Who makes a good laptop?

[Thomaz73]

Been using Asus laptops for many years. No complaints, really. The most recent I (or, well, happily, the company I work for) bought here has a Thai keyboard lay out. But found it pretty easy to get used to. 

[Sloracer]

10 minutes ago, SlowlyMan said:

The use will be a desktop replacement. 

I'm more interested in manufacturers who build a solid reliable product. I can choose the specs I need from there.

If you look at some of the bigger brands, eg. HP, Toshiba, Lenovo etc. They will have a commercial and consumer range of product. The commercial range will generally be a more solid and reliable build with less bling. The commercial products have a longer life cycle, because unlike consumer,  is less of race to have the latest gadgets and featured.

[Kale]

10 minutes ago, Thomaz73 said:

Been using Asus laptops for many years. No complaints, really. The most recent I (or, well, happily, the company I work for) bought here has a Thai keyboard lay out. But found it pretty easy to get used to. 

How old is your current one?  My next one will probably be Asus.  I have been buying Acer laptops for many years and absolutely no complaints with any of those.  In fact, I still have the last three and they all still work 100%.  I don't like the look of the current ones though.

I like the fact that it's easy to add a 2nd SSD to Asus laptops or replace the current one.   It's not always that easy or even possible with a lot of current laptops.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Kale

[Jebb]

Guys, the OP asked for advice. If you have none to give then stay out please.

[ccrider]

I am another fan of Asus. Their reputation sits on their motherboards.

My last one lasted 5 years before I upgraded this year.

I did replace my keyboard once, and remapped one of the function keys another time.

I got a backlit keyboard this time 🙂

[Jebb]

I have had a Dell for the last 5 years and completely happy with it. Before that a Lenovo and had several issues with it.

[snowbird]

It's good to look at the display screen in the store and not rely on reviews too much. Some have letters that are not clear to read and others have glossy screens that show reflections terribly. Seems the online reviews rarely comment on those things that are utmost importance but might go into a RGB gammut % accuracy and other details while still relavant don't mean as much to you.

[Thomaz73]

44 minutes ago, Kale said:

How old is your current one?  My next one will probably be Asus

Around 2½ years, I think. The one I'm using to type this is way older, though. And still working almost perfectly. Only problem is the v (re-checks that actually worked) button is sort of lazy. So I have to insist anytime I need that particular letter  

[Kale]

1 hour ago, Thomaz73 said:

Around 2½ years, I think. The one I'm using to type this is way older, though. And still working almost perfectly. Only problem is the v (re-checks that actually worked) button is sort of lazy. So I have to insist anytime I need that particular letter  

Try clean it with rubbing alcohol.  If you can pop the key off or remove the keyboard to get under the key that's ideal.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Kale

[rainman333]

 

Dell is reliable and easy to upgrade hardware like SSD, SATA HDD, RAM, etc

I've been using Dell for last 15+ years without any major issues and I take my laptop with me almost daily on work days.   The only major issue I've had with them is that it may crash if it runs too hot, usually happens if the room gets very hot (no AC) and I'm compiling or running programs for a couple of hours maxing out CPU at 100%.  In those cases, I put something under the laptop so that it sits at an angle  to let the air flow out better and it fixes the problem.

One thing I recommend for any laptop you get (ie mac,dell, asus, etc) is to get a USB/Bluetooth keyboard + mouse because typing on the laptop keyboards is not very good due to the small size.  

I would research the macbook pro if you are into macs. I have an older model of macbook pro that I use strictly for development/coding whenever I need to port an app to the platform.  I heard that the current models don't allow for much upgrade of hardware like RAM though I could be wrong as I haven't looked at getting a mac in awhile.  They are solid though.... just remember Apple tried to push an OS upgrade patch to make their older mac laptops run very slow to force their users to buy new ones....until they got caught and had to back out.  

