Best Laptop Brand Which one?

[velma 6]

You have to keep in mind that at the end of the day, your laptop should be chosen purely based on how you would be using it. When it comes to buying a laptop, I have to keep in mind a few obvious shortcomings :-

 

Power

Speed.

Post Purchase costs & maintenance.

Remembering the fact that a laptop is a portable desktop, one must focus on the main task that the laptop would be put to use for and get feedback based on that. For example, I cannot expect a coder to give me feedback on the media system of his laptop nor expect him to enlighten me on the multi tasking capabilities of a laptop, if you have your eyes set out on a brand, research on what their laptops give a 100% in. The tricky fact about brands is that you can never assume it to fit perfectly to your needs. An acer could work perfectly for my mother but might not be suitable for my style of working. The same applies to support, the support team from one place might be utter rubbish but a support team from another location might do a decent job except for HCL Those guys are seriously oblivious of a thing known as support.

 

I personally would go for a Toshiba since I work and multitask programs a lot and need a machine that could handle the load without really worrying about graphics or games.

[k_nitin_r 8]

 

Power is definitely one of those things that you would want to place high on your priority list, but you need to consider if you really need all that power. For instance, when you are on the go, you could have a really powerful notebook drain the battery in an hour but a netbook could get the job done while sipping the battery for about six hours. Netbooks are also a whole lot cheaper than regular notebooks but some low-end notebooks do tend to give netbook manufacturers a run for their money.

Support and maintenance is something that you do not want to see in the lifetime of your computer so if that is a big priority for you, backup often, keep a spare laptop, or invest in something solid like a Lenovo Thinkpad. The reliability comes at a price but if it is really something that matters a lot for you, you can use one of those for a long time to come. A Thinkpad will last you for half a decade with daily use whereas something cheaper would last you for about two years. However, the price difference makes it worth considering if you want to invest in something that last that long considering that you can get something more powerful after two years.

BTW, Velma, speaking of HCL, I have seen some terrible terrible things happen with HCL laptops. With an HCL that I got my hands on, shutting down would also stop the clock and that's simply unacceptable. I would rather get a netbook that something that simply can't keep time. Laptops are, unlike desktops, designed to run with a battery so should be able to keep track of time; desktops on the other hand have to rely on a much smaller CMOS battery. If there's one thing I don't expect from a laptop, it's a clock that can't keep time.

[Anthony21 0]

My last high end dell turned into a $2700 dollar paperweight which I salvaged for parts on ebay. Half of the ram went bad, immediately followed by the power connector on the motherboard failing. This was a month out of warranty and their outsourced tech support was more than willing to waste my time. I will never buy another one of their products, and gladly pay more for equal performance from almost any other brand. I now buy sub $500 dollar laptops... use them a year, sell them for 350, do the math on how much that saves you over losing 1500 a year in depreciation to play cutting edge games at a mediocre at best speed. Toshiba, Hp/Compaq/Sony, anything cheap and play good games that are a few years old if you HAVE to game on your laptop.

[antennas 0]

Dell and lenovo are good laptops.

[k_nitin_r 8]

It depends on how you are evaluating Dell and Lenovo. If you want something cheap that can run its course and you can replace it with something that can replace it when its time is up. A Lenovo comes in various kinds - there's the Thinkpad line, which is dependable line of laptops that you can use for years at a time. The Ideapad builds upon some of the design concepts that a Thinkpad was built on, but you would find that an Ideapad is not as sturdy as a Thinkpad if you do go about buying one.

[iGuest 3]

I think hcl is good they have less prob. then other. I have bad exp. with dell.

[stonefly 0]

$1000 budget, quite enough for Apple or Sony VAIO , both of two have good quantity, especially in the screen performance.

[kraljica 0]

Best Laptop BrandBest Laptop Brand

I've tried many laptops (not a Mac yet, but I can't seem to force myself to climb the apple tree).

I have had excellent experience with Toshiba laptops - I have a A60 that is about 7 years old and it still works. My A100 is still functioning great too, and it has been through hell (it was my workhorse in Afghanistan). It has survived power brown outs, surges, etc. And it still works like a charm.

