Laptops?

[MattR]

Is there any good brands that actually work and will continue to work? I just had a Dell ultra book that never worked from day 1. I refuse to pay a couple grand for an Apple since I use a laptop maybe once a month. Is asking if there is such a thing as a good Microsoft computer an oxymoron?

[Circuits]

Surface/Surface Pro are pretty damn nice, and almost as pricey as an Apple. Other than that, no - less expensive laptops that last can happen, but they're luck of the draw, not quality by design.

[Zundfolge]

People often ignore Asus because its seen as a "discount" brand ... but every Asus machine I've ever had over the years has worked well for many years.

[68Charger]

Asus has really improved, wife has one that's great.

I have 2 HPs from work with no issues other than hdd- and there's no avoiding that the way I use them. (For work, on almost all the time)

[BushMasterBoy]

Dell Precision M4500 or a Dell Precision M4600 work stations. I have both models. Refurbished by Dell Financial and bought on Ebay for slightly over $400. I never buy the Dell consumer products anymore. Prices maybe cheaper now...

[Mazin]

Acer

[th3w01f]

I've recently had a few people on my team pay out of pocket for Surface Books and they love them, combination laptop and tablet.

We give people new Macbook Pro's or Lenovos and they're still choosing to use their own money for a surfacebook so there must be something there.

[kwando]

Asus!

Mine has dropped on concrete from waste level, I've slammed it closed in rage and it won't die. With a SSD it boots in 10-15 seconds

[ruthabagah]

Even a used mac is better than a new pc.... whatever pc you get will still support the same shitty microsoft OS. Get a mac, never look back.

[blacklabel]

Stay away from HP. Their batteries die 366 days after purchase.

[HoneyBadger]

Definitely stay away from HP. I've had two HP laptops and they were both total shit.

There is something to be said for spending money on a laptop. The laptop I use for travel and about twice a week for surfing is a 9 year old Fujitsu Lifebook 4220 (convertible to a tablet) that was $2200 when new, and still works fantastically. Only upgrade I did was putting in a SSD about 3 years ago. Every Apple laptop I've had or used has lasted a long time without issues, but again.. not cheap.

[jmg8550]

The two Apple products (iPhone 4s, iPad) I've owned were shit. So based on that, I'm an Android/PC user and never looking back.

Toshiba, Asus, and some of the older Dell laptops work very well.

[Zundfolge]

iPads really are crap ... my mom goes through them like crazy.

Macbooks are good quality laptops but even though I think OSX is a superior OS to Windows, its not enough superior to justify the cost (especially if you're already used to a Windows environment and already own programs you'd have to re-buy). You'd be better off buying a Windows laptop and "Hackintosh-ing" it (or just run Linux) if you just can't stand Windows.

And as for the superiority of OSX ... Apple keeps pushing it closer and closer to iOS all the time which frankly sucks. To be fair Windows is doing the same thing (although with Windows 10 they've taken a step back toward what I think was their best OS, Windows 7).

If I didn't have software I need for work (I'm looking at you Adobe) I'd dump both and run Ubuntu or Linux Mint and be done with it.


Of course all that said I'm typing this on a Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 running Windows 8.1 and I'm pretty happy with it.

[ColoradoTJ]

I had the same dilemma last year. We ponied up and went with a MacBook Pro. Then I had to update our internet service. There was no way in hell DSL was going to even run 3 apple products and 3 androids.

We we made the right choice for us.

One other thing, compare apples to apples when pricing devices. Go price anything other than a Mac with a solid state hard drive. The playing field gets a lot closer.

[clublights]

One other thing, compare apples to apples when pricing devices. Go price anything other than a Mac with a solid state hard drive. The playing field gets a lot closer.
And thunderbolt and a high res screen and a good gfx card ... and and and ....

[clublights]

iPads really are crap ... my mom goes through them like crazy.


What the heck is she doing to them ? I've never seen a broken iPad like honestly I've had mine for 2 years no issues and I've dropped it ( in and out of the case on concrete ) a few times nothing other then some dings in the frame .

Boss has a 4 year old one that still works fine

[clublights]

Every Apple laptop I've had or used has lasted a long time without issues, but again.. not cheap.

We still have a g4 Titanium power book rung around the shop it works fine other then it is god awful slow ( was probably slow back when it was new too but it was fast then LOL ) it's bout 03 vintage ... that is damn old for a laptop only thing we have done is new batteries once or twice I think .

[Zundfolge]

What the heck is she doing to them ?

She's never dropped hers but they just stop taking a charge after about a year (she's on her third one). Or they just stop functioning for no reason. Worst thing she does is let the cat play some game with fish on it, but she has a screen protector so they don't seem to get scratched up.

[ColoradoTJ]

Only thing I can come up with is your mom is draining the battery and doing full cycle charge. My kids do that and it is a battery killer.

