Best laptop computer you have ever owned?

[45ACP]

I will be springing $850 for a cost-way-more-than-that-new Asus N73JQ-A2 with 17.3" Screen, 1st gen Intel Core i7, 6GB RAM, speakers that beat HP Beats Audio.. and I would like to ask the BITOG populace what their best (and, sure, why not, worst) experiences with laptop computers were as far as brand, processor, model, size, etc.

Speaking specifically to laptops, not so much netbooks or tablets.. though if you want to share those, please do.

 

[OVERKILL]

I had an old ASUS A7V that is still rockin' in the hands of my sister. It survived exiting a vehicle during an accident and landing in a field.

Worst? AMD-based Compaq or HP.

 

[saberz]

Asus makes very good laptops. I myself love Acer laptops just from a build perspective. Very easy to service them. Most problematic laptops I've dealt with are the Sony Vaio's. It's like tearing apart an Audi.

My daily workhorse is a Dell Vostro 1500 with a 2.5ghz Penryn w/4GB of ram + Nvidia 8600M 512. Still beastly to this day and does what I want perfectly fine.

 

[97tbird]

ThinkPad R60 - 2003 ?? still running strong

 

[Dupree]

best brand I have used is Toshiba. With my work we buy a lot of laptops and it seems that none hold up like the Toshiba, they are just better. The exceptions would be Apple and the Panasonic Toughbook

 

[MysticGold04]

My Acer Aspire 4730z. The batteries sure don't last, but the rest of the laptop is solid. Going on 3 years now, no issues and probably at least 20 re-formats and re-installs of Windows XP, Vista, 7 and countless Linux distros! - not because of any issues, but just me playing with different OSes.

I have to say many of the earlier toshibas and Dell (D620) laptops were really solid.

To Piggyback on the HP comment, yes, my wife has a pavillion dv4-T1020us and gets terribly hot, and sometimes the screen goes blank and has to power off or remove the battery to reset. It's a darn POS.

 

[Pablo]

Best lap top I ever had IS a netbook. Fast and small. The big MSI stuffed with as much RAM I could get in, running full Windows 7. Nice screen. Most importantly, decent sized keyboard and IT FITS IN MY BUG OUT REI travel backpack protected by the Wenger padded case. Made me NOT want a laptop. This is NOT what most people call one of those cheezy Netbooks.

Someone on BITOG originally recommended it to me in 2010.

 

[saberz]

Originally Posted By: Dupree
best brand I have used is Toshiba. With my work we buy a lot of laptops and it seems that none hold up like the Toshiba, they are just better. The exceptions would be Apple and the Panasonic Toughbook


I forgot them. This is true, We had a box fall and smash into the laptop(was on a cart for scanning the warehouse). The housing was fine, but the LCD shattered. Toshiba support overnighted a replacement panel and we got it in there quick. Machine didn't skip a beat. Tough laptops. Wife had one as well, it was dropped from a good height(slipped out of her hands) while going down stairs. No scuffs or cracks still worked great.

I tend to avoid HP because their plastics are very cheap. They are good for a stationary laptop(office) but portability brings on quite a few problems. Pharma reps hated them, and we hated them because they came in every other day. The Lenovo and Dell's tended to just come in with bad HDDs(from their work).

 

[robertcope]

I'm not an Apple fanboy, but Apple notebooks are top notch. I wouldn't really consider anything else, as someone who is on his computer for most of the day most days.

robert

 

[ag_ghost]

Business notebooks experience:
Mostly HP (about 50), three Thinkpads, a couple of Dells. All made in Taiwan or PRC and all of acceptable quality. Two DOAs in 10 years, both quickly resolved by CDW (my default supplier).

Thinkpads are rock solid, but a little fussier about extra bloatware, BIOS updates and touchier about their disk sectors when reimaging. Buying direct from Lenovo is a piece of cake.

All are easy to swap / upgrade RAM and Disks. Different generations vary in the ability to pull out the cooling fan to clean out the crud that builds up in all of them, regardless of the cleanliness of your home or office.

Always check that you can stay up to date easily on drivers and can download an entire set in case you have to reimage from scratch. I've seen some "consumer/retail notebooks" from HP where you're hosed unless you've kept the original DVDs that shipped with the system. I suspect this is less of an issue with Dell since they're mostly direct. I try to avoid any PC if I cannot find/download full service manual with instructions on removing and replacing disks, fans, keyboards, etc.

I ALWAYS try to buy an accidental damage extended warranty. One dropped screen or case and you've just purchased another unit.

7200 RPM disk drives improve performance more than RAM above 2GB. In almost 2 years, I've observed no appreciable improvement in performance above 4 GB of RAM, but maybe you'll be using applications that can exploit the headroom.

No experience with AMD-based CPUs (per OverK1ll's comment), but I have an opinion-based bias on sticking with Intel/MS combinations.

Windows 7 Pro 64 should be your default OS.
Good luck.

