ebackhus

This thread will allow you all to see what us TSF staff like and don't like in the world of portable computing.

__________________


-----------------------------
There are no dumb questions, unless a customer is asking them.

Help in the fight against cancer and other serious illnesses.

ebackhus

OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS THREAD ARE NOT THOSE OF www.techsupportforum.com, ITS HOST, ADVERTISERS, OR OTHER AFFILIATES.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

My personal picks...

IBM
Acer
Panasonic (ToughBook series)

Brands you couldn't pay me to buy...

HP
Compaq
Sony
Gateway
Dell

Somewhere in the middle...

Apple
Toshiba


Now for the reasons!

I chose IBM, Acer, and Panasonic as my top picks because I like three things in laptops: Quality/Speed, price, and durability. Those three brands excel in all three categories.

IBM's laptop line (www.lenovo.com) has been strong since the early days of portable computing and has kept up with that strong tradition. The T series are my personal favorites.

Acer (global.acer.com) makes great products at great prices. I've never had an Acer product crap out on me and I love the flexibility they offer. There's a system from them for virtually every person and every budget.

Panasonic's (www.panasonic.com) ToughBooks can literally stop a bullet. They fill the durability area in completely by being ultra durable and resilient in situations that would often destroy the average notebook. You pay a bit more for that, but the first time that durability saves the notebook you'll be glad you spent the extra bit.

HP/Compaq has never been a brand I liked. HP makes great printers but garbage computers. They're heavier than a wheelbarrow full of bricks and about as powerful. Their laptops are as equally unimpressive.

Sony is a big name in electronics but they can't make a computer to save their lives! Tall and hard to work with, Sony tends to use proprietary designs that can make upgrading a true nightmare.

Gateway used to make great machines in their early days but really dropped the ball in the late 90's with underpowered and underperforming machines. I'd avoid it unless it was given to you free.

Dell... How I despise thee. I have nothing good to say about them. All the Dells we have here at work have all DIED and have all had major repair work done to bring them back to operating condition. Many cannot be upgraded and the company itself is very explusive about what goes inside the box offering no real choice. Beware their cheap offerings, you really do get what you pay for.

Apple used to be a good company, then they went with Intel. They said it was for performance but as anyone knows, Intel's offering as of late aren't all performance. I was saving up to get one but I think I'll blow that cash on something else.

Toshiba used to make great machines up until the last few years. If you can get an older model then you'll be good.

__________________


-----------------------------
There are no dumb questions, unless a customer is asking them.

Help in the fight against cancer and other serious illnesses.

Joefireline

IBM are Ok, but the prices on them are a bit to high.
I have a Acer laptop, I think it is great! It was at a great price too! It cost me just over £750.
I wouldn't go for a Panasonic, they are a bit too expensive for what you get, considering I don't throw my laptop accross the room!
I think you are being a bit harsh with HP/Compaq, but yes, they are quiet thick and you could get a much better spec from Acer for the same price, and it would be thinner!
Sony is a bit stupid! They are very over priced! Though they are very thin, but they don't have a great battery life, if you want any power!
Gateway, well I have never seen more than 1 for sell, the only Gateway laptop I have seen, is in comet! (Uk)
All I have ever heard about Dell, is that they are rubbish! They are over priced, and unreliable! And they don't give you a good enough range!
I am not sure on Apple...

__________________
- Joseph
LAPTOP: Acer Aspire 5512WMLi (Specification)

OPTIMIZE XP
BEFORE POSTING HJT LOG - POST HJT LOG >>HERE<<
If TSF has helped you, please help TSF: Please DONATE

dj913

I would probably go with a Panasonic or an Apple, maybe Acer although i havent seen or messed around with many. Im likeing apples more and more because they can dual boot now with the intels and i kinda like apple's OS although i havent done much with it though. I absolutely hate Dell's, we have carts of them at school and they suck. I have an HP right now and its on its 3 or 4th motherboard (luckily under best buy extended warrantee) it isnt that thick but is kinda hot cause it has a desktop processor.

Implosion

Hearing all this "dell is crap"-talk i couldnt help myself, had to write a post. Im typing from my new Dell Inspiron 9400 with intel dual core processor, ati radeon x1400, 1gb RAM. Only had one problem so far (not really a problem but sometimes the cord smells burnt and i dont feel very safe knowing it might catch flames someday ^^) other than that its all just load&go. I can understand that all of you "knowledgeble" guys might prefer other brands but dell is, in my humble opinion, a good choice for the average user as long as you know a little something about taking care of your computer (keeping it updated,take advantage of the firewall etc etc.) after all with so many complaints in the past dell shouldve learned something by now dont you think?

