I may be in the market for a new laptop, so I thought I’d pick some Doper brains about brand reliability and preferences.
For the purposes of this poll, I am only interested in hearing about the stated brands.
Any specific info about these brands is appreciated.
Thanks!
mmm
I’ve had three laptops and spent a lot of time helping people with theirs back when I worked in a IT helpdesk. I’ve never had a problem with my ASUS or Samsung laptops, nor were they well represented with the students I helped. That said, I used to get migraines whenever someone came into my laptop with a surly expression and a Lenovo laptop.
My current ASUS tablet, the ASUS eee pad Transformer, is pretty awesome. The only reason I have to complain is that when I connected the keyboard attachment (turning it into a netbook, effectively) is that it occasionally drops the Norwegian keyboard config I’ve imported and reverts to standard US english. On the other hand it has both a far superior lifetime to what I had hoped for, both on standby and in active mode, as well as a much better wifi card than I expected.
Lenovo Thinkpad. Tough, very long-lasting.
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I voted for the only two brands I’ve ever owned, both of which I trust: Acer and Lenovo. I’ve had several Lenovo Thinkpads through work, and the only one I’ve ever had to have replaced before it’s regularly scheduled end-of-life was destroyed in a car crash. Otherwise, they are durable, decently spec’d, and don’t come with a lot of junk, although I can only speak for the business-class systems.
I recently bought an 11" Acer AspireOne netbook for my own personal use (with an AMD C-50 APU) for under $300 and it’s been an impressive little system - for a sub-$300 system, it runs 64-bit Windows 7 Premium without a hitch, and can even play a lot of games smoothly, at reduced detail.
I have heard bad things about Dell and HP laptops, though - our company had standardized on these for a while, but everyone I know seemed to hate them, so we switched back to Lenovo.
The company I work for uses HP exclusively.
For the moment, anyway.
HP, Dell, and Gateway.
All have lasted 8+ years. Very nice machines.
I have two HP laptops and I’ve never had any problems. With the computers themselves, that is.
My interaction with HP “support”, however, has been frustrating to say the least. I only called them a couple of times, but the language barrier was almost too much to solve even the most minor issues. A misunderstanding about renewing an extended warranty ended up costing me $150. They were happy to take my money. but much less cooperative when they realized that my laptop wasn’t eligible for the extension. After that I got so many different excuses and they threw up so many hoops to jump through that I gave up on getting a refund.
I really think that notebook brands are nothing more than a reason why they could demand a certain price point. Though there really are lines by which they could work better as compared to others. Take lenovo for example. They have been known to be used as corporate laptops probably because of the characteristic of being basic and straight forward with what it does.
I have used Acer, HP, Sony and Dell already and had the same experience with it.
I will just vote for “Not Dell”.
I have a Compaq Presario that was made after they were taken over by HP. Each time I’ve had to reinstall windows (HD went cactus, so had to have it replaced) I’ve had to remove several GB worth of bloatware just to get windows back into a solid running position.
In short, FUCK HP. But then I don’t know how much bloatware others are putting onto their machines either, so who knows.
Both these mirror my experience with Thinkpads. I wouldn’t buy anything else.
There some very good deals on used corporate Thinkpads on ebay too, apparently laptops that have come from corporate leases.
I had good experience with Fujitsu Lifebook. I know many diehard Thinkpad fans.
I had great luck with my Asus; I’ve only had my Acer a few months, so jury’s still out, but it seems solid.
Every HP/Compaq I’ve owned has had multiple issues. One was so bad that it had to be completely replaced. I’d tolerate them for a desktop, where I can easily change out parts; not so a laptop, where I can’t.
I’ve had two IBM Thinkpads (now Lenovo), a Toshiba Satellite and I’m currently using an HP Pavillion Laptop. I’ve been very happy with all 4 of them. So much so then when someone asks me what laptop they should buy I usually tell them to plan to spend about $500-$600 and look at Toshibas and HPs.
I know a lot of people hate everything HP, but I’ve had an HP laptop, lots of HP computers and more printers then I can remember and never had any problems with any of them.
ETA, I wasn’t aware that Compaq was taken over by HP, but you couldn’t give me a Compaq. Now that’s a computer (both desktops and laptops) that I’ve seen nothing but problems with.
Two Fujitsu laptops, a Toshiba, and my current Sony Vaio.
I love my Sony. HATED my Toshiba. Also loved my Fujitsii.
Number one was the cost. Big name/big bucks. If you’re on a budget like half of America these days buy an Acer. I researched and compared options and reviews for months. When I bought my first one 3 years ago, I later found out that a company (who does data processing for the 911 database in certain states) (from a friend who works there) replaced all their computers with Acers around that same time. That says a lot. But also, the cd rom drive was bad when it arrived. That happens with all things electronic sometimes. The thing is that when I called Acer tech support they answered my questions. Talked me through the “figure out what’s causing it phase” and then sent me a new cd rom drive in 2 days. And followed up and helped talk me through installing it. I’ve bought two laptops since and “love” them.
Acer is Taiwan
Lenovo is PRC
let’s drag politics into it…
We use mostly Lenovo and Toshiba laptops at work. Seems to be mostly Lenovo lately. I’ve had two Toshibas and one Lenovo and all were good.
it ain’t listed, but Toughbook for me and they’re made in Japan. 
Toughbook is made by Panasonic.