Friday, March 10, 2006 - 07:14 am, by: Matthew Sharpe(Madmatt)
My current work laptop is a Asus. We have a load of them in the office here, all sorts of different models, all very reliable. The newer models in particular just kick arse.
I've had two Toshiba's - a Satellite and Satellite pro - both were utter
IBM Thinkpads - now IBM have sold the business off to someone else I have no idea what they are like.
HP Compaq - OK but way over-priced.
Acer seem to be quite good value for money.
Dell are good value for money, Dell haven't heard of problems when it comes to service.
Friday, March 10, 2006 - 02:38 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
It comes down to your budget. As a bdm in the past for companies like CHA (former toshiba resellers) Fujitsu (niche market, upper end, although we now have MLC and Scotch College contracted) and Ingram Micro (current resellers of toshy, compaq, ibm, 1000 other manufacturers) i can tell you what you need to know, model specific. Most important is the aftersales support, should something f up. Youd be surprised at which brandnames wont warranty dead pixels on their $5k tablets, and which companies offer unbelieveable package deals. Since the introduction of GST, the retail sector has suffered Massive (like Staines Massive mon,) losses and the survivors are out for everything.
But Good Luck!
Let me know what you're after, and Ill see if I can help.
Sunday, March 12, 2006 - 03:50 pm, by: Callum Finch(Sigeneat)
I have repaired and worked on many a laptop in my time...
Someone above (Daniel?) said that Dell are the scum of the barrel.. untrue! =P
For home and small office use, Dell and Toshiba are your only options! =P Dell offer the best warranty and support service out of any manufacturer i have seen. The percentage of Dell hardware which does go wrong is very low. When you have something repaired/replaced on warranty, Dell send a technician to your door as part of the warranty deal.
As for Dell selling to retailers, they never have sold to retailers. They have always only offered their products direct to the public. This way they are able to keep costs a little lower as there is no middle-man taking his cut. "Direct from manufacturer" comes to mind. Dell also has on offer the most powerful laptop rigs in the market, if that is what you are after.
Next in line is Toshiba. Toshibas are great if you move around alot and do alot of business-type work (word processing etc, no good as media machines). They are small and always have every option you may ever need under the sun. Toshiba's support is a little dodgy; it is all done through 3rd party repairers. Some things may be harder to have replaced under warranty through some repairers.
Acer sit third in the tree, with noone below them (because anything else isnt really generally that good). In my personal experience, i have had nothing but problems with them. In saying that though, my Acer background is one where the users were quite abusive of their computers. If you look after an Acer computer then it will do the job. Acer use alot of cheap hardware (not always crap hardware), some of it they manufacture themselves. This helps keep the costs down. As for warranty on Acers, for repairers it is very good; you order a part of Acer and send back the broken one, no matter what is wrong with it. I am not sure how warranty is handled from a customer's point of view, however i would suspect it would be better than Toshiba's.
As for the other companies; Compaq/HP, utter tripe and over priced. IBM, they look very boring and the hardware isnt anything special Gateway, not even worth a mention ;) Asus, same as Gateway. Sony, break ALL the time.. "Its a Sony!" LG, they are almost rebadged Acers, nothing overly wrong however the corporation is too small and i wouldnt trust them
No-name brands are your last group. People who manufacture the laptops themselves. Usually you can get very powerful rigs for low cost, however warranty and repairs is a little iffy. If you have your own knowledge on working inside laptops (quite different to working inside desktops) then i would be more interested in a no-name lappy as there is more bang for your buck, and if it breaks you just fix it yourself.
When comparing prices and models and things..or even determining what you are after, go to Dell's website and piece together a laptop with all the options you want. Then quote those options to a retailer and get your prices!
Monday, March 13, 2006 - 02:45 pm, by: Damien Smith(Damien)
Maybe Dell have picked up their game because over the past few years any client of mine (I have an IT support company) who had a Dell laptop had ongoing issues and their support wasn't very good. As I say that may have changed.
I always buy Toshibas and so do my clients. The only issues we've had have been cups of coffee split in them and drops and the service has always been great in those cases.
At the end of the day you DO get what you pay for. If you're wondering why a Toshiba Tecra is $3k and an Acer something or other is under $2k it's in the build quality. High-end laptops will have an alloy chassis instead of plastic so are more rugged plus they use better quality components/keyboards/etc.
Even their BASE model A6 averages 4.5/5 on most every user review! Asus have come a LONG way in the last 2 years. They also offer a lot of punch for the money, with many of even the low end models incorporating high end graphics accelerators as standard. And I can vouch that they are easy to work on.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006 - 09:44 am, by: Chris Davey(Chris_davey)
I have an OLD SCHOOL dell. P2 300mhz, 128mb ram, 5gb HDD. Apparently the motherboard has something wrong with it and it won’t charge the battery anymore. However, the only reason I got the laptop is for tuning my car so I just installed a 12v to 240v inverter in the car and it is good to go No other problems I have had. Remember this thing must be at least 5 years old.