I’m one of those fans. I have three Vaios that can do packet decodes on 100 gig sniffer captures without slowing down other programs. They all have 64 bit Win7, 8 gigs of RAM and 128GB SSHDs. Previous Vaios I’ve had have been very solid too.
Asus laptops are fantastic. They’re also very reasonably priced since Asus is not yet a brand-name company like Apple, Dell, and HP.
I wanted to vote for Lenovo, but, in a massive misclick, voted for Toshiba instead. Solid, inexpensive laptop.
Since you’re a Mac user at home, just get a MacBook and run Windows on it. Or dual boot and use it as a Mac when not at work. Or run Parallels or Fusion while at work and make people think it’s a Windows machine.
I will offer up a Sager - also under the name Clevo - a customized laptop that is solidly built and with components that will put all others to shame. I have one that I use for photography and I also like playing Flight Simulator games (X-Plane 9 and FSX) - awesome machine!
I have to warn people against running engineering software in a virtual machine environment (sorry for the sidetrack here), but in my experience, the OpenGL and directx implementations in vas make them simply unacceptable, so no to parallels.
I’ve brought home legal (corporate) versions of my company’s CAD software and it runs quite well. Of course my Mac is a vastly better machine than the standard-issue Dells. I mean 3D CAD like RobCAD or FactoryCAD that have a lot of kinematics.
And remember, it’s not DirectX or OpenGL that’s being emulated, it’s access to the video card, and modern machines/software do that well.
And besides, it’s video games that are the real challenge! 
I would love to, and had that setup at my last job. However, it’s not an option here.
I see HP isn’t getting very good marks. That sucks. I pound away daily on my HP 48G that I have had for… wow, 15 years!
Given the poll results, I think I’ll look further at the Lenovos. I’ll also take a look at Asus.
We go with Toshiba in our family. I have a fairly old Vista one, and my really old Win98 one still works after I replaced the disk, though it is slow. My daughter’s held up despite a lot of punishment in college. Never a real problem with any of them, unlike the Compaq crap I owned before.
I’ve owned laptops by Sony VAIO, HP, and IBM/Lenovo (2).
IBM/Lenovo best by far.
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The problem with many of the Asus and Sager/Clevo laptops is that the best screen resolution they offer is 1366x768, even in the 15" size. My problem with Asus is that they offer so many different laptops with names like U16J and U16F that there’s no way I can go through all of them to figure out which one might have a proper high res screen.
Anyway, if you’re going to stick with PC, I recommend the Lenovo Thinkpad or Dell Latitude machines. Don’t consider other lines from those two companies. Those are their “business” machines, and seem to be better than the consumer class systems. Since Lenovo took over the Thinkpad years ago, I think their quality has declined, while at the same time the quality of Dell’s Latitudes has been increasing. I think they’re about on parity now.
I just bought two Lenovo Thinkpad T420s systems, and I’m reasonably impressed with them. They feel pretty solid, though the plastic doesn’t have the high quality feel the IBM Thinkpads used to have. They’re nice and light for 14" machines, and have 1440x900 screens, which is about the best that can be found in the 14" size. The two I bought have the Intel graphics, but I’m pretty sure they can be had with nVidia graphics, which is probably necessary for AutoCad. I’ve not seen the T520 (the 15" model).
I have a Dell Latitude E6510 and I like it. The successor, the E6520 is out, which mostly adds a faster nVidia chip. For 15" it isn’t too clunky, and it is nice and solid despite it’s size. The 1920x1080 screen is fantastic. I can fit tons of windows on it. The 15" size isn’t wasted either, as it has lots of ports and slots in what could be wasted space.
All of these computers where in the $1200 price range. Aftermarket 4GB SO-DIMMs are about $25, so there’s no point in running less than 8GB on any laptop.
Buy a Mac, install Windows through Boot Camp. Done.
Lately trying to find something that competes with Apple’s hardware in either quality or price is an exercise in frustration.
Sleel, that article is talking about the Macbook Air and other ultra-portable laptops, which don’t meet sparky’s needs. The Air is limited to a 13" screen, not the 15-17 inches sparky! wants. Plus, it maxes out at 4gb ram and doesn’t have a graphics card. The Air is a very nice machine, for an ultra-portable, but spec-wise, it’s not particularly powerful - and it’s not at all hard to find cheaper, larger, and beefier Windows machines.
He’s already said he would like to get a Mac, but cannot at his workplace. Also, thus far it has been impossible for the competitors to match Apple in price or quality for the Ultraportables. The Mac Air is untouchable - both in quality and price. But, in standard laptops other companies make stuff that is well made and well regarded.
I’ve run through 3 Thinkpads over 10 years or so. I use the hell out of them. Upwards of 8 hours a day and I haven’t had many problems. And, any problems I do end up having are 4 years after I bought each machine. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend a Lenovo to whoever asks. Whenever I get the question I start with the Mac laptops and in the same breath bring up the Thinkpads. In my mind they are 1, 2 as the best you can get.
Who has the absolute best screen?
The ThinkPad X220 can be configured with an IPS display. It’s hard to beat that in terms of view angle, contrast, color depth and color accuracy.
I really wanted a Macbook air, but the d-bag at the Future Shop told me that it would be impossible to get windows 7 on an air, because the hard drive wasn’t big enough. It appears I was lied to. :mad:
My 13.3" Sony Vaio S series beats the 13" Macbook pro on specs, and was cheaper and feels lighter for my money. It was still $999, though, because apparently all notebooks that aren’t quite cheap netbooks or cheap laptops are ridiculously priced.
Not a big Toshiba fan. Owned several. Reliability is middling and customer support is (in my experience) is not all that well implemented.
I’ve owned more HPs than anything else. HP’s are generally solid machines with good reliability, but they are not built to be easily serviced. Disassembling one to replace a keyboard or screen is always an adventure. Given HP’s questionable commitment to making PCs at present, I’m not sure I’d chose HP again unless the price was spectacular.
I’ve owned a few Lenovos and they were among the best built notebooks I’ve ever used. If I had to choose a Windows notebook I’d probably choose Lenovo.
RE Sony’s they are decent machines, but the are not discounted all that often and don’t really offer compelling bang for the buck vs the other brands. They used to have better onboard audio video IO options than the competition, but I have not noticed this in their latest machines.