 

[dparm]

I've had several HP business-class notebooks and they have always been stellar. Very solid build with good keyboards. A few people in our company had them and I would always try to reclaim one if the person quit or got fired.

 

[BearZDefect]

'Best' can be quite subjective. Reviewers get their hands on many more models than a typical user does, but we users use few for a much longer time. Anyway, my sample size is rather small.

I haven't seen an AMD powered HP laptop I liked, and the few HPs I've seen in person in the last couple of years have had lousy keyboards and touchpads. However, my HP/Compaq nc6220 has served me very well, running for nearly five years to this day, average use over 8 hours a day. It runs relatively cool, is quiet, has a poor color accuracy and not-very-bright but otherwise flawless LCD, excellent keyboard, and the (IMO) finest single core laptop CPU to hit the market (Intel Dothan). I may replace it with a Lenovo X220 one of these months, I've had my hands on one of those and mostly like it, but so far I still get by with this old thing that has a PATA hard disk.

I had an OmniBook 6000 before. It served well but lasted less than four years before falling apart physically and malfunctioning. It also costed more than twice as much as the nc6220, but back in 2001 prices were different, and computers were still made in Taiwan.

 

[javacontour]

I still have my NEC 133MHz laptop with 48MB (yes Megabyte) RAM. It's useful as it has a serial port and will support my ODB-II scanner.

But I've had it since 1997, so something that has lasted for 15 years has to be good

Seriously, I've had good luck with Toshiba Tecra laptops. I currently carry an M11 i5 with 8GB of RAM and a 500gb hard disk.

I've had few problems with the Toshiba's I've used over the years.

 

[greenaccord02]

The Dell D600 and D610 laptops have really amazed me with their resilience. Old and beat up as they are, they just keep on ticking. They're just about too slow now to be useful as a workstation but they're far from dead, so they'll be in use as wireless VDI clients from here on out. A thin linux OS and a wireless connection will have them "running" Windows 7 x64 with Photoshop and all that mess. The few that have died are being cannibalized for repair parts. I wouldn't be surprised if we get another three years at least out of them. Heck, in five years we might still have a few hundred floating around.

 

[45ACP]

Originally Posted By: Anies
Asus makes very good laptops. I myself love Acer laptops just from a build perspective. Very easy to service them. Most problematic laptops I've dealt with are the Sony Vaio's. It's like tearing apart an Audi.

My daily workhorse is a Dell Vostro 1500 with a 2.5ghz Penryn w/4GB of ram + Nvidia 8600M 512. Still beastly to this day and does what I want perfectly fine.


Have to agree on AMD-based Compaq. BLEH!

This is what im getting. Im choosing it over the dual HD model. I like the speaker reviews on this!

Last one, too.. The Asus N73JQ-A2 I am purchasing. Last one! $850

I too used to prefer Acer and Toshiba. nothing wrong with either one, just time for a change.

My IBMs had their motherboards fail.. IBM T40/T41/T42. I think i had two T40s.. I forget. That was in 2008!!! (The start of the modern world, AFAIAK.)

 

[beast3300]

My business class Lenovo N200 3000 Core2Duo running XP pro and 7 Ultimate. Steel hinges still perfect, laptop is from 07. Original battery was down to 50% what it was new after 5 years. I didn't use it a whole lot and it sat full discharged one too many times which did the battery in. $28 later a battery from Amazon and we are better than new.

 

[45ACP]

Originally Posted By: robertcope
I'm not an Apple fanboy, but Apple notebooks are top notch. I wouldn't really consider anything else, as someone who is on his computer for most of the day most days.

robert


The Asus I am buing has a Mac OSX on it as well? What can i do better on the "Mac Emulator" on my i7?

"Mac OSX Lion Operating system (VMware)" is what is on it, Im a Mac IDIOT i know 1. Everything about PCs 2. NOTHING about Mac, as is true of 90% or more of computer users so please educate me!

 

[Rand]

didnt you just sell one?

 

[JHZR2]

Tie between macbook pro and IBM Thinkpad.

The thinkpads were heavier though... Equally well made and equally expensive.

 

[45ACP]

Originally Posted By: Rand
didnt you just sell one?


I did. I like Acer and they are a good value as is Toshiba. Wasnt entirely satisfied with the build quality of the Acer, even though it had the brand new processor.

I also had a Toshiba hard drive fail on me in a Satellite L. Last year.

Im attempting a somewhat older yet ~equally as powerful processor (1st gen i7, 6GB RAM expandable to 12GB - 12GB!!! vs 2nd gen i5 with 4GB) and solid build quality, cinema-like screen and sound. Went with 17.3" over 18.4"; 17.3" SHOULD suit my needs. 18.4" would be nice but the rest of it.. the 17.3" edges it out and isnt shabby.

The Acer also has build quality that is very solid and that is something i did not find in the Acer and Toshibas, though they were not BAD units.