Monitor hinge failure, is it me?

I'm not sure if this is the right spot for this, so my apologies if it isn't.

Question first. Are monitor hinges more a function of monitor size(15" vs 17"), manufacturer general design flaws, usage, or all of the above?

A little background...

I've owned like 4 laptops for personal use, had quite a few for work, and my wife has had a bunch of Dells for work as well.

My first laptop was a 15" HP, worked fine, then I upgraded to one of the first 17" screens. It was a Toshiba, model escapes me at the moment. I had it for maybe a year and one day I went to open it and it made a bad crunch. As you can imagine it went down hill from there. It got replaced with an HP, DV9000 I believe, and after a couple years its hinges failed as well. I also have a netbook, which has saw far more abuse and its perfect.

My personal laptops are basically glorified desktops. They sit on my lap, then get moved to the table. I don't think I've ever dropped one. My work laptops(Dell) and my wife's work laptops(Dell) area whole nother story though. All of those have been dropped and abused, but their hinges are maybe a little sloppy, but not busted. Those have always have been 15" screens as well.

I love the 17" screens, but I don't want to drop another $1500 to have it fail on me again so I'm considering going with the 15" instead.

Any insight?

 

Well to be fair, the hinge design on the HP DV9000 series was terrible to begin with and shouldn't be reference in my opinion as a basis for 17.1" hinge concerns. There are many 17.1" laptops today that comes with solid build quality, including hinges. I have owned three 17.1" Mobile Workstations and Gaming DTR's over the last two years that I can vouch how solid their hinges are (Precision M6500, Precision M6600, HP Elitebook 8740w, Alienware M17X-R3).

The key is to buy more premium models from reliable OEM's (like Asus, AW, Dell, HP and Lenovo). Their higher end models will often have high build quality and really well designed hinges. I am sure a few years ago when laptops were starting to hit popularity, hinge design (among other things too) were terrible and it looks like the last time you used such laptops was around that era. However, half a decade later, if you stick with high grade lineups of reliable OEM's, their hinges usually are there to last a long while.

 

That's kinda what I was hoping to hear.

I guess I never really thought of either one of those laptops being on the lower end of the scale. I think the Toshiba was crowding $2k(roughly 2004) and the HP was around $1500(2005-2006ish).

I think you can kinda see where I'm a big gun shy about the 17" monitor I just don't want to have another very thin, monitorless desktop sitting in the house. LOL

 

You are right. It actually broke at that spindly thing that ran up the side of the LCD and in the process busted out a bunch of the plastic screw bosses. Right now its put back together with replacement hinges and some JB Weld. It looks horrible.

The Toshiba actually almost went flying across Best Buy's Geek Hole area. If my wife hadn't sent me out to the car that probably was where it was headed. LOL

 

Yeah hinge technology has improved over the years. I am certain if you spend the right amount of money on the right series of laptops, you will have way better, more reliable and durable hinges.

 

I'm just starting to look for a new one. I've been looking at the ASUS, MSI, and also whatever that Lotus thing is the Malibal company makes.

I was kinda looking at the HP(I know...lol) DV7T, but then I started to see I can get a lot better laptop for a few hundred bucks more going elsewhere.

 

If you want the best hinges, go corporate. Something like an HP Elitebook or Dell Latitude/Precision won't go wrong on the hinges. Sager, MSI and ASUS at times don't tend to have the best hinges or ones that are often solid. The corporate laptops do because they are tested and designed with heavy corporate use in mind and hinges being used on a constant basis for corporate laptops is like expected.

 

thinkpad T-series metal hinges - AMEN

 

Lenovo w520 or thinkpad series has really great hinges.
Sager/Malibal as well, cheaper price but less premium compared to high end lenovo machines.

Asus as well is releasing a new business line series which looks good (I'm interested in this for the abuse it could possibly take lol)

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Commercial Notebooks- ASUS B53S

 

I'm not interested in any of the "corporate" machines spec wise.

I was just wondering if the hinge failure was something that was common with 17" monitors. The rate at which both of mine failed was so ridiculous I was worried going forward that's something that happens more often than not with 17's.

I think I'm pretty much sold on the Sager 8170 at this point. It seems like the best bang for the buck.

 

One cause was the insane heat it's CPU generated (plastic around the air vent bends), the grease in the left hinge transformed into sticky substance and then the hinge eventually breaks.

 

Yeah I would have mentioned the m17x r3 if Star Forge hadn't. The hinge feels really durable and it's thick too.