laptop reccomendations

[rover4x4]

I currently have a Toshiba Satellite its been a wonderful computer Ive had it going on 5 years now and my extended warranty is going to end soon. It has paid for itself a couple times. Screen, motherboard, harddrive keyboard (2) and a dvd drive. Any reccomendations on a replacement laptop? Mostly use mine for surfing email and watching dvds. Gotta have wireless, durability, weight isnt a huge issue or is battery life. Customer service and warranty is key dont mind buying into the extended plan. Some photo editing but not very much. This Toshiba has been great so has thier customer service/warranty. I imagine this could almost turn into one of those which winch is better threads but I thought id ask. Would like to spend <1500 havnt really bought into the apple deal it seems its really the OS thats good arent they running INTEL processors? Thanks for any insight.

 

[kennith]

I love my toughbook. The service is top notch, and so is the warranty. But, you either need the durability or you don't, you pay for it in price and speed. It's fast, but not as fast as some of the others.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[garrett]

I don't ususally chime in on the "techie" threads, but we love our Acers. I've owned everything from Gateways, Dells, Toshiba, HP, etc. and the Acer I have ranks #1. I've had my Acer for 2+ years and no issues. Sarah's had hers for about 6 months and loves hers too. I think she paid $750 or so for it as well and it is plenty for her. We don't play games or run any huge programs.

Not to mention the one time I called customer service (I forget what it was for......nothing major of course) and some American guy answered the phone. Yes that is right........an actually person answered the phone. It was odd.
I'll never buy another Dell. Customer service was pathetic.

 

[ChrismonDA]

I love my toughbook. The service is top notch, and so is the warranty. But, you either need the durability or you don't, you pay for it in price and speed. It's fast, but not as fast as some of the others.

Cheers,

Kennith

Ditto!! That is going to be my next purchase. Agencies I have worked for use them. Pricy but worth it.

 

[DiscoJen]

I'm researching this as well. Thinking about getting rid of the desktop altogether and going strictly laptop. My problem is I want something with a better video card for gaming.

I checked out a Toshiba Satellite A215-S5824 they had at Best Buy over the weekend on sale $449. It was actually pretty darn nice with 1gb DDR, 120gb hard drive, DVD writer and AMD processor. For a bit more at $549, you can get the Compaq F756NR with 2gb DDR and a 160gb hard drive. Both have 15.4 brite widescreens. I'm surprised at how inexpensive decent laptops are now compared to the last one I bought. Hell, I paid $1200 for a crappy Fujitsu about 4 years ago, which just took a shit this past summer. Not much life for the price. But the Panasonic Toughbooks that Kennith mentioned is sure sweeeeeeeeet!

 

[lagged]

IBM. The quality is big step up from almost all other makes. You can't beat a thinkpad.

 

[FIVESPDDISCO]

MACBook

Sorry i had too.

 

[robertf]

I've got a dell inspiron that is 6 years old. Its on its 3rd mother board (the ethernet jack messed up both times, not really a deal breaker since I use wireless 99% of the time). Dell tech support is really good about getting someone out to fix it both times. I've put this thing through hell with car tuning and logging so the motherboard problems are probably caused by me.

IBM would be my first choice since they weigh probably 1/4 what the inspiron does, but they are so much more $ than dell that I'll probably buy another dell when I need a new laptop.

Unless you are trendy and don't do anything productive and think that there is no graphic software for wintel's when in fact all the big name 3d design stuff requires windows, then a macbook would be the perfect choice

 

[nrene]

As a business user, I have had Dells for the last 7 years, and not had a major issue that wasn't immediately fixed under warranty. I have had an M80, D600, D610, and now a D630. That being said, my company is a huge Dell consumer, and we do have good arrangements with them.

The Latitude's are a little pricy when you look at some of the bargain laptops $11xx versus $xxx, but they definately take a business beating (planes, meetings, etc).

I bought my wife the cheapest Gateway laptop last year. I added $35 of extra memory, and it performs great for an email, web, and simple games laptop. Without the memory, it was a dog.

