Compaq, HP, Toshiba, ... which are good laptop brands?

[rowan]

I've got an insurance settlement coming through and the quoted replacement is a HP business laptop, but I've heard some nasty things about the quality of their laptops. I can change to a different laptop and pay the price difference as cash.

Who is the best in your opinion, and why?

(BTW the laptop stolen was a creaky old P133 with 32Mb RAM from around 1996-1997... it's a replacement policy so I get a brand spanking new one. )

[dunefield]

toshiba... good build quality... don't buy a sony...

[Dynamix]

My DELL Inspiron has treated my kindly for almost a year now. Two thumbs up

[webcrawler]

I've been using DELL for quite some time now, works fine here.

[Tempest]

I've always bought Toshiba and have never had any problems.

[rowan]

Oh yeah, it has to be a mainstream brand since the settlement is tied to a particular store. That means no Dell...

For the moment I'm leaning towards Toshiba, I've always heard good things about them.

[sandman!]

ibm if you want the best.

wont be cheap tho

[rowan]

bump8char

[The Other Steve]

I've got a Toshiba Satellite that I've dragged around the country, drowned in expensive port and almost fried in a power surge that upset Maries much newer and laptop and it still keeps working.

Marie has a Hyundai which looks a lot like a rebadged Dell - but I can't be 100% sure - and after 6 months it has begun to have problems. In the last month it has been wiped and reloaded twice whereas my old Toshiba has never been wiped.

[The Other Steve]

I just saw Sandman's post about IBM - we bought my daughter a reconditioned IBM Thinkpad for university. She's finished four years at uni, is now into her second year teaching and apart from a new hard drive the old thing is still working fine for her.

But I'm not sure how good the new ones would be.

[Vitasoy]

I say get a Toshiba... btw Compaq and HP are the same company.

[TehKinkyHotness]

toshibas are great. I know some you you are gonna laugh at the next statement... Averatec cant be beat for the price.

[MickeyG]

Compaq absolutely sucks, everyone I know has problems with them included shitty batteries. Toshiba is great, dell is good but expensive, ibm is over priced and lacks features but overall stable. Hp I dont know about.

[On-Rails]

Hey

I just went through the process of looking for a good laptop to replace my old desktop and laptop. I decided to go with the HP8080 with all the bells and whistles and have been very happy with it so far. I like the keyboard width better than any of the other manufactures and the 17 inch truebrite screen is great. I do alot of travelling so the Full media system with TV, DVD is awesome. The 8080 has the best gamming card you can get and it does kick ass. The big thing for me was the speed and non of the other manufacures can come close to what HP offers at least when matched up against the Quismo G10 or other multimedia systems. My choice after 3 weeks of research was the HP all the way.

My 2 cents

Good luck with your selection.

[Adultnet]

toshiba offer really good laptops

[Sosa]

fuck compaq and hp laptops in my opinion. Toshiba is where I would go if that is an option.

[Basic_man]

Buy a Toshiba or a Dell, nothing else (I've sold computer for a long time, so I know what I'm saying!)

[Veterans Day]

Dell then Toshiba, but in your case obviously, the Toshiba

[flashfreak]

I have a toshiba and I'm happy about it

[HushMoney]

Toshiba

I've had a satellite since I started my company 2 &1/2 years ago and it's still runs great!! (even with a little linguine and clam sauce in the keyboard)

[dunefield]

what about an ibook? does your insurance let you get one of them?

[crockett]

I have a Toshiba works great.. even has a cracked LCD screen that still works..

or check these guys out for some high end stuff (same as Alien Ware laptops) http://www.pctorque.com/ and http://www.voodoopc.com/

[Tim]

don't buy a sony...

Why not? I thought the Vaio laptops are good.