Discussion on:

Poll: Which PC vendor makes the best laptops?

Original post:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=5518

I have purchased one HP laptop myself and recommended a half dozen to friends (various models). None have had any problems.

I have also purchased 3 Acer laptops (Ferrari's) and recommended a couple more.
I love them when they work, but at least three had to be returned for warranty repair.
After that, they seem to work forever.

Both my daughter and God daughter had Apple's and both had many problems.

I have bought only two laptops. The first one in 2001 with very good features (considering the year and price)... it is still working, but not the battery which stop working 3 years ago. The other one 2 years ago now, and no problems at all. Several of my friends have preferred Dell and HP, but most of them have had at least one problem.

My experience (with first a Compaq, then an HP, now a Toshiba) has lent credence to my fiancee's preference for the Toshiba.

The Compaq was a used machine, so I shan't comment other than to say that it doesn't have ethernet...and is based on a Cyrix processor. (Yes, it's /that/ old.)

The HP overheats in a very (distressingly) short time, unless you're using a cooling mat. Even then, it can overheat. This is due to HP's using a known-defective video chipset from nVidia. (Bad move, HP) The machine's wifi card has ceased to work at all.

The Toshiba: While I've had it the least amount of time of the three laptops, all I can say is "Bravo!". Other than one rather annoying trait it has developed, which may go away once the mousepad is properly cleaned, I've had zero problems with the Satellite A505-S6005.

In my company we have about 65 laptop in the field. Originally, that is 6-7 years ago, we had been buying Toshiba laptops. Of those 22 we are still using 12 of them. They are slow by today's standard, but they still work well.

4 years ago we changed to HP. Of the original purchase of 15 only 1 is still working at all and its keyboard is missing keys and the touchpad is shot. We continued to buy HP(about 40 in all) without regard to the issues of bad HDD, video problems, NIC problems crappy keyboards and touchpads because the cost was low. This was a bad decision. At least I have lots of replacement parts from the scrap heap.

We have also tried Acer for mini notebooks and Lenovo both have not had a problem. The case is not as flimsy as the HP models.

Within the last 9 months we picked up 20 Dell Vostro laptop and so far there hasn't been a single problem. The users like it too. The case and keyboard is sturdy and the weight is under 5 pounds. Time will tell, but I will never use HP again.

I vote for HP, as I have the most experience with them and they have been quite good... BUT, I deal mostly with business/corporate level machines.

HP's consumer level machines? Well, that's a different story!

From MY experience with Personal laptops, HP/Compaq both have a bad habit of breaking down a week or so after the warranty expires (1 Year) and if they are so nice to give you a break and a 1 Year extension and fix the problem they don't fix the LCD screen unless you pay $700+. It is apparently the video section of the board that is the problem and burns the board and also fries the inverter and affects the LCD. I have a IBM TP T41 and have used it for 6 years and only started to get a pink tinge about 2 months ago. I would have to go with IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads.

My Hp has been hardcore gaming for 4 years now. It never runs too hot, after an hour or two the whole machine is generally warm, but usually the CPU is never above 50C.
I have had it for 4 years, and it was a year old when I bought it, a refurbished model.

HDD has been claiming its going dead, but its been claiming that for 3 years now. I just ignore it and don't dare save anything vital on it.

i had 5 t41's all die within a month,... all suffered from BSOD due to body flex around where the hard drive located...

i don't usually spend time bending my computer .

But seriously, my current laptop, fairly strong and very stable.
Its an HP Pavilion. it's got no real other markings, but its fairly old now.

just check my SMART info, those strange uncompleted write operations are finally gone but, this number has gone up from 6 to 37. So probably not far from death.

NOTE : your hard disk has 37 reallocated sectors. Hard disks do have spare sectors (usually from 256 up to 1024) used to replace bad ones. This remapping operation is transparent to the end user. Anyway, this can lead to degradated performances (because remapped sectors are in different places of the disk than the original ones and the head needs additional moving). If reallocated sectors grow over time, you might encounter some serious troubles. A backup of the most important data is suggested anyway.