Based on my extraordinarily bad experience with all things Sony, I would avoid them like the plague. Their customer service is second to none ... If you're measuring up from the bottom of the barrel.

-reply by Jamie

 

You're right, Toshiba is a great laptop brand so far, i love this brand too

 

About Sony, how about customer service?

[k_nitin_r 8]

Navin,

HCL offers great value for laptops in India, but the two that I have been able to try were defective - whenever they were shut down, the clocks would stop too. I'm sure they would have fixed the problem by now but the exact same problem in two different laptops is a bit more than just coincidence.

Kraljica,

I've seen some excellent value in a Toshiba. I'm not sure if their customer service is good because I've hardly had problem with them and I did get a replacement battery for a laptop when the battery died outside the warranty period. If there's one brand that offers laptops with a decent build quality and a price low enough to match Lenovo's, it's a Toshiba. If you do want to buy a budget laptop, Lenovo and Toshiba are the ones to look at.

Stonefly,

Apple and Sony are great for the higher-end models. I've not really used a Sony budget laptop so I can't tell you about how good they would be but they do seem well-designed. Among ultra-high performance laptops, Alienware laptops are good too. There are cheaper brands that make specialty laptops that are comparable to Alienware but they aren't widely available outside the United States or Europe.

[aquaprin90 0]

I think either Apple or Dell will be the smarter choice... So, I will suggest you to go with either Apple or Dell.

[Spyda 0]

Very subjective question. Thing with this is, there are many great laptop brands out there. My personal favorites include Apple, Sony, and Toshiba. I've dabbled with the new Samsung Chromebook as well, so Samsung is slowly becoming a favorite of mine as well. There's no way for anybody out there to give you a definitive answer on what the best laptop brand is. This question, in fact, shouldn't even exist. Instead, the question should be, 'What is your personal best laptop brand." That question takes into consideration the fact that every indiduval is different, and thus has different preferences. For me, the qualities that I look for when searching for a laptop brand, includes stability, durability and price. I've found that Apple seems to be exremely durable and stable, however, it's usually steeper in the price category. Likewise, I have found that Samsung is good in the durability and price category, especially the Chromebook, however, it fails slihtly in the durablity department.

So, as you can see.. I went ahead and decided upon three different categories that I use to determine whether or not a particular laptop brand is correct for me. You also should do the same thing and think about which of the particular categoeis are the most important to you. Look at the different brands and compare and see which ones fit the most criteria that again apply to you.

 

Hope that helps. Good luck!

[Pllar7680 0]

I have bought a Sony laptop four years ago but it is still working perfectly to me. I only face a one time battery issues nothing else. My other friends laptops are not working properly after such long time. So, i am happy with my lappy. It is the best brand I thought

[k_nitin_r 8]

If you are looking for a laptop-tablet-convertible, Toshiba and Asus have been building innovative products. Lenovo has the Ideapad Yoga and the cheaper Ideapad Flex, and they take a different approach to the laptop-tablet-conversion by simply having the keyboard flip over (the Flex doesn't do this all the way - it simply stays up as a 'tent' or has the keyboard act as a stand; it's they way of positioning it as a cheaper variant and preventing it from cannibalizing the sales of the Ideapad Yoga). These convertible units cost only a slightly more than the average laptop so why stick with just a regular laptop with a screen and keyboard?

 

PS: Does anyone remember the Asus AIO Transformer desktop-tablet convertible? That would convert into an 18" tablet! Just perfect for folks who need to read PDFs and find those tablet screens too tiny to read documents.

[kudmus 0]

You'll never go wrong with lenovo or IBM. second option is DELL.

Lonovos generally look backwards to me but I hear they are durable if you buy their serious models. The budget ones that I've seen tend to disintegrate even if you try to take good care of it. The G585 is a good example

Edited November 25, 2013 by kudmus (see edit history)

[sheepdog 10]

Amazing how things change in just a few years. Wanted to read threw this thread this morning because we have to deliver a pup to the big city and I was thinking about looking at laptops. Been seeing ads on TV all week for laptops for $249! That's a far cry from $1,000!