Lately been searching through the net for laptops due to request from a few friends. Found that a few brands are having the most shares of attention. Not sure whether this topic exists in here or not (tried to search for laptop but can't find), just wanna know how u guys think of these brands (and their models):

DELL
The ultimate brand to go at if u have a tight budget. Good service (as i heard since i didn't have any laptops) and value for good hardware specs. But some friends do experience casing problems after 1 or 2 years of usage (keyboard spoil, plastic cover broken etc). The XPS is really looking cool though.

HP
Good hardware specification (and so i heard) but slightly expensive. Not sure how's the customer support. The design look nice to me (even better than Dell's Latitude, but that's a personal perception). Anyone have any bad experience with HP's laptops?

Acer
Personally i'd banned anything with the brand Acer after having a nightmare with its Desktop. But i do have a few friends who're having a breeze with its laptop. They even put Acer's lappies above Dell and HPs. Hmm, perhaps i'm the only one that's unlucky?

Lenovo
I like ThinkPad but not my wallet. When i heard that Lenovo's coming out with a few low budget laptop i was kinda thrilled. Don't think it's popular in malaysia, ain't it? Anyone using it?

Just for the sake of discussion.

Just some notes on DELL laptops:

The Inspiron and XPS series are actually totally different line from the Latitude and Precision series

the former is just a normal grade laptop while the later is armored to perfection

same goes to lenovo. only the thinkpad series are the IBM laptop. the rest are borne from the china brand lenovo itself.

just take it like this:

inspiron = xps = hp = acer = lenovo

(xps just have better after sales service)

latitude = precision = thinkpad

are u sure inspiron = hp = acer?

HP also got many series and the lower ends one ofcourse cannot be compared with the higher ends one, in terms of built quality and the finishings.

Any good line of laptop from HP then? i'm not familiar with their notebook line...

TS, you do happen to know that this subforum exist?

http://forum.lowyat.net/PDAs&MobileComputing

what to do....newbie always start at the wrong place before browsing to other section.
anyway, compaq is selling a lot more cheaper than the HP.

I think this site, (http://www.smartratings.com/computers/notebooks), has some of the laptops that you're referring to. You can check out the reviews, experts and users alike, and make an informed opinion of the units of interest.

no matter what dont get Compaq. My aunty works there.She say that they recycle HP stuff and reuse put to compaq and sell as a new laptop. HP and compag are the same company. IF got high burget try getting Dell the high end 1. Dont get Dells low end 1.

Buying laptop has always been a compromise for me between performance, weight, price, screen, battery life and warranty.

so depends on your needs, the answer might be different. I would grade as such.

lots of travel -> weight(below 2kg), battery life(> 3 hrs), warranty (international?)
some travel -> screen, price, warranty
desktop replacement -> screen, performance(hdd), price
gaming -> performance(cpu+gpu), screen

my 2 cents.

HP laptops are Compaq's right? or they are promoted as 2 different brand but from the same company?

Stumbled across Toshiba and Fujitsu's laptop.... Heard that the Satelite series are kinda cool... any comments?

Is the current notebook support Extreme DDR2 667 ram?

pls lar
when come to business...other brand also do like this as long the paper show you its cover you the warranty..........


high burget woor.....zzzzzzzz

lol
asi if the Penang Asam Laksa selling at Jalan Petaling really comes all the way from Penang
as they give warranty to all parts, and it looks new, why not?

any laptop for budget gaming? :lol
<4k

I don't really agree with this, HP's Pavillion series are above that of inspiron, acer or lenovo. You can say that inspiron = aspire = compaq = lenovo is abit more accurate...

You guys are missing out the creme of the crop.

Sony's Viao series, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Panansonic produces some of the highest quality laptops, but of course, permium grade comes at a premium price too

i am a HP laptop user...

here is my story...

around 3 years back, i bought the HP compaq nx9010... it's a P4 unit...
but i had alot of problem wif it,... blue screen, laptop hangs and etc...
my unit was in and out the service center very often... almost every 2 months... and the rough total time my unit was in the service center was around 4 months plus...

i complained about the blue screen problem and the inability of the engineers solving my problem to their higher management...
when the laptop almost reaching 1 year, i demanded for a warranty extend as this is their fault for having such problematic laptop...

so... after much hassel, the GM decided to giv me a replacement unit... another model... nx6120...

but then... i realise that their quality control of their products is really bad...
when i got the first unit of the nx6120, the LCD screen had some defect on it... so i asked for a change... they refused, then they say they could only change the LCD screen... fine enough...