I guess you could flex the Titanium frame near the HDD (right front corner below KBD) but only if you hang it over the edge of a desk and put your full weight on it.

"HP/Compaq both have a bad habit of breaking down a week or so after the warranty expires (1 Year) "

I've never had that problem and I had worked with Compaq equipment for several years. Mind you, I've only recently turned to HP because I used to be a fan of Dell, but they have fallen out of graces with me due to their recent hash of faulty equipment.

I can only assume most people have never has an Asus. They are hands down the best.

although my sample size is too small, I've only been satisfied so far.

Although my workplace uses a different vendor (Toshiba), my home notebooks, my friends notebooks, recommendations for family, and suggestions for workmates ... are ALWAYS ASUS!

In fact, SquareTrade and a number of other warranty-handling companies have released reports (as they do annually), and it lists the top five manufacturers (based on low warranty/failure numbers)as: Asus, Toshiba, Sony, Apple and Dell. However Asus and Toshiba were WAY out in front with only 15.6% and 15.7% (respectively) for issues in the first three years. Apple (#4) had 17.4%. HP, on the other hand... 25.6% OUCH!

I love the value-for-money Asus provides, the great designs, the performance, the quality components... but most of all... their reliability. My experiences appear to be backed up with international surveys/reports and awards, so that makes me very happy to keep recommending these computers.

NOTE: I don't doubt other companies many make reasonable notebooks, and I am sure that some people, having owned a couple, would recommend them.

I agree. Apart from those points you noted above, I also think Asus is currently the most innovative manufacturer of notebooks. They really were the first that introduced a netbook that was usable and meant for the original netbook market, and they soon improved them so they also got to the higher end market.

On the more standard type notebooks as far as I know Asus was the first to introduce batteries that last for ca 9hrs on one charge.

2nd I'd also put toshiba, those I've dealt with were very reliable, and they were also what a notebook has to be, small and light. Probably Apples would also get to a spot up front, but I just don't have any experience with them.

I bought mine about 3 months ago for $450.00 at BestBuy store. I love this laptop. It came with Windows 7 64-bit, 3 GB of RAM, 300 GB Hard Drive, Large LCD Widescreen, Dual 2.2 GHz Processors. It is great.

It came with Windows 7 64, but I was able to wipe all that mess off the disk and install FreeBSD 8 instead. With 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive and Core i3, it's still waiting for something hard to do.

Who wouldve guessed the maker of motherboards makes one of the better laptops. Ive been on ASUS motherboards and other PC components over a decade and while it took some trial and error to narrow down my choices, the choice was made. They make anywhere from cheap to very good laptops. While they dont market as well as others, they have been more than lately. I would personally buy from component makers than resellers if at all possible to avoid the middle man and his tactics.

I would have to say Lenovo. Out of everything I use those seem to be the best built (like tanks) and they offer great power saving software. HP is a close second, like the Probooks a lot.
Sorry to say with Dell, but I am not impressed with the quality anymore, or battery life, especially the Vostros.

My vote went to Lenovo but it is based upon years of experience with IBM ThinkPads. I still have two 380's that are running DS Linux quite well. The 380D only has 80meg of memory! My T41 still will smoke almost any of the usual business laptops.

Running the warranty repairs operations for a major reseller, I see a dozen Dells come back for every Lenovo, and 10 or more HPs come back for every Dell. Dells have the battery life problem and an LCD connector that comes loose (and screen goes blank) with normal movement. HP's are full of tape inside and several models won't boot if the DIMM is not inserted just exactly perfect, or if certain case screws are a tiny bit too tight. Lenovo's can take a whallop and still keep going, and if the memory is not inserted correctly -- IT WILL STILL POWER UP AND TELL YOU THAT!!!