__________________
You are unique, just like everyone else

ebackhus

Learning from the past isn't something large companies do. If that were true then they'd get better components that DON'T fail repeatedly. Profit is king in this world and they're not going to spend more money to make a more decent machine.

__________________


-----------------------------
There are no dumb questions, unless a customer is asking them.

Help in the fight against cancer and other serious illnesses.

bry623

My HP Compaq nx9010 runs pretty good and I have had no probs with it. It is over 3 years old.

Sony Vaio has also been good to us.

__________________
Scarlet and Gray in L.A. 9/13/08

Nemesis02

Dell - I wouldn't say that they are total crap as I have had little problems with them for the past 4 years. It wasn't till around 2 months ago that my Dell actually died and for a 4 year old laptop that isn't really bad (i don't think). The only problem i've had on it was a card slot die on me. They mailed me a box to send to a repair center, and had it back within a week.

HP - My newest laptop is an HP Pavilion dv5000z. Has the AMD Turion 64 ML-40 chip along with 1GB of PC-3200. My only issue with this laptop so far is that they offered the NVidia GeForce Go 7400 for the dv5000t (Intel series laptops) and the ATI Radeon Xpress 200m for the dv5000z (AMD Series laptops). Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since they put an awsome graphics card with the Intel and a crappy one with the AMD. I've found a chart comparing all the graphic cards that have been made for the laptops over the years and the XPress 200m only did a few points better than my 4 year old 32mb NVidia GeForce 440 Go. This is the rankings of it, the GeForce 7400 Go was ranked about 3rd, the Xpress 200m was ranked about 50th and the GeForce 440 Go was about 53rd. Other than that, and hp hijacking 12 GB of my hard drive for their backup purposes (they didn't include any CDs what-so-ever except maybe the AOL cd), I'm rather happy with my HP product. Makes a good MediaCenter.

jnob

In all my 18 years of computing experience I have never seen any laptop, desktop, or otherwise from any prebuilt company fail for reasons other than user abuse/neglect or even more likely tech abuse/neglect when simple problem arise. No computer is going to be perfect forever, but with proper care and a knowledgable tech, it's unlikely any components (minus their cd/dvd roms) from brands like HP, Dell, Compaq, Toshiba, Sony, panasonic, will fail for no reason.

However all that being said I am referring largley to 486, Pentium, pII and PIII, class computers as I have very little experience with P4 brand name computers. We do use Dells at school and while they are not as nice as my home built they work and not too bad.

__________________
Everest
Memtest86

Real_Bullet

I would agree with everything said.

HP/Compaq i dealt with those plenty times, worse CPU's you can buy at the price you pay for em, you give me one, fine i use it, dont expect me to buy one though.

Dell/Gateway..........$500+ for these only for the name, you can build something just as similiar and exact for $200 and it might even be better.

Sony.... I deal with Console Gaming to, Playstation.........ehhhh yeah well I ended up with a PS2, sold it, but dont expect me to buy anything Sony related because all you doing is paying for the name label.

IBM/Acer/Panasonic............not bad, and you know they get the job done for what they are designed for and nothing more. I think IBM cpus outlast any other CPU you can name.

Apple................never messed with em much, so i dont know.

__________________
I can speak Chinese, PPHUBK'YU.

laboye

HP and Compaq's are hard to service and most models are cumbersome. They are great for the average home goober looking for a simple machine, but not worth the price or trouble.

Dells are simply bad. They may have excellent support, but their systems often use odd parts and cannot be expanded upon. Their laptops are OK, but I wouldn't recomment them. Watch their inexpensive PCs; you get what you pay for...

Gateways are also marginal. They make some nice thinner machines, but again, it's not something I would recommend to someone looking for a machine.

Sony is another one. They use all proprietary parts and have extremely hard to service computers. As said, you are paying for that sparkling name.

IBMs are among my favorites. They are built sturdy, generally have few problems and have excellent support. While sometimes on the more expensive side, their computers come with excellent hardware and run smoothly upon first use.

Acers are ecellent machines for the price, though I have heard of a lot of display and cooling (overheating) problems, they work well for the price when taken care of.

Panasonics (Toughbook) are very nice, but very costly. They can withstand a lot and work smoothly. Too much for me to buy, but if someone needs a machine to frisbee or drop, this is the one.

