What laptop brands are best?

[TaraJo]

The main software concerns are as follows:

Word processing and school computers. As of now, when I need to print something at school (and that happens a lot) the computer system only seems to read Microsoft Word documents. If Mac uses a different word processor, that could be a very big problem for me.

This confuses me slightly. The computer system only reads MS Word documents? You need to copy the files to a different computer for printing, rather than printing them directly from your laptop? As I said, I have MS Office on my MacBook, so that isn't an issue. Also, other Office suites (including a free one called OpenOffice) saves files in .DOC or .DOCX format. So, again, not a problem.

Ok, that should fix things for me.

The problem with the school computer network is, if you want to print anything at the school printers, you can only print something that is actually on one of the school computers. I can't count how many times I've had to email a report to myself just to get on a school computer and print it.

[popeyespappy]

I'm with Cthulhu Dreaming on this one. The Dell XPS's are good laptops if you can afford one. I’ve had several over the years, and they were all good computers. My last laptop was a Toshiba. I couldn't in good conscience recommend one of those to anyone. I'm currently using a Lenovo ThinkPad W520 and couldn't be happier. Although this is my first Lenovo, and I've only owned it since March so 6 months isn't really a lot to go on has far as longevity is concerned.

[Kayenneh]

My last laptop is an HP and has worked for about 7 years now. It's my secondary computer nowadays, but back in the days I used to play Guild Wars and WoW on it. Its battery is fried, so it has to be plugged in all the time, and the fans are making an awful noise and will overheat occasionally, otherwise I'm surprised that it's still working. That being said, I seem to have been lucky. My sister is using the same model and hers is slow as fuck and despite having a great internet connection, it takes ages to open up Chrome. And I have heard from others that HP is not reliable and that their products usually break down quite fast. I had a problem with the media suite that came with it, but once that I got it uninstalled, it worked much more smoothly. My dad, who is a gadget and computer whiz, says that his little Alienware laptop is great, but those are really expensive and mostly for gaming.

[Darth]

I love my macbook, when it was on snow leapord (OS 10.5 methinks) it crashed maybe twice in a year, and they were both totally my fault (running like 20 programs). BUT... Lion (10.6) is the new vista imo, it's shockers.

[KichigaiNeko]

My Toshiba Satellite is three years on and still kicks arse!


would not advocate a HP (battery issues) but recently purchased a Macbook Air for #1 Daughter who thinks the world of it.

[Erinome]

I have an HP Pavillion. It's almost a year old, and it's awesome! I blew a speaker out when I first got it, but that was my mistake, and they fixed it with no problem. With the 2 year warranty, I only paid $600ish for it. Well worth it. It's perfect for all my needs, which is mainly school and personal use. I would recommend it.

Before this I had a Samsung. It was okay. This HP is better.

[KichigaiNeko]

Toshiba is better still imho

[frankiej]

The HP laptops I have come into contact with seem to be pretty good, but I suppose it depends what model you get.

I wouldn't recommend a Packard Bell laptop to anyone though... mine is literally falling apart. If I didn't know my way around the innards of a computer then this heap of junk would have failed a while ago. I got it for free anyway...

[Tiberius]

Also anti-virus in regard to Mac needs work. It used to be that it wasn't needed because hackers and viruses didn't bother with Mac but thats changing rapidly.

On the contrary, there are plenty of Anti-Virus products for Mac, and there always have been. It's untrue that hackers and viruses haven't bothered with Mac in the past; they have...they just haven't been successful. This is mainly due to the way the core OS is designed. Even without the huge market share making it more of a target, Windows has massive security flaws that simply aren't present in Mac OS X and Linux (and others). The main one being that the Administrator account is authenticated on boot, and doesn't need to be authenticated again in order to run or install stuff. That means viruses (and hackers) can easily run things as the Administrator account without much effort at all. On OS X / Linux, in order to access the Administrator account, you have to enter the Administrator password every time.

Don't get me wrong; OS X and Linux are not perfect systems; they have exploits and they can be exploited if not set up correctly. However, getting access to a user account on OS X or Linux is not the end of the road for a hacker...they need to get access to the Administrator account in order to do some real damage. The same cannot be said for a user account on Windows. Passwords are stored in main memory, and it's very easy to extract them and use them.

Virus wise, it should be pointed out that the latest virus scare for Mac users was not the fault of the OS, but rather the fault of Adobe and Oracle (the malware installed itself by exploiting Flash Player and Java updates).

Source: I hack stuff for a living.

[Jaysyn]

Don't get Dell. I previously owned a Dell laptop (much to my shame) and it was a nightmare to own. My battery had died after one year in, I had to buy 2 chargers for the damn thing because they broke down so easily and it could barely handle running Minecraft (although I'll admit to that being some ignorance as to how judge good computer specs at the time).

Sadly, I'm not as well informed about good laptop brands.

I wouldn't judge the quality of a laptop by the battery that came with it. Also, I have a 6 year old Dell XPS m140 that is still being used regularly.

All I can add to this is I've been using & building PCs for the better part of 18 years & have had complete shit luck with multiple Toshiba laptops. I also have an Acer Aspire, it's screen went bad three days out of the extended warranty.

If I had to go buy one right now & I couldn't drop $2k on a Widow PC or Falcon Northwest, I'd go with an ASUS or Lenovo. My girlfriend has an ASUS & it's been a great laptop. Survived two years of college & is now being used by 4 children. My mother has a Lenovo & I was impressed by it's build quality while I when I was setting it up.

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I wouldn't recommend a Packard Bell laptop to anyone though...

I don't think they even sell those in the US anymore.