Ustwo

While I build my own pcs, I'm pretty clueless on lap tops.

Whats a good solid windows based lap top manufacturer?

I'm looking for quality, though not stupid expensive either, quiet, good battery life, good speed.

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shakran

Compaq/HP make decent stuff. Best bang for the buck as far as power and features. Their cases are some of the best in the industry. Make sure to upgrade to the biggest battery you can (that goes for whatever you buy) because modern laptops suck juice like crazy. You can get better than Compaq, but you'll have to pay a whole lot more. The Toughbooks are a lot more durable, but then I doubt you'll be flinging yours around in a moving car or anything so I don't think you'd need that. The Alienwares have nicer hardware but the extra cost is simply insane.

A good, unknown lappy maker that's expensive, but not as expensive as Alienware, is Sager. They actually *make* Alienwares, and the regular Sagers are the same thing without the bizarre case. If you're willing to pay Sager prices, it's a damn good laptop. If you don't wanna go that high, go Compaq. Less than a grand will get you a very nice machine.

Manic_Skafe

Yeah I'm gonna second the HP recommendation. September made a full year that I've owned my (oh so special edition) dv1000 and I still couldn't be more than satisfied. I got a nice and sturdy case, a great screen and good battery life for a little over $1000.

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God of Thunder

I'm a pretty big fan of the IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad's. My wife had one from work before they switched to a Dell, and not a week has gone by in that two-year stretch that i have not heard "I want my friggen ThinkPad back"

I bought a refurbished one and my sister owns two. They are pretty thin and have some nice features. The only thing my sister does not like about hers is that the screen is hard to see outside.

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Willravel

I've liked using the Dell xps m1330 at work. It's quick, more stable than several desktops running Windows I've used, nice display, and it's not bad too look at. It's a bit expensive, but I'm not sure what you mean by "stupid expensive".

healer

I've only had exposure to a few makes, but I'll throw my two cents in since I work with the things on a daily basis.

Dell: Good machines all round, but I've some weird hardware issues. The best thing about Dell is their support (well, at least in this country). I've never had to wait more than one business day for a replacement part. But it doesn't have the option of adding a port replicator.

HP/Compaq: Good, cheap and durable. But if one piece of hardware fails I'll guarantee you something else will fail soon after. My work machine is a nc6320 and it's got everything I need for a decent price. Battery life's not great (on the standard battery), bt it's better now that I've re-installed it with XP instead of Vista.

Sony Vaio: Probably out of the price range you're looking at, but they're awesome to look at. Very well designed aesthetically, great screens and superb battery life.

I've only heard good things about the IBM's. "They last forever" is the most common comment.

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filtherton

They all suck. Enter any particular model into google followed by the word "complaint" or "problem" and you'll see what i mean.

That being said, i got a dell and it was prone to overheating, but other than that it worked great.

I currently have an hp, and the little thumb-slidey mouse thing was poorly designed, so that typing sometimes registers as a mouse click- this is a great way to randomly erase whole paragraphs of whatever you happen to be working on. It's not hard to fix, you just disable the track pad (read uninstall its drivers), but it also means you can't use the track pad, which i hated using anyway.

So my next laptop won't be an hp, and it probably won't be a dell. If anything i'd probably get a mac of some sort, especially since you can apparently dual boot with windows on them nowadays.

Jinn

Dell.

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Cynthetiq

Dell
Lenovo

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Daniel_

Another vote for Dell (but they're very expensive in the UK).

I've had three Toshibas (over 10 years) and no real problems, so I'd be happy to have another.

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Lasereth

I work on Dell laptops daily and I have to say I like them. Anytime a hardware piece has went bad, the part for it is there the next business day. The Dell support won't argue with you and are helpful. The style of Dell laptops are modern and nice looking. Plus Tech Bargains.com has deals on them all the time. A few months ago you could get a dell core 2 duo laptop with a geforce 7900 GS go with 2 GB of ram for $1,100. A monster gaming laptop for that cheap...incredible!!