[MattR]

I went and looked at Best Buy today to compare the Macs to PC and I just don't get it. They seem thin and flimsy to me. They don't have much for memory or ram and then you have to buy an external cd drive. My buddy at the computer shop says I need to spend $800 or more to get something good that will last in a PC.

[lex137]

+1 for asus I use to buy expensive laptops, but really I was only using for email, web browsing, this site, and porn... No need for an expensive laptop to do that.

[ColoradoTJ]

+1 for asus I use to buy expensive laptops, but really I was only using for email, web browsing, this site, and porn... No need for an expensive laptop to do that.

Have you ever watched porn on a Retna Screen? Missing. Out.

[cstone]

Used to be $200 is the most I would spend on a computer, but that was when we had desktops. Now the most I will spend is $300 because everyone wants a laptop.

I generally look for Dell and Lenovo as they are simple to work on and easy to find AC adapters. Hard drives and RAM are simple upgrades. I usually end up with i5 processors and don't care much about battery life as most of the laptops end up being plugged in somewhere and sitting on the user's lap.

Computers are commodities. Everyone in the family has USB thumbdrives for their data and 98% of their computer use is on the Internet.

I do have a +10 year old Mac G4 Powerbook up in the bedroom running OSX. That thing is heavy and slow, but makes a nice check weather, news, email, stocks in the morning machine. When it dies, I will put one of my 5+ year old refurbished laptops up there.

When they die, I strip the hard drives, optical drive, and RAM out of them and they go in the garbage. Hard drives get wiped and if large enough get used to store long term data backups (plug in, load data, unplug, put on shelf). I need to get rid of some of the old sticks of RAM as some are too small in capacity and no longer fit in any machines I have. Sometimes when an optical drive goes bad on a working machine, I can swap in one of the older ones I have sitting around. They don't get used much anymore.

I have gotten rid of a lot of old stuff, but there is probably a lot more I should get rid of.

[blacklabel]

Don't forget to look at a Chromebook if it meets your needs. I love my Toshiba Chromebook 2.

[Honey Badger282.8]

I spent $2500 on a MacBook Pro back in 2007 and got 7 years of everyday usage before I retired it to be used as a home media server running Plex. Got another year out of it before the hard drive finally crashed. A simple formatting would have fixed it but I opted to replace it with a 1TB hybrid drive for $100. The damn thing is still going strong. In the beginning of 2014 I got a new MacBook Pro Retina with the discrete graphics card for about $2500 and I fully expect to get at least 7 years of use out of it.

[Gman]

I've had pretty good luck with HPs. I have an HP Elitebook 2530p that I bought refurbished from Newegg back in 2008 that runs 24x7. I did have to replace the little 1.8" HDD after 5 years. Went the SSD route and it's better than it was new. I like what I'm seeing from HP Inc. now that the PC side of the business spun off from HP Enterprise.

Surface Pros and the Surface Book are buggy. Macbook Pro's are nice (I own one), but extremely expensive when you load them up (can get mobile professional workstation class systems for less). Dells were being made on the cheap while the company was public, but they're improving now that they're private again. I don't have much experience with the ASUS and Acer other than some older netbooks.

I hated Windows 8/8.1 and could tell it was likely to be the next Vista. Migrated most of my personal systems From Windows 7 to Windows 10 and am enjoying using it.

If you decide to go the Apple route, you could Bootcamp the system with Windows or run Windows as a virtual machine on Parallels or VMware Fusion.

[68Charger]

I will say there are classes of laptops in the same manufacturer... HP consumer stuff is mediocre at best... My oldest daughter has one.

Their business class is good stuff, but pricey.. I've got an elitebook 8440p I put through hell, and it's my primary laptop right now, because my elitebook 840 has had a hdd failure... The 8440p is a little slow, but functional


Had another 8440p that was upgraded to the 840 in a"PC refresh". That one literally hit pavement in a motorcycle incident, and kept ticking. It had a dented corner, but was in service for more than a year after that.

[Gman]

We had a lot of issues at work with the Intel 840 G1, particularly HDDs. Switched to the 745 G2 AMD platform with SSDs and they've been really solid. I hated the switch to the flat black finish. Looks like you were eating a bucket of KFC when you touched it - absolute fingerprint magnets. Fortunately the next gen has gone back to silver.

We had an Elitebook 6930p that was in a case runover in a rental car parking lot. The laptop had a subtle curve to it, but it still booted up and functioned. [Coffee]

[HoneyBadger]

I came back to this thread to add another thought that might be worthwhile, but it looks like blacklabel beat me to it: Depending on what you really need it for, a Chromebook might be in your best interest. It might help us if we had a better understanding of what you plan to use it for.

[wctriumph]

I have been using a Acer next to the cheapest model nearly daily for almost, I can't remember how many years. Cost me like $325 with Windows 7 included. No issues.