Personally, I detest the IBM's. They are chunky, ugly, and mostly crap. But the last one I personally used was 9 years ago, so it would have been. I do see lots of people with very old (or at least they look very old, so it could be the crap style) IBM's all the time.

My PowerBook G4 is great and I wish it could be my primary machine, but being on the PowerPC chipset, it doesn't have the compatability I need for my corporate activities.

I really wish I had a MacBook. You can run 99% of your Windows Apps under Parallels (or other emulator), and everyone I know loves it. Doesn't require you to run a full Windows virtual machine. Though, Entourage is a pile of poo, and corporate compatability is tough, so it depends on your uses.

My $0.04.

 

[EJB90]

Buy a MacBook or a MacBook Pro. A MacBook is probably fine for you. The Mac OS is great and is far superior to Vista which is just crap. It's a very tough little computer, the price isn't bad, and it comes with lots of software that all integrates with each other making computer a lot easier and efficient- iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, Mail, Contacts, iSync- it all just works together. You don't have to deal really with fighting viruses or spyware which is a huge plus in my book. My powerbook feels just as fast as it did 3 years ago when I bought it. Check apple's refurb section to get discounts. Technical service if you do need it is excellent- you don't have to deal with indians that hardly speak english.

Unless you really need a PC because you need to run some sort of PC software (which macs can do now too) or really just want a PC for what ever reason go with an IBM. Quite frankly dell laptops are garbage- my dad's work had a contract with them for years and they ditched them because they were unreliable. My sisters dell laptop is so poorly built the letters wear off and some have actually developed holes in them. The fan has been replaced multiple times too. And the in home repair guy is a complete creeper.

HP/Compaq stuff is decently built but it's still a little cheap for my liking. I would bite the bill and go with IBM though, they are hands down the best built PC laptop. I would really suggest a MacBook though. I think you'll like it.

 

[rover4x4]

Ill check out the IBMs they have been around for a while. I got my sister into a gateway its a POS and the customer service has been terrible. ITHIS and ITHAT I really dont care about the APPLE integration. THe apples are a little out of my price range. This toshiba has been hauled all over the place i did drop it the other day but it snapped back together. I used to bike commute to school, i had an accident and literally fell on the computer cracked the case it kept going for a while but I had to have the HD replaced. Thanks for the insight keep it coming.

 

[dormobiledisco]

I'd say for PC, go with a ThinkPad. I got my R51 in May 2005, and have used and abused it for the past three years. I use it literally all day, from 7:30AM when I boot it up at school to 10PM when I put it to sleep for the night. I'm opening and closing it maybe 10 times a day, moving it all over in my bag, plugging it in in docking stations and desks and on my bed, and it still works.

The only issues I've had were a motherboard issue in Nov 06 (fixed under warranty), and a few cracks on the case. My CD drive also doesn't open on its own, as the spring and rod fell out, but I think that's my fault. The cracks are only issue I have with it -- I seem to have cracked off several of the pieces that space the two parts when it's folded, so it puts extra stress on the screen. I think it's a design flaw in my particular model; my mom and dad have a T60 and X60 respectively, and when I compare, those have definitely addressed this flaw -- those areas are reinforced and placed better, and there seems less of a gap in general between the two pieces.

They don't have the flashy design you'll get in a Dell or a Mac. They've looked largely the same since 1992. I like that. It's timeless. It's kind of like my RRC -- an almost 40 year old design on a 15 year old car, but it still looks stunning and turns heads.

I'd avoid a Dell at all costs. My school has a contract with them, and we have maybe 20 carts of 24 laptops that we wheel around. Of those 24, maybe 7 work without issues. A few have flat batteries, a few won't boot, a few keep shutting themselves off, some won't connect to the internet, and they've all suffered an immense amount of case wear-and-tear. Plus, to me at least, they're very non-user friendly. The keys on the keyboard feel and sound cheap, with too much travel needed to activate the letter; the touchpads have no sensitivity at all, while the trackballs are way too sensitive. Completely opposite to the easy-to-use input interface on the ThinkPad.

