Favorite Past Ultra Premium PCs

What is everyone’s favorite past, ultra premium PC?

Me:

The 2006 Dell M2010 laptop/desktop convertible. One of the most interesting PCs of the time. It had Centrino Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a detachable keyboard and a desktop like monitor!

The Sony Vaio UMPC line. It had a Core Solo Processor, 1GB of RAM, and Windows Vista. A full fledged computer, in such a small form factor!

 

Conversation 14 comments

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    10 November, 2021 - 9:17 am

    <p>Compaq LTE Lite/25, 80386SL, mono VGA display, 2MB RAM and 80MB hard drive!</p>

  • christianwilson

    Premium Member
    10 November, 2021 - 9:24 am

    <p>I bought the original Thinkpad X1 Carbon and ran that thing into the ground. I replaced it last year with an X390. It was not without its problems, but I got my money’s worth and then some. Great machine. </p>

    • polloloco51

      10 November, 2021 - 5:42 pm

      <p>I owned a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon as well, several years ago. It was one of the best ultrabooks back then! </p><p><br></p><p>The display, keyboard, performance and feel was perfect. </p><p><br></p><p>I unfortunately sold it, 2 years ago about. I wish I didn’t! ?</p>

      • christianwilson

        Premium Member
        11 November, 2021 - 10:55 am

        <p>I loved mine, but it had a lot of problems that I attributed to being a first gen product. </p><p><br></p><p>The battery would drain completely when powered off only a few years after I bought it. It was a minor annoyance but the battery life was never great anyway so I kept it plugged in when not in use. The fingerprint reader failed, again minor, but kind of annoying. I upgraded to Windows 10 and always had strange visual bugs that never went away, though I didn’t experience them on other computers. I started seeing BSODs, infrequently, but enough to know something was wrong. Finally, it failed to find a boot device last summer. I could have put more effort into getting it to work, but it was eight years old at that point and I moved on. </p><p><br></p><p>I still have that Thinkpad in the basement. My continued use of it, despite the battery issues, the BSODs, the failing components, shows how much I loved it.</p>

  • pecosbob04

    10 November, 2021 - 9:42 am

    <p>Apple][ GS.</p>

  • rob_segal

    Premium Member
    10 November, 2021 - 10:45 am

    <p>I used to have the Asus Zenbook UX31A with the 1080p IPS screen. Great screen for 2012. Great build quality that didn’t have the issues future Zenbooks had. Just a really nice laptop.</p>

  • paradyne

    10 November, 2021 - 11:33 am

    <p>Dell XPS 18. It was an all-in-one desktop. Except when it was a giant tablet. 18.4" screen, only 2.2Kg built-in battery so you could just pick it off the dock on your desk (or kitchen counter where mine lived a lot) and go sit somewhere else with it. It even had a kind of kickstand.</p><p><br></p>

  • bob25

    10 November, 2021 - 12:07 pm

    <p>Samsung ATIV 13.3" 3200×1800, i7-4500U 256 SSD. Purchased in 2004, now running Windows 10 and working great. The only thing lacking is battery life even though I’ve replaced the battery. Not really too bad, considering how old it is.</p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    10 November, 2021 - 10:42 pm

    <p>Macintosh SE/30.</p>

  • arnstarr

    11 November, 2021 - 4:02 pm

    <p>Commodore 128D</p>

    • jimchamplin

      Premium Member
      11 November, 2021 - 8:47 pm

      <p>Hell yes. Plastic or metal case?</p>

  • bkkcanuck

    11 November, 2021 - 4:09 pm

    <p>Not quite a PC but within the premium price range of a PC… My Sun Sparcstation 5. I think it started at $3,995USD was a wee bit more for us Canadians. I did not know where to buy it so I just walked into Sun offices and they arranged for me to purchase one with a 40% discount. I had similar treatment back when I went to school with IBM, though in that case it was always with manuals… I would walk into their offices in my smallish city (around 60-70K) which had no retail or place to purchase stuff and ask to buy different manuals… they said they had no retail operation so you could not purchase them there but arranged for me to get free copies that they could get distributed internally – pretty much any manual I wanted. These were companies offices that were there for large contracts but always bent over backward to help out someone not related to any of those contracts. </p>

    • christianwilson

      Premium Member
      11 November, 2021 - 4:47 pm

      <p>Those are great stories! </p><p><br></p><p>A little different, but this reminds me of the time I was looking to buy the original Duke Nukem but couldn’t find it anywhere. This was several years after its release. Duke Nukem 3D had been out for a few years by this point. One of the great things about being a PC gamer back in the 90s is that you could easily get in contact with people working in the games industry. I sent an email to 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller, explained that I couldn’t find the first game for sale anywhere and asked how I could get a copy. Scott asked for my email address and sent me a copy on floppy disk, free of charge. </p><p><br></p><p>I never forgot that. </p>

      • christianwilson

        Premium Member
        11 November, 2021 - 4:48 pm

        <p>"email address" should have been "home address"</p><p><br></p><p>D’oh.</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC