What laptop would YOU buy?
 

Not just for tuning either...

I need to replace this one (Dell Inspiron 5100) with something faster, bigger HD, that doesn't overheat and that can run more than 10 minutes on a charge.

It's easy to shop on paper, but hell if I know about the little niggling problems that may exist in some comps. No statistic would have told me that my current computer would overheat, for instance.

Is there a brand to avoid? One that's generally sure-fire? Should I be wary of refurbished comps available on overstock.com and similar sites?

While good for value, I would avoid any of the lesser brands. Ever one of them I have used has been shit. Poor layout, weird key feel, just overall cheap feeling. Though I HATE buying pre builts, you have no choice in laptops. I have had good experience with Dell laptops, but have limited laptop experience. My newest one was my Samsung netbook, so not really a laptop. My only full size is like 4 years old. My mom is using one of Dell's top of the line XPS and it seems to be really nice.

nobody cares and will ever follow this advice but:

i have a fujitsu laptop/tablet that is now approaching 4 years old. it was expensive and worth every penny. it is absolutely, positively the most robust and solid laptop I've ever used. in terms of awesomeness (not necessarily speed) it rates higher than my fiancee's year old HP dv2700, my year old work IBM/Lenovo T61p, any dell I've used (inspirons, precisions, even the new one a coworker got that's had the service guy out 3+ times).

when this thing finally craps out, I will probably shell out the big bucks for its grandson.

all it's needed since new is a new battery (3 years is about it for lithium anyway).

hell, only in the last year has the paint on the trackpad buttons started wearing thin.

I think this is the current version of what I have:
FUJITSU: Fujitsu America - LifeBook T4410 Notebook

and to be honest, I'm a little jealous of the multi-touch support.

I can believe it. Fujitsu makes some pretty good products, the ones I have used anyway.

THINKPAD! THINKPAD THINKPAD THINKPAD THINKPAD!!

Seriously. I love them. They're ugly, heavy bricks, but for god sake it'll last forever. I had one. I dropped it down the stairs. While it was on. And it didn't even freeze. No joke, there were 23 stairs.

You can abuse it and it'll last forever.

+1 for thinkpad. I love my oldass thinkpad 600. I use to to tune the AEM EMS. horray for built in serial ports too.

But for my subaru I had to upgrade to something with winXP. I bought one of these dell 10v netbooks for $250. Works great, holds a charge to work and back (over 2 hours) and 30-45 mins of "tuning" during lunch. Actually the charge is about 3 hours on the standard sized battery using the wireless too.

Lenovo or Dell. I've seen a lot of hardware problems with a multitude of work computers and my Dells have been solid, stay away from gateway and Toshiba like the plague. I buy computers for work in multiples of 10 and the Dells have been solid, the Toshiba and Gateway seemed to fail in group.

I wouldn't buy another Gateway product if you threatened to smash my balls with a hammer. Well, maybe I would in that case, but they REALLY do suck that bad. Though my last one was WAY back when they were big in the late 90's I guess it was. If those were any indications, horse shit.

I've got 4 identical Dell notebooks, all p4 mobile based with serial ports.. Use 2 of them on a daily basis, they're rock solid awesome. The other notebook I use is a Toshiba Satellite, which is honestly a piece of shit. If it wasn't free (broken when I got it..) I'd NEVER buy one of these...

This is what I have

http://www.gadget.ca/images/TLX_chromalusion_hi.jpg

Falcon Northwest: Fragbook

i'd sooner piss on my thinkpad than use it for computing. it really is a rickety piece of slapped-together plastic--and this is a high end machine.

plus

and most importantly

the control key is not in the lower left hand corner. you'll curse it every time you try to change or open or close tabs in firefox, I tell you what.

I think we can all agree that toshiba is simply a big paperweight preloaded with bloatware that isn't worth it's weight in feces.

Toshiba = Shit.
Dell I will never buy anything from them after they eff'd me in the a so bad.


