specs and price I wanted.
Toshiba - I had a bit of trouble with Toshiba - Most of the tech specs links were PDFs - usually sites are courteous enough to warn the user that the link is to a PDF file. Also, you had to click on "buy this" to get to view choices for customization - with no indication that you could customize the models listed at all. I wonder if this would make people who wanted to comparison shop feel overly committed. Also, it seemed to suggest that the AC adaptor was sold separately for $99 - which seemed incredible. Finally, when I realized that I wanted to upgrade one of the components, I had to start from scratch. Finally, the model that their "enterprise" section recommended couldn't be purchased from them, even though the link said "buy direct from Toshiba". Turns out the model is discontinued (found that out thanks to Amazon).
Gateway - Gateway doesn't appear to offer custom memory configurations. I didn't like any of the "pre-fab" models, so they're out.
Dell The Dell home page is not very good for getting to its products. There's a link on the home page for one of its laptop models, so I clicked that, but it was an article and had no links to their catalog. (duh!)My second choice was to click on the "small business solutions" link and that got me to their laptops.
Dell has the best site I came across for custom builds - not only did they tell you how much every option cost, you had to update manually, which means you can "cherry pick" as many options as you want, then click on the "update" link.
The only thing I didn't like is the fact that in the model I selected I couldn't opt out of "spyware" like Real Player, and had to get a bundled word processing program. No biggie, though.
Dell also has an affiliate program (cough) but the commissions are so low (1%!) that it probably barely worth someone's time to sign up and build a page with aff links.
So... any recommendations for a laptop? I want a ~P4 2.0+ processor, 784 - 1024 MB RAM, CD/RW, ~30 GB hard drive, 15" screen, decent battery, 10 MBps ethernet, no wireless.
I think I am going for a Dell 5100. Does anyone have one?
Other than the weight, she's happy. The only problem I've had so far is getting the TrueMobile wireless card to work with my Netgear MR814v2. Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. It's not a major problem since the router has an extra ethernet port, which I used to connect to the internet and download those massive Windows updates.
lawman
It boggles my mind that some of these large companies pay so little attention to useability issues. They'd do well to read this post.
Dan