ASUS is my choice all time high, depending it from my point of view is free from 'as good as it gets' The third conduitor who needs to benefit and take advantage of the brand name, facts unknown to the orginal vendor. I have also buildt servers using ASUS motherboard and BIOS, and to my ASUS has the most logical "buildance" from an occidental citizen viewers aspect, easy and logic to understand, clean, and the laptop's is the best to work with, as they even are able to do work as server ( of course). But most of all I support an USA founded and still owned vendor, and as Compaq and HP/DELL is a hit and run rockad, there is no alternative no more, Most people do think that ASUS is an Asian product but actullay not, I will never ever use anything else if able to make my own choice. Besides, have you noticed the fact that ( with exception the Eee-book) one do never see a commercial advert sent from ASUS.
there is no need, and actually the focus in future innovations is a better topic to dump the capital/money into then to waste it away on advertising.

I voted Toshiba for the following reasons.

1. Back in 2002 I had a server fail in a rural location so I used what I had available, a Toshiba 1905-S303 laptop, and installed it as a "temporary Sco Unix" server. Turns out that the machine was sufficient enough to satisfy the business need and was kept in service for a total of 3 years and 9 months running 24/7 the whole time. The Toshiba 1905-S303 was a heater, practically would burn your legs if you actually put it on your lap, but it was a reliable beast.

2. Have a fleet of Tecra A4's that are near their 6th birthday. Didn?t' start having major problems until the 5th year. DVD failures, power button failures, hard drive failures and replacement power cords due to wear and tear. Think I'll "put them to sleep" because they simply won't die.

Runners up in the following order.
Lenovo
Panasonic
Dell
Have limited experience with the others.

Very similar experiences. I see a lot of ageing Tosh lappys with broken vista on them.. or xp.. it's always the junk operating system that is broken, never the hardware.

I have a bunch of likes and dislikes, so let me explain:
1. Dell runs hot and cold. right now they are delivering very good stuff. I expect that to last for another year (based on their history). two years ago, I got 7 dell laptops, and had 9 motherboards, 7 video cards and 5 disk drives replaced in the first 12 months. yep, some were replaced more than once. they do have good downloads of drivers, and you can replace disks easily.
2. HP runs hot and cold. right now, they are good. but their business units have only ok video cards and screens. ok to work on and good driver support.
3. Apple builds very good machines, but you either love or hate the os.
4. Asus builds very good machines, good driver support, but it takes a genius to figure out how to buy and where to buy and how to get a decent price for the configuration you want to get.
5. Lenovo has good machines, but on the few I've worked with, they have very weak wifi (compared to HP, dell, etc.)
6. Toshiba has good machines, but they always have some quirky features.
7. Sony (didn't expect to see that?) has very good computers, consistently good video and video cards, but lousy driver support, and makes the hardware very hard to work on.
8. All have weakness for the bucks they get by loading crapware. Sony, Dell, HP have probably the worst set of stuff they load. And they make it hard to get rid of.

If Sony had better support, device drivers, accessible hardware -- I'd recommend them. As is, nah. Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, and if you like quirky, Toshiba -- all are good, usually, sometimes better, sometimes worse.

bon chance.

Dells took more abuse than the IBMs / Lenovos I've had.

I can only speak on my experiences with laptops. Over the years, I've owned 4 HPs, 3 Dells and 1 Lenovo. All the HPs and the Lenovo worked right out of the box. Only one of the Dells work out-of-the-box. What turned me off on Dells was the lack of knowledgable technical support.

but if your a tech why did you need tech support? I used to work for dell HSB all of our techs were awesome till they sent it to Pakistan. Dells have the best parts still and the most rugged design. most hps and ibms have crappy MBs and the power adapters break loose to easy not securely soldered on like dell.

'cause my experience seems to be the opposite from most. My early IBM's were easy to service and needed a lot of it. My Toshibas lasted 'til the OS was too outdated, my Dell worked fine but the case fell apart (took a lightning hit to kill it, though), My Lenovo was ok 'til Lenovo "upgraded" it (won't run any MS OS but ok on Ubuntu), My new HP is beautiful so far...

one of the new Samsung machines?