I now have a Lenova IdeaPad. Thing is amazing, although true story with the ctrl key. There is a function key there instead and I fail at ctrl+___ on just about everything the first time.

Other than that i have been using it to tune since I got it, gets dirty, banged around, takes a lot of abuse and has been holding up great.

I have and will always buy Asus laptops. They make the best of the best.

Falcon Northwest

/thread

Dell Studio 15

Zero problems in the last 2 years.

Hold on for about 6 mo until the i7 chipset laptops come down into the $700 range. Do not confuse the i7 with the i3 or i5.

I'll give this a qualified +1...

1) I've heard nothing but good stuff about Lenovo.

2) My Dell Latitude D630 work laptop is fucking amazing. It's tough - I've dropped it a few times with no ill effect. It never crashes - but that's probably the clean copy of Windoze XP Pro it came with. The battery lasts forever - with the brightness turned down to a reasonable level, I can work on this thing for 4-5 hours before it dies. It's plenty fast... etc, etc, etc... In other words, I can't complain.

3) Here's my qualification: My Dell Inspiron personal laptop is a complete piece of shit. The battery is crap - it never lasted more than an hour even when brand new, and now it lasts about 37 seconds before sudden death. It gave me the Blue Screen Of Death on a regular basis until I wiped it and put my own fresh copy of XP Pro on it. The OEM hard drive crapped the bed and left me high and dry, without provocation. I shut it down on a Friday night, then tried to restart it the next morning without success. After swapping in a spare drive, I determined that the problem was with the OEM unit. All of this shit happened within the first 1.5 years. Right now, that POS is sitting under my guest bathroom sink, holding down a stack of Barely Legal mags.

To sum up...
Lenovo = Yes
Dell Business = Yes
Dell HomeGay = No

The wife just got a new ASUS for work - slim as, light as, and looks the goods - it's what I'll be getting next.

Agree about DELL Inspiron - I fucking hate it.

ASus is supposed to have the lowest first year failure rates out of all the major brands, hp has the highest. Can't remember the rest of the list.

Being in the computer business I have purchased many laptops but have only had a few for my personal use. I bought a Toshiba in '95 and used it for about 7 years (was pretty slow compared to the new stuff) so I bought another Toshiba and used it for about 7 years (when it was a little slow for what I needed). About a year ago I saw a deal for another Toshiba for $350 (17" screen) on one of those "Walmart get here at 12:01 midnight only 4 per store" and bought it. I remapped the keyboard because I like my DEL key on the right side of the space bar. That and an actual volume knob on the front of the machine are the only two requirements I have. So, a Toshiba laptop (with volume knob) is the only thing I have/will use and it has been working for me for 15 years. Not one single problem ever. FWIW, I only use these things for email, web, movies, and MP3. I don't play games on them or transport them all over the place. It came with Vista (ugh) but I left it on there. It did have some bloat ware but I deleted all of it off. Runs like a champ and will last me (I hope) another 7 years. My wife's laptops (insert brand name here - she's had all of them EXCEPT a Toshiba) last about 2 years each. FWIW, the 7 year old laptop that I just replaced got reformatted and now sits in my garage. Still running (I use it about 2 days a week on average) and probably will be for years.


As I am typing this I can remember talking about the volume and keyboard remap in another thread.... .... Yep, you can see me asking about one in this thread from 2007. I guess I finally found what I was looking for (no thanks to you pricks who ignored my pleas for help <G>):
https://www.miataturbo.net/forum/t14152-2/#post187320


I've been trying to buy a replacement laptop for YEARS but I can't find one that meets my simple qualifications:

1) Must have s-video out
2) Must have a volume knob on the front
3) Must have the DEL key on the bottom of the keyboard, not the top
4) Must be a good deal

Yes, I know #3 can probably be fixed with some sort of keyboard mapping software. #2 is a must for me and it seems like it is a $300 option from what I have seen!

MacBook Pro + VMWare Fusion.