I also have good experiences with IBM Thinkpads. I like the design of them...they're sorta blocky and techy, less smooth than the Dells, which I like in laptop designs.

I personally would buy a Dell and make sure to look for coupons on TechBargains.com.

Willravel

Dell seems to be the Honda of computers. Pretty damn dependable, easy to fix, readily available parts.

Halx

I'm a Sony Vaio guy.

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captobvious

I've got a Dell and haven't had any problems.

healer

But try reinstalling the webcam drivers...

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snowy

I have an hp Pavilion dv6000. My trackpad has a little button at the top of the pad that turns the trackpad off when I press it. It's great.

I get a lot of compliments on my laptop. It is surprisingly stylish. I have an Intel Centrino Duo (Core 2 Duo, 1.87 ghz) with 2GB of RAM, a 256GB graphics card, and various bells and whistles, like a built-in webcam and DVD burner.

I don't really care for Vista, but that's a software issue, not a hardware one. So far I've been very impressed with my laptop, and I enjoy it very much. It's not too big or bulky, it looks nice, and it runs World of Warcraft better than any of the desktops in our house.

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MexicanOnABike

from waht i can see, Toshiba or HP seems to be the best right now. hp is the best price for the money. stay away from acer, sony for warranty problems.

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spindles

I have an ASUS - can't complain about it. Running smoothly for 18 months so far.

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fresnelly

If you do go for a Dell and are interested in their line of coloured models, check availablitiy first. We had to wait an extra month for Green due to overwhelming demand.

I was pissed that they didn't mention the stock shortage in any of their communications.

We're happy with the machine though.

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Bear Cub

My Dell has had virtually everything replaced. Video card, processor, cd-r drive, hard drive, the display itself, and keyboard twice. The USB ports are finnicky, but I'm not sending it in for replacement. When the hardware is functioning well, I've had no real stability issues short of what XP is capable of.

It still does everything I need it to with the 3.06 ghz processor, and I've had it since 2003. I can't complain about their service, either. Box it up with the packaging they deliver, send it back. Longest I've had to wait for it to be returned was one week, typical return time, two days.

Would I buy another one from Dell at the price I paid for this one? No way. Is their customer service up to par? Absolutely. Biggest downfall other than reliability, battery life blows.

Infinite_Loser

Personally, I like Gateway. I payed a little over $1000 for my current laptop and I couldn't be happier with it. It cost me less than it would have if I bought a customized Dell and it came with more features (Of course, that could all possibly be because Circuit City was running a special on laptops the first week of school, but still... ).

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Charlatan

I've had a number of Dell laptops and they were all dependable. As was mentioned above, the great part of Dell is the service. Any issues I ever had (and there will inevitably be issues) were solved quickly with little fuss.

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Ustwo

Thanks for the info.

I used to have a friend working at dell, he told me laptops were good, but the desktops had major corners cut, looks like that might still hold true.

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ratbastid

I liked my Dell (until it got stolen out of the back of a rental car). I liked my HP (until the motherboard fried after a year of ownership). I liked my Toshiba (until the backlight power inverter died after 18 months).

I REALLY REALLY REALLY like my MacBook Pro (and so far it's completely perfect). I know you're probably thinking Windows, but you really owe it to yourself to go to an Apple store and at least fondle a macbook. They're truly gorgeous pieces of equipment.

Jinn

Yea, Dell support is amazing. I've never spoken to someone who didn't know WTF they were talking about, which is astonishing considering the number of people who really don't. Likewise, everything has been 1 day or 3 day shipping, and I've swapped out dozens of parts between our many many laptops, desktops, and rackmounts.

Likewise, their price to performance ratio seemed the best. I got a laptop with the same processing power as my desktop, at nearly the same cost as the desktop parts themselves.

And yes, Ustwo, despite having a ridiculously small number of desktop return/repairs here at work, I don't particularly like Dell desktops.

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