Apples are apples. I personally cant stand them, but that's my opinion. Ever since they declined that financial offer, they have been the over-expensive minority of the market. They persist in managing their hardware and OS. Despite that, they still boast better computers and strive to be at the top of the market. They fail because the majority of the market is directed towards IBM-based PCs. People must buy PCs for that reason. Because of that, more software is made for that majority. I personally think Apple will never win. Their intentional encryption of music on their iPods forces you to use their iTunes software as opposed to many other MP3 players that use a simple Mass Storage driver and read music as it is. I do like some of their other software selections such as GarageBand.

Sorry for that rant...

__________________
Repair Windows XP Guide --- Resolutions
Crazy Computer that I'm saving up for::Antec P180 Case;PC Pwr&Cooling 1kW Quad SLI PSU;Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe;Intel Core2 XE X6800;Corsair TWIN2XP2048 2GB PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM;2xAsus GeForce 7950 GX2;BFG PhysX Accel.;IBM DVD-RAM/Plextor DVD±RW;Seagate 750GB HD 7200RPM;WDX 150GB 10000RPM;Vigor Monsoon TEC Cooler

TheMatt

My Acer is good and has only had one real problem, overheating, which I solved with a cooling pad. They are also very upgradible.

I would defintley agree with laybot on the Apples. Compatibility is their major issue. Apple also can't write software for windows for anything. Thats why so many people have had trouble with the iTunes software, it just wasn't meant for windows.

IBM laptops have also been very sturdy in my experience.

__________________

- Matt M - KB1OSC - Folding@Home 85015

If TSF has helped you, please consider donating.

If I have stopped responding to a thread, feel
free to send me a PM with a link to the thread.

It is advisable to subscribe to threads so you will
receive updates when replies are posted. You can
subscribe to threads from the "Thread Tools" Menu.

»Memtest86 »Prime95 »UBCD »SpeedFan »NHC Personal
»Everest »Sandra »PC Wizard »RivaTuner »ATi Tool

Click here for Useful Articles and Guides

Ralck

My family has two Toshiba laptops- one is my sister's, and one is my mom's. Both are pretty bad. I also don't like how much crap comes preloaded onto Toshiba laptops; way more than any other laptop I've found.

As far as Sony, I'm sad to see that they are getting such a bad wrap here! I have a Sony laptop and I can't be any happier! Now, I know older Sony models were overpriced junk, but they have changed a lot. First of all, they are made by Quanta; which is considered the best ODM laptop manufacturer out there. Quanta also makes IBM, btw, which though I agree are overpriced as well, but you can't deny they are good as far as quality of hardware and cooling and such. Now, I agree that Sony is still overpriced, but if you really want a laptop that you can take on trips and really be hard on, you should spend the extra money and go with a Sony or IBM. I was able to get around the price though by buying through Sony's refurb system (the refurb section on SonyStyle.com to be exact). Okay, now on to the power/performance issues about Sony. I have the S series notebook with the Pentium M 2GHz and the 9700m. I don't know how much more power you want? And battery life? I get about 6 hours on the regular battery!
Honestly, this thing takes a beating going back and forth every day to class with me.
My cat did try to stick half of his hair into it though, which was kind of annoying, but nothing a can of air can't fix. I think my biggest problem with the laptop is that it's too stylish, and people think I bought it because of it's looks rather than it's performance!

Anyway, enough... my picks for good brands are Sony and IBM. I would suggest to stay away from Toshiba and Dell as there are better quality in the same price range. I've also heard a few horror stories about Averatec, though I haven't had any good experience with them.
Just my two cents.

__________________


Power Supply Info Everyone Should Read!
How to Post Your System Specs

laboye

Well, Averatec is a fairly new company thats only a couple years old. They will start advertising soon and plan to take a jump in the market. Their laptops are actually quite good. Their thinner models are excellent.

Toshiba's are excellent without their bloddy preloads...
Dell is evil...
IBM is excellent (pricey)
Sony is slightly less evil. They are good machines as far as operating goes, but they use too many proprietary parts. That is, parts only available specially from Sony. I had a huge problem with them on over 40 different model laptops, so they're on my blacklist...

__________________
Repair Windows XP Guide --- Resolutions
Crazy Computer that I'm saving up for::Antec P180 Case;PC Pwr&Cooling 1kW Quad SLI PSU;Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe;Intel Core2 XE X6800;Corsair TWIN2XP2048 2GB PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM;2xAsus GeForce 7950 GX2;BFG PhysX Accel.;IBM DVD-RAM/Plextor DVD±RW;Seagate 750GB HD 7200RPM;WDX 150GB 10000RPM;Vigor Monsoon TEC Cooler

TheMatt

I would like to point out a brand not so often mentioned - Alienware. They make the worst computers, almost as bad as dells. The video cards are good, but all the other hardware is horrible.

They're support is even