at least compared to HP and Toshiba, the brands that have been tops in my considerations so far. I’ve also been looking at Lenovo. I like some of the Dell designs, like the Studio 15, but I don’t want to wait 2 weeks and they charge CA sales tax.
This will be my only computer. I haven’t decided between 14" or 15.6" display. My other rough specs are
$800 or less
i5-450M
4GB Ram
500 GB Hard Drive (7200 rpm preferred; 320 GB acceptable)
intel HD integrated graphics OK; additional discrete graphics a plus
average to above average speakers.
I’m going out for a couple of hours, but I’ll answer questions when I get back.
To what use are you going to put this laptop? Does it need to be rugged, for instance? Is it going to run any specialised software that we need to consider?
BTW You might want to reconsider the 7200 rpm drives - they can get very hot.
One machine that’s caught my attention is this 16" Toshiba Satellite A665-S6056 for $820 from Amazon. The features are all there, but a little lighter and cheaper would be nice as long as it doesn’t get flimsy.
By contrast, I’m also considering this 14" Lenovo IdeaPad V460 available for $650 plus tax this week at Fry’s. Don’t know about the sound quality, and it’s missing an HDMI port. I like the portability of the 14". I don’t work at coffee shops very much, but it could be nice since I hang out in places like that quite a bit.
I have an ASUS G51Vx notebook with an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 2.53 Ghz, 4GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, GeForce GTX 260M, and a 15.6" display, running 64-bit Windows 7. I use it as my primary computer and for a laptop it’s a damn fast machine and can keep up with the processor-intensive design software I run as well as games (I only really play SC2 on it though). You put your requirements as specs but didn’t really mention what you need those specs for - what kinds of software do you plan to run on it?
Also you say “average to above average speakers” but I’ve never seen a laptop whose built-in speakers were anything but shit. If speaker quality is a concern then you really need to invest in some external speakers.
Rigamarole, How is the build quality of your Asus? How long have you had it, and do you move it around much?
By average to above average sound quality, I mean compared to built in speakers in laptops. I often don’t sit at my desk, but when I do I have some excellent powered speakers.
My uses will be surfing, movies and videos, and some software development work. I haven’t really done games that much. I can’t think of any specialized software I might be running, but I’d like to overspec it a little since I tend to keep computers for at least 3 years. I will occasionally take the machine down to the coffee shop. If I take a job I’m looking at, I may be taking it back and forth to work fairly often. This would involve firmware development.
Re ranking for overall reliability based on my personal experiences with lots of notebooks IMO it would go something like this
1: MSI-Lenovo (Lenovo was IBM Thinkpad OEM)
2: Acer-HP-Dell
3: Asus - Toshiba
MY personal choices for notebooks re what I actually buy are HP and Lenovo. Lenovo for excellent build quality, and HP for pretty good build quality and unsurpassed bang for the buck re features and power if on sale. MSI has very good build quality, but it’s a lesser known brand overall if I flip it after 2-3 years I’m not going to get nearly as much for it as much for a used HP or Lenovo.
Parts are also more available for popular brands. I recently had to rebuild an HP DV-6000 series notebook. My daughter had destroyed the exterior chassis and screen hinges through sheer brutal handling, and I was able to find every part I needed on eBay for relatively low prices due the sheer volume of HP notebook parts available for rebuilds. If you need a CD drive, keyboard or replacement LCD screen etc. for an HP they can be had relatively cheaply online.
If I was in the market for a 15.4 primary notebook here is what I would buy (on sale till the 22nd) for $979.
I’ve had it since last December, so about 10 months. I carry it with me to work/school daily, so it’s constantly getting moved around and it’s held up well so far. Of course I’m careful with it but by nature of carrying it in a case on a shoulder-strap it sways to and fro and occasionally takes small bumps. It seems reasonably rugged if that’s what you’re asking.
I use an Asus - have been lugging it around with me for months without a proper case - and it’s held up fine. (I’ve been using it for only 5 months granted.) I’m really rough with my belongings. (You should see the state of the Vaio laptop I bought in 2006 - it looks like it’s been through WWII.)
IMO, we get the most returns on Acer machines, and customers have reported Acer’s call centre wanting to charge them for troubleshooting a 30 day old machine that was blatantly faulty. I won’t recommend them.
I got the SO an Acer Aspire since the old MSI was getting . . . old. Had to promptly send it back for repairs. But overall, I think Acer does have a good rep.
Acer build quality leaves a lot to be desired, especially with their Aspire line of mainstream laptops. They’re plasticky and easily warped and prone to losing keys and touchpad buttons (the ones with the four-way scrollpad are especially weak). Their screens are usually low-quality with very limited viewing angles.
That said, Acer almost always gives you the most bang for the buck in terms of performance… they’re cheap for what they offer, but not built to last. Which might not really matter in the computer age.
But that’s just my personal experience (ten or so years of it). You’ll probably find people who disagree. As an additional anecdote, though, I will note that in my time in Taiwan (home to Asus, Acer, and MSI), this attitude is held almost as a cultural norm – Asus is regarded as the premium brand and Acer the more affordable one.
Asus also manufactures things ranging from graphics cards to motherboards to other companies’ laptops. They’ve had contracts to build MacBooks for Apple and certain HP and Sony laptops, if that’s any indication of their quality. Wall Street Asia readers voted it “first place in two of the five categories readers are surveyed on: high-quality services and products, as well as innovation in responding to customers’ needs”. They also score higher than Acer on astro’s chart, above. One last thing to keep in mind is that because of their motherboard background, Asus has a big following of gamers – people who deal with computers day in and day out – and Asus understands that this technical audience is more discerning than the typical computer user and (IMO) this reflects in their products.
And yes, this post was biased, but I don’t work for any of 'em or anything… I prefer Dell Small Business, actually.
In the end, I decided on this Lenovo Y560, $750 from tigerdirect. Seems to have everything I wanted. I’ve had it a couple of days now. The keyboard is much bigger than my old Toshiba’s. My only complaints in the couple days I’ve had it are that the glossy finish shows readily shows fingerprints and the mouse buttons have unusually long travel and are rather mushy. I work around this latter problem by configuring the corners of the touchpad as tap zones for middle and right click.
Most of the faulty machines we’ve got in our To Be Sent Away For Repair section appear to be Compaq or HPs, FWIW. Acer is OK- not terrible, not great, but OK, and Asus are as good as Toshiba IMHO. MSI are still fairly new but I’m not aware of any quality problems with them and their hardware stuff is well-regarded.