Rekna

Hi,

Today I found out that my work wants to buy me a new laptop. I have traditionally purchased Dell laptops and have been fairly satisfied with them. Especially with their accident protection option. However, before buying a dell i'd like to hear others opinions on there favorite PC laptop brands.

desal75

I've had 2 HP's and some others in my family have them. They have always worked great for me. The dv6000 line is what I use now.

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Willravel

I've always enjoyed Macs, but that's just my cup of tea. I've also enjoyed Sony's Vaio line, so far as Windows machines.

Rekna

I won't buy a Mac. A mac would not work for my needs. If I was going to bother with a mac i'd just install linux and save a ton of money.

Willravel

What about Sony?

Lasereth

We use Dell laptops at work. The new D620 line is freaking cool. They have really good warranties on them as well.

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Baraka_Guru

If my next computer wasn't going to be one of the new Macbooks, I would probably go with Dell myself. I'm always worried about Sony's obsession with using exclusive technologies. I would only get a Sony laptop if I already had a bunch of other Sony products (i.e. digital camera/camcorder, mp3 player, cell phone, etc).

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shakran

They'll let you get anything? Get one of those toughbooks. Those things are damn near bulletproof.

Jetée

Yeah, it depends if this laptop/notebook of yours is on the company's dime or not.

It would be a good a idea to splurge and get a toughbook, then justify it by proving effeciency and security.

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Plaid13

one of those toughbooks would be a good idea. then come here and read through the tilted humor section while drinking. Then let us know how it handled getting OJ shot out your nose at it or something just as classy =).

If the toughbook isnt a realistic option get a dell. Never heard anyone say anything bad about a dell laptop.

snowy

That's what I'm using right now. I got it a couple of weeks ago. I've been very, very pleased so far.

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Rekna

I'll have to look into the tough book. The computer is on the companies dime and they said around $2500 for the price range though I might be able to squeeze a bit more out of them. One thing I don't want is a desktop replacement. Mobility is important to me but at the same time so is screen space and the keyboard. I use my laptop 8+ hours a day at work. I am a computer programmer so having good screen space is a must as I need to have multiple terminals open.

newtx

I prefer either Dell or Toshiba. I have had good service from both.

spindles

I am using my asus notebook right now. It is pretty good. Personally, it comes down to the machine having the bits you want in it - the brand really is not that important (as much as it used to be).

Like any PC purchase try to get it as highly speced as possible within your budget. If you are going to use it for game playing (as I do), make sure you get a decent graphics card (ATI or Nvidia) and personally, I'd always opt to max out the RAM over and above any of the other options.

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YaWhateva

one of my friends has an Acer, and its really sweet. I have a MacBook Pro and if I could do it over, I would have spent $1000 less on that machine for basically the same computer.

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tecoyah

I just bought an Acer for my Harpie......and am quite pleased. Its lighter and significantly faster than her 1yr old HP, has the DVD burner and AMD processor,a Gig or DDR and 120Gig HD for about $500 bucks. The widescreen is crystal clear and bright, Battery life is pretty good, and has a radeon vid card to boot. All in all its a damn good deal for what she does (shes a writer and webwhore), and I didn't need to break the piggy bank.

Lasereth

BTW please get 2 GB of ram on it if you can. Fuck the CPU, just make sure you cram as much ram as you can into it.

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healer

For me, a product is only as good as the support provided for it. Very recently, Sony has fallen short in a very big way in that regard. While I like the Vaio's coz they look pretty and are solid machines, Sony's support sucks.

I've been deploying quite a few Dell D620 and D820's in the past coupla weeks and they're a dream to work on. Everything you want in a mobile device, without costing you an arm and a leg.

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Rekna

Healer which do you like better the D6x0 or the D8x0. Right now those are the two i'm looking at.

Also to the comment on RAM. You can buy 2 GB for $87 on crucial right now so i'll probably go that route.

cyrnel

I've had good and bad luck with HPs. My last one is still serving well. But, their support isn't exactly winning awards. Expect minimum effort on problem solving and a hard push to extend the warranty, months before it runs out, "so the current problem is covered."

Dell gets bonus points for their warranty and call-center support. For just a bit extra they'll provide on-site and guaranteed US-based call centers. I can't yet say if the geography makes a real difference, but the option tipped the balance for a couple of my customers.

As for the toughbook, they are expensive. Way expensive. Unless I were exploring I'd probably buy two Dells for the money.

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Jinn

Dell has been amazing to be (great support), HP gets no complaints, and I haven't really heard anything bad about the Macbooks. For server hardware, I love Dell. We've got 15 rackmounts that've never failed (beyond a fan on one) in the entire time I've been here.

I stay away from IBM/Lenovo if I can, as well as eMachines for desktops (ick!).

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healer

If I had to choose, I'd go with the D6x0. The D8x0 is a bit of a brick, but it's large size does mean more processing power.

It all depends what you're going to use it for - if you're not going to be carrying it around much, then the extra weight of the 800 series won't be much of a factor (plus you get the larger screen size).

We're actually thinking of changing the standard laptop for the company directors from the Sony Vaio VGN-XX series to the D620's.

Did I mention Sony sucks? They're refusing to give us new Vaio's with XP on them...Vista only. And after reloading one with XP I discovered that the drivers - for both XP AND Vista - are not as readily available as one may think.

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Rekna

I decided to get the Dell D630 nearly fully loaded.