Hey CF, I'm looking to get a new laptop very soon and would like to know your experiences with a few brands, good and bad. I myself have been satisfied with Toshiba laptops over the years. I'd like opinions on Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Sony. Even other opinions on Toshibas. Thanks in advance!
I really like Asus for its gaming laptops and ultrabooks. I love Lenovo for their ThinkPad line (I've been a ThinkPad fan since the IBM days). Dell and HP also make good notebooks for their professional line. HP consumer line is very good for the value as is Dell (at college, everyone had HP, Dell, or Gateway computers). My friends has Toshibas and they liked them a lot. Acer I dislike because I had poor customer support versus their competitors. I recommend you check out the Notebookreview forum for "which laptop should I buy?" section. It will be 100x more helpful than just CF.
Not thrilled with the current Asus, weird issues with the mouse. Though every book I've ever had crapped out after a year or two and my HP hard drive crashed after two months: it was the one with the big screen and designs on the ase, that they heavily advertised for graphics and stuff. I had a Toshiba Satellite that lost its video inverter, at least that's what CompUSA said after keeping it in storage for two months.
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad which I'm happy with, but its a bit pricey. Is this going to be your primary or sole computer? Do you have a desktop? Will you be doing compute-intensive stuff with it? If you have a desktop, and you just want something for when you're traveling out of the home, you should go for something very light weight. My thinkpad is very bulky (its my only computer), which makes it kind of uncomfortable to lug around.
I've had HPs in the past that were absolute trash so I've soured on the brand for personal use, although, the HP notebook I have for work has been very reliable. I have a MacBook Pro for personal use that I love, but I wish I had the portability of the Air now that they're more powerful and power efficient with the Haswell chips.
Thanks for the advice fellas. I've been a pc guy my whole life so iffy about switching to mac. I'll mostly be using it for school stuff and personal entertainment. Not a gamer at all. Downloading and burning movies from time to time. Truth is in looking on craigslist for my next laptop at a cheaper price since that's what I can afford. Will be trying everything I can before I buy. I'd really like something lighter than the current Toshiba Satellite I have with an extended battery sticking out.
Not looking to spend more than about 500. I've got a list of about 20 on my Craigslist favorites that grabbed my attention. A big thing for me is a fast boot time so would really like one with an SSD.
Not everyone. I have one from work and would trade it in for a Lenovo in a heartbeat. Aluminum chassis is slippery Not enough USB ports sharp edges douchy looking glowing apple
Yep. I used a Macbook Pro for work for a period of about 3 months earlier this year. I couldn't get used to it. The cold, metallic, sharp exterior was not comfortable to me, too many new keyboard shortcuts to learn for doing basic things, and I'm not a fan of the UI (probably just not used to it).
Acer - okay Asus - above okay Dell - hate HP - okay, bad history Sony - okay-to-good but bloatware loaded sometimes Toshibas - okay but feels cheap, but they are cheap I like the high end Samsungs. And Lenovo is better than a lot of those above.
Find a really cheap laptop you like with a regular HDD, take out said HDD, install (Preferbably Samsung 840/Pro, etc) SSD, reinstall fresh Windoze, install drivers and updates, GG.