[Jim B]

Knock on wood, I've been happy with my Toshiba.

[TheGrey]

I've always had luck with Toshiba Satellites. I also check out Microcenter, to see what they have on sale and/or refurbished.

[clublights]

I spent $2500 on a MacBook Pro back in 2007 and got 7 years of everyday usage before I retired it to be used as a home media server running Plex. Got another year out of it before the hard drive finally crashed. A simple formatting would have fixed it but I opted to replace it with a 1TB hybrid drive for $100. The damn thing is still going strong. In the beginning of 2014 I got a new MacBook Pro Retina with the discrete graphics card for about $2500 and I fully expect to get at least 7 years of use out of it.

your lucky on the 07's.....

Notorious for the GFx crd going ... I've had one got repaired under the extended repair program.... died again last year.... not all it's fault ( bosses daughter was using it .. left it on her bed running so it got nice and toasty ..... )

I'm happy with my Mid 2012 retina

see no need to replace it yet!

I just replaced my work laptop( well windows is required to run the controllers I use.. and apple don't make a touch screen...) with a Lenovo Edge 2 ( i7 8gb geforce 940m ) open box from Worst... I mean.. Best Buy for 850... I dunno why Lenovo ham strings such a high spec machine with a 5400rpm Hdd but they did .. thing was taking upwards of 30-60 seconds to fully boot. Dumped that out for an SSD ( 250GB) now it boots in less then 10 .

The Sony Viao I was running before was just fine but I wanted the "flip" style and a hotter gfx card.

[Bailey Guns]

I know some of you have mentioned tablets... If you're going to use it very infrequently you might consider that route. I bought one of the Kindle Fire 8.9s and use it like a laptop. Not great if you need to do business type work...but if you're surfing, emailing, FBing, that sort of thing, they're perfect. They seem (to me, anyway) to have a very stable OS and I never have issues with it that requires a reboot or whatever. The new Fire 10 has the capability of using SD cards, too. They're very fast, durable, much more portable than a laptop, have fantastic screen resolutions and inexpensive. The new 10 is on special right now for $179 (base model). I may just upgrade from the 8.9 HDX.

I have the 8.9 right now. No complaints at all with the exception it doesn't have SD capability. But, the 8.9 HDX has 4G capability...the 10 doesn't. Not important to me but might be for some people.

Unless I need it for some sort of business work I'll never buy another laptop.

[O2HeN2]

...I use a laptop maybe once a month.
So many replies before HoneyBadger asked the really important question: What are you gong to use it for?

O2

[Alpha2]

I've had a lot of trouble with HP laptops where the text input jumps from where I am typing to the location where the cursor was previously. Suddenly you're typing somewhere in the previous text. Extremely annoying. I had to turn off the touch-pad completely to prevent this happening. I use a mouse exclusively, so not a big deal for me. This occurred on the last two HP machines.
My work laptop is a Lenovo, and batteries are really sketchy. My most recent one had to have the battery replaced when it was brand new!
I've beat the heck out of my iPad2 for years with no problems.

[Gman]

I've had a lot of trouble with HP laptops where the text input jumps from where I am typing to the location where the cursor was previously. Suddenly you're typing somewhere in the previous text. Extremely annoying. I had to turn off the touch-pad completely to prevent this happening.
You should be able to adjust the 'palm check' settings if your typing style encroaches on the touchpad.

[Irving]

I've had a lot of trouble with HP laptops where the text input jumps from where I am typing to the location where the cursor was previously. Suddenly you're typing somewhere in the previous text. Extremely annoying. I had to turn off the touch-pad completely to prevent this happening. I use a mouse exclusively, so not a big deal for me. This occurred on the last two HP machines.
My work laptop is a Lenovo, and batteries are really sketchy. My most recent one had to have the battery replaced when it was brand new!
I've beat the heck out of my iPad2 for years with no problems.

I had this problem with my Lenovo for work. Since it was a work machine, we could not adjust any settings. I had to tape a double strip of paper over the pad to reduce sensitivity enough for it to be usable.

[Ah Pook]

I always enjoy computer threads, kinda like caliber debates.

I've used both and like Mac products better. That said, how much computer do you need? Some of the iPads are in the $300-$500 range. I'd do a jail break and call it good.

Used an iPad 2 as a register daily for several years. Surfed the web and did vids with no problems. Sold it with the biz and, as far as I know, it's still going.

[Aloha_Shooter]

I used to build my own PCs, stopped when I got tired of Windows Vista and converted over to Macs. The Asus whitebooks were very well built, excellent value for the money and gave me excellent performance for travel and gaming. Best bet IMO for a solidly built laptop that will just keep going would be a used MacBook Pro from someone who constantly has to have the very latest model.

[HoneyBadger]

And we still don't know what MattR wants a laptop for. MattR, are you there? :)

Edit: Thanks for fixing it, J!