Best Laptop?
 

K folks, it's upgrade time (just like the tampon commercial!) :) I'm on the lookout for a new laptop since mine is on the shaggy side of well-loved. It's an Acer Travelmate 4504LMi and I've been extremely happy with it.

Since we're all traveling so much, I figured this would be the most appropriate group to ask for laptop recommendations. Unless you've all moved on to your Crackberries... ;)

Any thoughts? Experiences? Recommendations?

MacBook Pro

I bought a dell laptop about 18 months ago and it's been the most solid pc I ever owned.

Couldn't recommend them more. :2 cents:

This thing is invincible!

Since I don't have a Mac desktop, I'd rather stick with the MS side of things for now.

I just picked up a new Acer Aspire last week. Too soon to tell how good it is, but I like it so far. Best Buy had them on at a good price. We also picked up a 22" ViewSonic monitor to use with it in the office.

My older laptop was a Toshiba Satellite, which still runs okay (just not nearly as fast as the Acer).

I used to have a Toshiba Satellite and it was great. Took a beating and kept ticking, as they say :)

Then Dell, if you must.

I have a Toshiba Satellite, cannot fault it one bit, but just bought an ACER ASPIRE,, it is amazing, my 2 best laptops !

Yep, call Dell, tell them what you want and they'll get it for you. Best thing after building it yourself, have someone else build it to your exact specs. :)

I'd take HP over Dell any day of the week.

And then, you have other options, too.. I've always thought Lenovo's are nice... perhaps a bit better at taking a beating than the average laptop, though I'm sure those Toshibas do the trick there, too.

Toshiba, Toshiba, Toshiba... Been using them since my 286 T1200 luggable through to my Dual Core Toshiba Qosmio.

I've had a few dell, compaq and IBM laptops over the years, but I always go back to toshiba. No one makes a laptop like they do.

Toshiba Qosmio G40

just got the alienware m9750
s

funny some people say Toshiba,a friend of mine spent a good chunk of money on a 17" laptop Toshiba.It would over heat all the time, she had in the shop so many times.It was a known problem and they didnt really give a shit.

Toshiba also produced same bad models long time ago. Like Toshiba Satellite 5200-801 (I can't remember right model now) I have bought this shit for about $3k, but it's broken because of overheating CPU (this model have non-mobile CPU instead of others laptops).

Does Dell still have problems with their motherboards screwing up? I seem to recall they had problems due to chassis flex... the motherboards would eventually break. wasn't there a class action lawsuit as well?

I would too, if I could actually ask HP to customize the computer EXACTLY the way I want it.

I like my Toshiba.

Dell has some decent deals, though. I got a coupon in my e-mail the other day for a 17" Core2Duo with 2gigs of RAM and 250gig hdd for $850.

As much luck as I've had using other people's Vista computers I would almost consider the switch to a MacBook or Pro.

Stay away from Toshiba they are one company that doesn't stand behind their products and everyone that I know that has had one has had one problem or another. I had a satellite a70 had to have close to everything replaced one month before the warranty was up. If I had to replace everything myself it would have been cheaper to buy a new one. Then just over a year later same problem occured again now with no warranty, I managed to fix it myself and it lasted a few more months before it finally started smoking and wouldn't start anymore. The funny thing is that there are tons of forums out there dedicated to the toshiba a70 and 2 to 3 other toshiba models, apparently this is a common problem with 95% of these models and toshiba knows about it but won't do shit about their faulty product. I will never buy another toshiba anything in my life.

I just got a Dell Inspiron I1720, Intel Core Duo CPU 1.50GHz, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB hard drive. Really nice machine fast as fuck, so far I am quite happy with it's performance :)

Samsung R70

honestly, i'd say the BEST laptop is mine. esp when you're on it!!!!!!!!!!!

haha thanks Scott :)

I recommend Sony Vaio, I have 2 and I had 0 problems

Sigwhoring can't possibly pay well enough, in order for you to afford two of those. And since you seem to spend every waking moment on this board I can't imagine you can get any work done. Ergo, you must be lying. :)

I've always used Toshiba laptops and have always been happy with them.

Acer Aspires are great and cheaper than comparable brands.

I have a loaded down Dell XPS M1710 and I love it. I actually bought mine from Ebay and saved $1,600 from the price of buying through Dell's site when you figured in tax.

I think that if you find someone on Ebay that has a high feedback of 1,000 or more with 99%+ feedback, seeing that they sold a pile of laptops already, I don't think you'd have anything to worry about.

I think the best lapdog is a poodle...

^^

.

Looks like some of you dont know how to take care of your equipment. I have a toshiba and it works great. Its my 2nd laptop in 8 years. My old micron was put to rest last year. :upsidedow

sony vaio = <3

By the way, Mac is compatible with MS Windows. I have been using a Dell for 1 month and I would definitely recommend it.

Sony VAIO - my choice !!!!

IBM...but too bad..no longer around...Lenovo sux

Check out Asus. Very, very solid builds, and range from stupidly lightwight [less than 1kg] to desktop replacements.

I love my Dell 1705E with its big screen. It has been a work horse and no operational problems. It is large and a little heavy; but, with the large desktop and high resolution, my clients say "nice" and I can work on multiple pages at the same time. Very convenient.

And what about IBM laptops? e.g T61P

As I recall, I haven't heard too much good about IBM since they sold to Lenovo and moved to China.

Had my Acer Aspire for 2 weeks and smashed screen, they even repaired it under the warrenty, customer aftercare is amazing!!!!

Recommend highly,

Thanks muchly everyone! So far the results across three forums are:

Dell: 18
HP: 5
Toshiba: 5
Acer Aspire: 5
Sony: 4
Acer Travelmate: 1

I've been to Dell.ca and am looking at a 1720 with upgraded video card and the 9 cell battery for $1300. Where would I find Dell coupons? I'm not sure where to look.

If you can afford spending $2k get an ASUS....anything less I would get a custom one for your needs and not a brand laptop.
My last ASUS lasted 3 years 24/7

I love my Asus laptop.
Still going strong after a couple of years of being my main development platform.

Apple MacBook Pro. Hands down.

I know you said you wanted to stick with the MS side right now... but seriously, get your hands on a Mac Book Pro for two weeks... (you can return it if you dont like it) ... but you will keep it.

once you go mac, you never go back :2 cents:

Here's the thing Elli. People listing brands will not give you "the best".
Because laptops are high price items, most people will buy one, have a reasonable experience, and stick to that brand when they next upgrade.

With that in mind, you're not getting real feedback.
I've been fortunate enough to own and test a huge range of laptops, and here's my summary:

Dell: Lower price models have a very cheap feel. Paying more will finally get quality, however for that price, you have more selection in other brands.
The same holds true for HP and Acer.

Sony: Very good, very solid machines. the ultraportables are nothing less than great, but much pricier than they should be.

benq: if you can get your hands on one of these, they're well worth it. currently have one for 1/2 the price of a equiv dell, but with tv tuner, and double the ram.

asus: after owning two of these, it's my opinion [and you can see the same in this thread] - these machines are built incredibly strongly, and provide excellent performance - from the ultra portables upwards.

I go some odd places [as some of you might know] when I travel, and I've always got my camera and laptop in my backpack. so far, 1 dell has been destroyed, whereas my asus + benqs have survived water, sewers and dirt :)

MacBook Pro. Definitely.

Definitely get a macBook Pro.

Using BootCamp you can then wean yourself off of Windows with a triple boot OSX/WinXP/Vista machine

You can run MS on any new Mac now but you will not want to once you get used to the Mac OS. You may even just throwin your pc desktop away or give it away.

Mitch