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Laptops Laptop Assessment and Recommendation

Last reviewed: April 15, 2009 ~9 min read

¶ … Laptops

Laptop Assessment and Recommendation

In assessing which laptops are most suitable for the needs of our organization, the viability of the vendors, their support and service track record, the functions, features, and costs were all taken into account. Using viability or the financial stability as the first criteria to assess vendors significantly narrowed the field of potential laptops for consideration. Next, applying the criteria of service and support record (Gladstone, 2009) was taken into account. Lenovo has a commanding global market share position yet has experienced large layoffs of well over 1,500 employees and is struggling with suppliers in terms of component quality and time of deliveries (Spencer, 2007). As a result, Lenovo models are excluded from this analysis and recommendation due to their supply chain problems and the reported customer service problems in the U.S. And throughout the world (Babu, 2007). Given the current market conditions in 2009 and market shares globally as shown in Figure 1 (Hachman, 2009) the most viable vendors globally are Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba.

Figure 1: Global Market Shares of PC Manufacturers, 2008-2009

Major Player

Market Share Range

Dell, Incorporated

18.0%

Lenovo

10.0%

Hewlett-Packard Company

10.0%

Toshiba

7.0%

Gateway

2.0%

Others

52.0%

Function Analysis

In defining a personal computer laptop strategy for our company it is critical to evaluate not just the functions that are of value today but to look at the implications of product design on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) as well (Rupley, 2004). Any successful TCO analysis must begin with an assessment of the serviceability of the platforms being considered, including getting a true measure of Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) and Mean Time To Replace (MTTR) components in addition to entire laptops through drop-ship programs (Rupley, 2004). Research for this report shows that viability of any given PC vendor is closely associated with their ability to engineer products so that they deliver a low TCO over the lifetime of the product. That is why it is so important in evaluating the functions of these proposed laptops that the decisions made as to which components are used is so critical. The selection of standardized disk drive components for example that rely on the SATA interface can save significant replacement and warranty costs over the life of the laptop (Cheng, 2006). There are also the implications of how the companies included in this analysis manage their supply chains to deliver the functional components (Sheu, Hung, 2009) in time for product introductions. PC vendors with exceptional supply chains are capable of delivering exceptionally high quality laptops within the stated delivery timeframes with the latest generation chipsets (as all recommended systems do in this study) while also attaining price/performance leadership (Gladstone, 2009). As the complexity of networking and the design trade-offs of BlueTooth vs. Internet support continue to be a major factor in design of laptops (Cherry, 2008) there is also the trade-off of security (Britt, 2009) and the extent to which biometrics, a standard feature in two of the five laptops, becomes essential to the development of enterprise-wide security strategies in our firm (Mouritsen, Mano, 2007). In summary on the functional analysis of these laptops, all have been designed to minimize both TCO through the use of standardized components. From the initial viability screening of companies it is apparent each of the vendors listed also have service organizations who under warranty can ensure the level of functionality of these laptops over time as well. All of these factors are taken into account to alleviate any potential risk to our firm while also ensuring a consistently high level of functionality is delivered over time.

Features Analysis

The five models included in this analysis include the Dell Inspiron 1420, the Dell Latitude D630, the HP Pavilion Models dv3510nr and dv5-1235dx and the Toshiba Satellite E105-S1402. Table 1, Comparison of Recommended Models, provides a feature analysis of them. All five models are based on Intel's latest Core 2 Dual Core processor architecture, with the HP units being specifically built on the Centrino platform through OEM agreements with Intel. The Dell models, while slightly older, have the best pricing and the longest warranties as well. In terms of security, HP has been an early supported of biometrics (Britt, 2009) as has Toshiba. The reliance on both WiFi and Bluetooth (Cheery, 2008) is also evident in the product analysis shown in Table 1 as well. There is also a consistency of support for the Microsoft Vista operating system throughout all models in the comparison. At these price points, it is also important to note that Microsoft Office applications are not included. This would have driven the price point up a median level of at least $150. Each of these systems also has multiple USB ports to support flash memory extensions (Leventhal, 2008) which have been increasingly popular as secondary storage in addition to the use of PEM drives as well. Consistent with the expertise of writes at PC World (Gladstone, 2009) this short list of recommended systems also is dominated by the Intel WiFi Link 5100 chipset, which is a board-mounted chipset that takes very little heat and energy to operate while supporting more variations of the TCP/IP protocol that competitive chipsets both manufacturers and chip providers produce.

Table 1: Comparison of Recommended Models

(Source: Company websites)

Product Features

HP Pavilion dv3510nr

Dell Latitude D630

Dell Inspiron 1420

Toshiba Satellite E105-S1402

HP Pavilion dv5-1235dx

Price

$999.99

$699.00

$724.00

$799.99

$699.99

Launch Date

9/28/2008

5/09/2007

6/26/2007

9/30/2008

2/1/2009

Processor

Intel Core 2 Duo P7350/Dual-Core

Intel Core 2 Duo P7250/Dual-Core

Intel Core 2 Duo T5850/Dual-Core

Intel Core 2 Duo P8400/Dual-Core

Intel Core 2 Duo T6400/Dual-Core

Display

13.3 TFT

14.1 TFT

15.4 TFT

Hard Drive

320 GB SATA

Embedded Security

Fingerprint biometrics reader

Security Card SmartCarder Reader

None

Fingerprint biometrics reader

None

O.S.

Windows Vista/64 bit edition

Warranty

3 years

2 years

1-year

Wireless Connectivity

Intel WiFi Link 5100

Dell Wireless 1390

Intel WiFi Link 5100

Networking Support

Network Adapter supports IEEE 802.11b

Bluetooth support

Network Adapter supports IEEE 802.11g

Network Adapter supports IEEE 802.11b

Bluetooth support

Network Adapter supports IEEE 802.11g

Cost Analysis

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