I have regularly used Dell, HP, Toshiba, and IBM Laptops. By far the HP Laptop is more of a sturdy and reliable machines.

HP had their day in the sun.

When they stop playing the what's-the-lowest-bidder-game with components, they may have a comeback. Dell needs to really shape-up also if they want to keep their cool points too. I am seeing and hearing alot of reliability questions from Dell AND HP centering around skimping on components.

I've owned multiple notebooks from both Dell and HP, and they all failed far too soon.

What's a "good" one?

... ASUS. But as I said before, my sample size is too small to be conclusive. So far, I'm loving them.

About 2 years ago prior to a month long trip to Australia I bought an Asus eeePC and I love it. I bought because I wanted a computer and my camera (Fuiji S3 and 18-200mm lens) and the airline was very rigid on their carry-on requirements----ONE bag only 7Kg (about 16 lbs. and very tight dimensions). Neither my Gateway or my Toshiba would meet the weight requirement or the dimension requirement. In fact, I had to buy a special bag to meet the dimensions which were smaller than the standard U.S.A. airline carry-on.

The Asus works well and we travel with it exclusively. We use it at home as the mobile computer and connect to our wireless network for email and weather info.

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My mom had had two HP laptops. The first one the vid card fried and I got distorion on the LCD about 18 months in. The second one had LCD problems about a week after purchase. Never going the HP route again.

I am a laptop repairer, I do this for a living & the amount of work I'm getting from dead HPs is amazing! I do have to do all the reballing & reworking on their motherboards...no other brand makes me more $$$.

Yes, keep them coming please
On the other hand, I'm not as happy about Toshibas.

Seriously, when ever I disassemble a notebook, it is usually only the toshies that make me stop & admire the good design,, the superior cooling, the sturdier bodies, the cleaner circuitry, the well thought out design etc. My second choice is Asus.

But all brands have their bad models.

This has been a great poll... the way it is presented. First, TR asked about the worst laptop maker and then about the best laptop maker.

In the worst laptop maker poll, Acer ranked first and only 7% users felt that Apple makes worst laptops. When TR called a poll for Best Laptop maker, ideally Apple should top it. But its DELL.

This definately shows the human psychological effects. DELL is the largest maker of laptops and hence it has influenced more users than any other maker.

Also, when it comes to worst laptop selection, its either a bad experience, some way or the other or perception. Actually nobody has done the inspection TR or ZDNet does. It needs to be real analyst to understand what lies beneath.

This was a great learning opportunity. Thank you, Jason!

In my opinion the Poll could be better. I believe you should have been able to select the winner, 2nd and 3rd in both polls, that would make it more "clean".

... would be even more revealing.

Tell us how many notebooks you've owned, how many failed at what age, and what brand each was. Then we can compute the probable failure with one year, two years, etc. for each brand -- given a large enough sample.

that is why I bowed out. My experience is really beside the point, as the market has changed so rapidly one brand or another could come out on top, in recent history.

I really don't work on laptops anymore, most of my clients use desktops. And those are generally new HPs or old DELLs.

Somebody could start a thread here whereupon people post that information in a standard format, eg:

Dell latitude 600

working

win XP

6 years

another in the same format;

HP G60

dead (overheating)

win Vista/Debian

one year 3 months

...whatever format, people would have to be careful to follow it. That way it would be easy to glean the data (simple cut/paste) and voila... some serious information on this topic.

Can TR put up an entry form to collect this information? Or should we just ad hoc it in a discussion?

As a 40 year veteran electronics tech, I have learned that it's the buyer/user who makes this decision, not the engineer/tech. Many products win awards of all kinds from experts, but whether or not they serve well is logically the customer's word!

Based on personal experience and the number of other manufacturers laptops I have seen in disrepair