agreed with what karising said . Brands like Toshiba, Acer, Fujitsu and etc doesn't manufacture their own HDD, CD-ROMs and etc...

To me, the things that i go for is; price, specs, after sales services and international warranty (coz i used to bring my laptop to overseas for studies)...

ever thought of getting a Apple MacBook Pro? 

ibm design is quite boring...for me..toshiba is the best..compare with its perfomance price ratio....fujitsu...good quality..but price..expensive
...acer..nice also...esp ferrari

It all comes to how much u wanna pay ... the more u pay the better u get ... juz my 2 cents.... hehehe

Acer not bad one la .... my sis use acer (lupa wat model) 6 years ... pentium 2 ... till now still watching vcd and online wit it ... (rosak HD once) only ...

6 years people !!!!

actually it also depends on ur luck ... sometime u buy tat time got some problems and stuff...

Take my word, dont buy clone laptop, I experience on clone laptop (assembly in Malaysia) the quality is so bad, they broken down easily (I have seen many customer come to service).

Branded laptop, categories to 2 classes. First class = IBM, fujitsu, Sony and Toshiba. Second class = Compaq, Acer, Dell, Twinhead, HP and etc.

Third class = clone laptop, new and unpopular brand (You guess)

Buying laptop is not like buying PC, you will need support internationally, so buy something which having the better support.

I am not a fanboy but I can share some of the experience I have.
ACER = Cheap, Higher Specs, Moderate quality
TOSHIBA = Higher Price (Not very expensive), Medium Specs, Good quality

You did mention about HDD Smart Failure, that doesnt mean that the laptop is bad, remember ACER doesnt manufacture HDD, they assembly component. If you get something like battery failure, dead pixel, casing crack, mainboard spoil and etc then you can said that brand is bad.

Before i buy my first laptop, people always ask me goes branded one like acer, toshiba, sony and others... So, I was lookin for a best laptop, once and for all... so do less further upgrade in the next few years.

Some people also keep on asking me, buy clone den what kind of brand is clone? is clone better and cheaper? Hyundai? Is branded provide me a better functions and quality? All this are maze in my mind!

My frens bought an Acer TravelMate 8200 model-one of the latest model , after few days, the hardware something like SMART chip burn , den send to warranty in Singapore. They said is hardware problems and faulty something like that. Toshiba is gud brand, i always like it, juz the prices is higher than a normal laptop with same spec. So...

What shud i buy? 
clone or branded? 

Twinhead is a branded notebook la? 1 thing i dont understand about twinhead's warranty. It says all twinhead come with 3 years limited local warranty & 1 year limited international warranty.what does that mean?

Hahahah...ok ok...they are a brand but so is ftec, hyundai or any other that's out there. Twinhead is struggling taiwanese manufacturer that hasn't really got any markets except in SEA. They only have 2 niche models plus 2 seriously outdated models.

so williamngwl,is twinhead good?
And what does the 3 years limited local warranty & 1 year limited international warranty mean?

3 years including parts and labour?

first year international part & labour warranty,second & third year only labour free of charge,part have to pay

my wife uses Toshiba Dynabook , I use Fujitsu P series notebook. Both no problem. Reliable even if my 1.5 yrs old son messes with it....I allow him anyway.
Does clone sounds good to you?? Guess u got the drift...good luck.

i think toshiba got manufacture their own HDD and rom, some fujitsu model even using toshiba drive.....