This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
FrozenWasteland · 61-69, M
msi Stealth i7. Great in every way except battery life (less than three hours if it's working hard). And the lousy keyboard -- but I use an external one most of the time anyway. Great touch pad. It's been really reliable and I'd give it a decent recommendation if you need something moderately fast with good graphics.
hp something or other with an Athlon processor. Used for field work. Runs forever on a charge. Best $279 I ever spent on a computer. It's astonishingly good if it's all you need. But it's NOT fast.
Ancient Dell M4700 i7. Still hanging in there. It's always been great and absolutely reliable, been through a couple of hard drives and a couple of batteries, but that's to be expected given how long I've had the beastie. I still like but it's stuck at Windows 7, so its utility is limited now. It's also HEAVY and bulky to drag around.
Lenovo ThinkPad i5. Not great -- at least mine wasn't. Least reliable thing I've owned even before the lid wouldn't open one day. Hinge broken. They claimed it was "abuse". No warranty and not close to being worth the repair cost, because apparently, you usually break the screen getting it apart enough to replace the stupid hinge. I understand they fixed this problem in newer machines, but I'd still be hesitant.
hp something or other with an Athlon processor. Used for field work. Runs forever on a charge. Best $279 I ever spent on a computer. It's astonishingly good if it's all you need. But it's NOT fast.
Ancient Dell M4700 i7. Still hanging in there. It's always been great and absolutely reliable, been through a couple of hard drives and a couple of batteries, but that's to be expected given how long I've had the beastie. I still like but it's stuck at Windows 7, so its utility is limited now. It's also HEAVY and bulky to drag around.
Lenovo ThinkPad i5. Not great -- at least mine wasn't. Least reliable thing I've owned even before the lid wouldn't open one day. Hinge broken. They claimed it was "abuse". No warranty and not close to being worth the repair cost, because apparently, you usually break the screen getting it apart enough to replace the stupid hinge. I understand they fixed this problem in newer machines, but I'd still be hesitant.
Unlearn · 41-45, M
@FrozenWasteland Thanks for the elaborate response. I agree with most of what you've said. MSI is also known for hinge problems. I was considering trying out Lenovo but have been warned against it by several people. I think I will go with Dell XPS or Latitude. Any thoughts on ASUS? It has got mixed reviews.
FrozenWasteland · 61-69, M
@Unlearn I hadn't heard of msi hinge issues. Mine has certainly been fine and I move it around a lot (touch wood).
My main desktop machine is msi (motherboard and graphics card) and it's been fine so I kind of trust their quality in general. Having said that, the machine is a little flaky on startup -- takes half of forever to boot every once in a while -- but I expect that's more Windows just messing around than anything hardware related -- maybe it's not loving some of the old software that loads at startup on this machine. I almost never shut the thing off, so I haven't taken the time to figure out what's going on.
My son has an ASUS -- a few years old, i7. Good performance, not outstanding reliability, at least on his, but ok. Not sure what model it was. It's gone through a hard drive (maybe not a big surprise -- it was a spinny drive and he's hard on the machine physically), a fan and a keyboard.
I've had a bunch of ASUS motherboards over the years (no complaints) and am currently using ASUS monitors on my desktop (again, no complaints) so I like ASUS stuff in general. Just never had an ASUS laptop.
My main desktop machine is msi (motherboard and graphics card) and it's been fine so I kind of trust their quality in general. Having said that, the machine is a little flaky on startup -- takes half of forever to boot every once in a while -- but I expect that's more Windows just messing around than anything hardware related -- maybe it's not loving some of the old software that loads at startup on this machine. I almost never shut the thing off, so I haven't taken the time to figure out what's going on.
My son has an ASUS -- a few years old, i7. Good performance, not outstanding reliability, at least on his, but ok. Not sure what model it was. It's gone through a hard drive (maybe not a big surprise -- it was a spinny drive and he's hard on the machine physically), a fan and a keyboard.
I've had a bunch of ASUS motherboards over the years (no complaints) and am currently using ASUS monitors on my desktop (again, no complaints) so I like ASUS stuff in general. Just never had an ASUS laptop.