Customer Reviews
An expensive disappointment - By: , 24 Jan 2004 
I was extremely disappointed with this book, expecting (perhaps too optimistically) a valuable manual with details of common faults & their fixes, hardware comparisons between vendors etc. Given that laptops are restricted largely to hard-drive & memory upgrades, the book really has little to say that can't be foundin any other decent hardware book. It seems that the author thinks that there are no laptops worth discussing other than IBM, & anything older than 2-3 years should be scrapped. The book is full of unnecessary techno-gook that is of little value to the laptop-repair person - who needs to know the AT-command set for modems or the architecture of a Celeron processor (especially when the darned thing can't be changed) these days? Older laptops (of the type that will typically need repaired or upgraded) are just not discussed. The video CD included with the book is also somewhat patronising. As the previous reviewer stated, anyone who dabbles with laptops will know all that's relevantin this book already, if not more. It seems that about 5% is about laptops, & 95% is general computer information. Overall a great disappointment to me.
Not good enough if you are into laptop repairs - By: A. Hanspal, 13 Jan 2004 I ordered this book months before it actually came out - was a little dissapointed as it deals with a lot of stuff irrelevent to laptop repairs - If you are already a laptop repair chap then you would know more than the book has to offer... It has a few examples on older laptops.. which are lessin use today - it has good technical knowledge if you didnt know about how dvds work ! There are a few examples on IBM laptops I reckon the author has hadin the past.. This book fails to answer commmon problems faced by laptop users... How would you install Windows Xp on a laptop without a Cd drive ? I can do it - but its not simple cos Xp doesnt work like Win98 ! Where can you get an external Cd rom drive - ? what are the different types available- PCMCIA or USB - ? Battery does not charge - DVDS skip a little - is your graphics card good enough - Chapter 16in this book - Basic troubleshooting is the only reason I still havnt returned this book back - Had this book more color graphic illustrations it would have been a lot easier - I think atleast one chapter should have been devoted to the top five - Dell - sony - toshiba - IBM & Compaq for a better undertanding & a clearer picture.. If you still have the urge to power aheadin your field - this book will help youin small technical details - Knowledge is the Key !