Maybe I'm sounding like I'm preaching too much from the design standpoint...but to me, the performance of a laptop can be quickly overridden by poor ergonomics.

 

[p m]

you haven't said what do you need the laptop for.
For me, it's my desktop replacement - and I need the box to be able to do some massive data processing. Seriously massive.
So, in this respect, I don't know if you can beat Dell. The idiosyncratic design and dull appearance aside, it's a honking box. On top of CPU and memory performance, it's got some decent video chipset, so it can support much larger screen than 1280x960 it has now.
On a side note, the common old Dell hardware issues seem to be a thing in the past. We have probably twenty Dell very high end laptops in the field, and I haven't heard of one failing (despite dust, rather rough handling, running during takeoffs and landings in a small aircraft, etc.).

 

[WillTN]

I have a Macbook now and like it a lot, its what I recommend. If I was going to buy a PC I would go with an IBM, or a Toughbook if you need something that can take physical abuse...

 

[Timmy!!!!!!!]

I vote MacBook. Once you go mac you don't go back.

 

[JefeDisco96]

x2 for the MacBook!

 

[Azdiscovery]

x3 on a Macbook.

IMO: you have to really justify the reason why you want a laptop for yourself. If you NEED portabilty (say you're a student etc..) then its a great choice.

What bugs me most is that almost all the people I know use their damn laptops for a desktop replacement to play games :banghead: and nothing productive. Then they bitch and complain all day long that its not fast enough or that it cost too much..

You get what you pay for and in the case of laptops the premium is on mobility.


quote from robertf
"Unless you are trendy and don't do anything productive and think that there is no graphic software for wintel's when in fact all the big name 3d design stuff requires windows, then a macbook would be the perfect choice "

Really...Which is why Universities use them for mathematical graphing/calculation. 3d DESIGN and emulation??...

and no.. the big name 3d design stuff doesnt require windows...most is dual compatible(and I'd much rather use the 2 woodcrest quad cores found on the mac pro-desktop for that)...and all of this is completly irrelevent as we're discussing LAPTOPS on this thread......NOBODY is going to do "big time 3d design stuff" on a freakin laptop.

-Go with a macbook for simplicity...media apps..
-Go with a HP or Acer for anything else...

 

[skydiver]

.NOBODY is going to do "big time 3d design stuff" on a freakin laptop.

I use Solidworks & 3DSMax on my laptop, a Toshiba Tectra - 2ghz Core2Duo w/ 2gb ram.

Granted, I don't have an optimized vid card, but I can do anything on my laptop that my other engineer can do on his desktop.... And it works great when I go to customer or vendor locations and pull up a 3D model to run a FEA or check design specs.

But, in keeping with the subject of the thread... I've had great luck w/ Toshiba's. We use all toshiba's at my office.

-Tommy

 

[champana]

MACBook

Sorry i had too.

X4

My company's IT guy is trying to switch our entire office over b/c of my MacBook. Oh hear, and we're an internet service provider. The entire information backbone runs on Linux or Unix..... Mac uses both. Why not use the standard rather than some windows assortment with more drivers than a Sears tool section. If you are going to run a PeeCee, instead of windows, us Ubuntu or something more stable.

 

[UpNorth]

I used to recommend Macbooks to everyone my last 2 friends that got them had HD failure at about a year, one replaced under waranty the other just after it expired. It seems they have an overheating problem to me.

I have had a few chats with the IT guys at work about what they feel is the best stuff out there and they say hands down is Lenovo(aka IBM). IBM is out of the personal computing business as far as I know and has sold out to Lenovo who is making reliable stuff.

You can still get PC's with XP if you act quickly also with a dual core processor (zipzoomfly, Tigerdirect, Newegg). HD size doesn't matter as external HDs are cheap (500gig for $100 at staples). Laptops are not made for hard core gaming, get a desktop for that, unless you want to spend $3-4k to keep up with dx10. AMD processors right now are crap, AMD is going down the tubes, stick with Intel, if you can afford it/find it get a quadcore Intel!