Edited November 14, 2022 by rainman333

[wadman]

7 hours ago, Kandinski said:

As long as use is not specified its impossible to make a Recommendation. For my use any +200USD product will be a good product.

Yes, it all depends on what your computing needs are, and frankly if you have to ask for advice on what laptop to get, it's pretty much guaranteed that your computing needs are in the "light" category i.e. productivity work like browsing the web, emails, some light spreadsheet work, watching videos, looking at PDFs, and the like.  You don't need much computer to do these things. 

My current laptop is 6.5 years (!) old with a 5th gen Intel CPU (we are now on 12th gen Intels), and it does productivity just fine.  Even with 30 browser tabs open, it's not a problem.  It does slow down noticably if I run my torrent program, and even more so if I run Bluestacks (an emulator that allows you to run Android apps on windows).  

 

 

[javasumatra]

I just bought a macbook air M2, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

I was writing a lot of assembly on the Pi400 and am porting it over to the MBA, It's a rocket.

[vimto66]

Had a fujitsu laptop for years, really solid and reliable, now got an hp and for what i want it for is equally good, just browsing the web going on forums like this and watching dirty films.

Edited July 30, 2023 by vimto66

[GSpot11]

Macbook for me, stick to the Apple family - iphone, iPad, MacBook.....all integrated in 'ONE' cloud and backs up every night using my 'TIME MACHINE'......just more convenient having to juggle through different systems for me ..... IMHO. Oh and 'APPLECARE' is a bonus because if breaks, drops all covered like a warranty. I also like to service line....some one always able to help and no excuses about this system and that system and call them....with APPLE one stop shopping and if you're like me......life is fast enough and I ain't got time to sort out, rather spend my 86,400 seconds other ways then sorting through laptop issues.......So I recommend 'APPLE MacBook' if you can get through the price side.

In PA, there is an Apple Store in Central Plaza which is convenient as well.

[momo5]

11 hours ago, javasumatra said:

I just bought a macbook air M2, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

I was writing a lot of assembly on the Pi400 and am porting it over to the MBA, It's a rocket.

I recently bought the same, in midnight.

Only issue I’ve had is its inability to support dual external monitors natively, but for a traveling laptop that really isn’t an issue.  

Still have my MBP with its dual monitors for the office 

[Huuker]

Honestly up until the new Apple M-series chips came out all laptops were sloth garbage after jus around 6 months of usage. They all had thermal issues which killed the performance even more no matter how mundane the given task was I threw at them, even just opening a text file containing 3 sentences made my laptops lag.

So if I had to recommend a laptop today, it would definitely be an Apple laptop with M1 or M2 chips (M3 available later this year or early next year) for light general usage (browsing the net, writing documents, watching/listening to any media on it, basic video editing etc.) Macbook Air is a good value laptop for this. If one needs it for more serious work and computing for prolonged time, then I would suggest the M1 Pro/Max or up because it has more power and great cooling too which is rarely going to be audible when it turns on once in a month under heavy load because the machine is just so efficient and runs cool in general. Much cooler than i3, i5, i7, i9 Windows laptops. So no more lap burning and uncomfortable hotness to the touch when typing. Built quality is miles ahead of the other brands I have been using before. Display is higher quality too, not even talking about the best battery life that is available today in a laptop format, no need to keep it plugged in all the time. And If one day one would decide to get a new laptop, then a Mac also has more resell value, even after 5 years.

[SlowlyMan]

You get what you pay for with the Apple products I guess.

[vimto66]

On 30/07/2023 at 22:29, SlowlyMan said:

You get what you pay for with the Apple products I guess.

Yes like a lot of things, i suppose it all comes down to what you want it for, apple products can be expensive for the casual user but if you're doing work related stuff as well as casual browsing..etc i dare say its worth the investment.

[Essexman1961]

I bought my Lenovo around £500 two years ago and the keyboard is nice to use.At the time I asked a friend who had access to Which? Comparative reviews.The friend was a Programmer for many years at Microsoft as well as UK companies.