Dude, that's not enough description to give good advice. How big, how fast, what EXACTLY BE SPECIFIC does it have to do? Do you need an optical drive, built-in card reader, built-in bluetooth, battery size, screen-size, portablilty, weight, thickness, webcam???? Those are all significant modern features. CPU Speed and RAM are the two other ones.

Have you thought about the Operating System? Vista was shit when it came out, I've bought 2 computers since it was available and stayed with XP. I haven't used Windows7 yet, but most say it's vastly superior to Vista... kinda like Super-XP, which gets my vote.

Is this going to be a mostly on-the-go machine you use for internet access and basic processing of documents... or is it going to need to do video-editing and 3D gaming? Or will it be a home-machine you use 99% of the time as a desktop except when you go on vacation and then it never comes out of your briefcase?

If all it has to do is run Office, surf the web, and store your music... then you have 2 basic options...
1st: Buy the cheapest Dell you can that has the features you want.
2nd: Get a refurbished "model of the day" from Geeks/Ecost/TigerDirect/NewEgg/TechForLess/etc...

How about this one... if you're an "average" guy, and this computer doesn't do everything you need it to, then you're beyond my help.
Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810T-8929 Refurbished Notebook PC - Intel Core 2 Solo ULV SU3500 1.40GHz, 4GB DDR3, 320GB HDD, DVDRW, 15.6" LED, Vista Home Premium 64-bit at TigerDirect.com

I've been working at a computer techinical support line for the last 8 months. I typically take 120-150 calls a week on computer problems from all different models, so I've become quite familiar with them. That being said, I will never buy anything other than a HP/Compaq and I make fun of anyone I see with an Acer/Gateway/Emachines.

^What samnavy said. We need more specific details as to what you'll be using it for.

For instance, I've had a Sager NP8690 since Thanksgiving last year. It's got a core i7 processor and a GTX 280M video card. It will shred everything you throw at it and doesn't even get warm in your lap. The battery lasts longer than 10 minutes, but not more than an hour (only a 3 cell). This fits your specifications, but I highly doubt it's what you need :)

toshiba has been solid for me but gateway has been fail sauce.

im a nerd when it comes to this, but I am a desktop builder... but my laptop that I am more than happy with is the HP Dv7 Bronze series. I have the 20" widescreen, and pretty cheap to the great stuff that comes with these laptops

I bought a gateway FX before i deployed, it has been an amazing laptop, no issues whatsoever, great chipsets and graphics. I prefer to stay away from the huge companies - dell, hp, etc. I like the gateway so much, that it was my number one consideration when I bought my mummy a laptop this last christmas.

Last laptop I had was an alienware i bought in 2002. Saved every penny i earned for 3 months to buy that thing. At 2.8 ghz, it will still fire right up today and run office apps like a badass! The dated video card in it is the reason I bought the Gateway.

I prefer to build my own desktops

did you buy the fujitsu yet? if not, you're losing valuable time making love to it.


btw, memory and hard drives can always be upgraded later. integrated nonsense cannot.

Nobody is listening to how right I am.

Dell Latitude are pretty good. Utilitarian keyboard and appearance but they're durable and cheap. I've had them for work for about 8 years now. My current d830 has been bashed around in my unpadded backpack for a year and is just fine. Dell platinum support (paid for by my company) is also great. Next day onsite service FTW.

yeah the guy at work who bought a dell had the onsite service guy here 3 times in two weeks. within the first month of ownership. shortly after he sent the thing back in for more repairs.

FTW.

Sam - I left it vague mostly I don't know what I need. Size doesn't much matter, neither does screen size, battery size, etc. I don't need built-in cameras or crazy drives.

Basically I need it to get on the interwebs, save pictures and videos (so, hard disc space is a priority), and stream to my TV (somehow). It also needs to be a grand or under, which rules out y8s' Fujitsu, the MacBook, and all Falcons Northwest.

So that leaves getting another Dell, a slightly nicer refurb'd laptop, or the Toshiba my computer geek friend recommends.

ahaha. I know thats true for me.

go to sellout.woot.com and Woot : One Day, One Deal (SM) right now. one lenovo and one hp are up for sale.