one engineer came to my office and change it for me... but during the process, the engineer used some worn out tools and used a flat head screw driver to open the unit... but he carelessly chipped of one portion of the magnesium coating...

i complained to the HP's management regarding this matter, they apologies, and they say they will send me another unit as replacement...

they claimed that they have checked the unit very carefully for defect and etc... then only they send it to me,..
when i started the laptop, when it reached an white background, i realised that i could see an X on the screen... this is because the lumination of the screen wasn't even... every colleague of mine also told me that they saw a X on the screen...

so i called them and told them about this matter... they came and replace another unit...

so now in total they have replaced me 3 units...

Their customer service is not too bad... but only that their product quality is questionable...

Wow..... quite a nightmare you had there..... minus 10 points from HP laptops....

As for Sony VAIO, i heard that the price doesn't match the quality of the product..... well just rumours..... anyone been a VAIO user here?

wah.. i tot NX series is business class and more reliable...?
even DV series and V3000 (mainstream) also no such problem...
if free can come hp thread at PDA and mobile computing and c..

Acer lappys ?

High Spec = Yes

Low/Medium Spec = No

maybe i am also one of those lucky ones ..

Here my experience with few laptop below.

HP NC 4200 - within 1 year the laptop already die twice on me and had change the entire mobo twice. Lucky still under warranty

IBM Thinkpad T & R series - very reliable and never had any hardware failure. Never call for their support therefore no idea how good ibm support is. Cons, freaking bulky

Now using acer ferrari 1000 - after using it for almost 4 months, kinda satisfy with it. No failure face so far.

So far, from what I heard and experienced, the best customer service among all laptop sellers is DELL.

I have 2 laptops, one is Toshiba and another is Dell.

For Toshiba, after using it for 3 years, its CMOS battery has been used up. I called up Teledynamic.
They passed my line from department to department acting like they didn't which department should be accountable for the task.
Just to get some information, I made 5 calls.
At last, they told me that they don't have the stock for my model.
But, they can order it for me. It takes 2 to 3 weeks to have the replacement unit to reach them.
It will takes another 3 to 4 days to replace the battery for me.
The most ridiculous part is they are going to charge me RM 1XX workmanship (forgot the exact amount) for changing a RM 60 battery in the case that I'm sending them myself the unit.

Now, using Dell.
So far so good.
If anything happens, just call them up.
The lady over the phone in a nice tone will ask me to hang up my call after getting my Service tags No.
She will call back to me immediately just to help me to save a few cents of my phone bills.
If the problems cannot be fixed over the phone, she will lodge a report and ask her technician comes to my place ( office or home, you decide ) to fix it for me.
The best part is the technician most likely will bring a new unit to my place and fix it before me.

This is most important if you have some things really personal and confidential stored in your laptop, I think you won't be sleep tight at night when your laptop is fixing in the factory while someone might browse through your personal data.

Thus far, I have made such call twice.
They came and replaced the motherboard twice and LCD once.
Even a minor problem like network card is not function properly due to loosen connection (sometime detected, sometime not detected), they will exchange the motherboard and network card at once.

Just on March, my Complete Cover warranty is due.
I'm very happy to extend it for another two years.
Now, I especially like to have my laptop run on raining and lightning days.
Of course, as long as all my important data is secured.

I'm taking that as a compliment to IBM, hahaha...

There are so many different warranties and supports out there, could be quite misleading sometime (like this one is covered and that one is not, sounds like my insurance policy)

Just to relate my experience with IBM, specifically with their T43 bcz that was the one i abused while working as an auditor. It survived all the bumps and knocks.

Lets just say that I never wanted to go with any other brands after actually using one of those and in fact, bought a 2nd hand T43 for personal use when for that price i could've owned lappies with C2D and the likes...

I rarely hear anyone saying that they returned their IBM for warranty purposes, that is definitely a positive note.

So yeah, I prefer IBM as far as i'm concerned for now =)

go for vaio
style is more important than specs

True I myself would say that a compliment on the thinkpad series. The best support would be you wont need to call the support at all. Many always claim dell had the best support but they never think another way, dell always sell you problematic products. Eventhough the company can provide you service in a very fast speed, but you still losing time on waiting and especially when you had some important work to due

then after a few months ..ppl will say " look at that dude, he is still using that old Style Vaio" update sikit la ..haha

Hahaha...its a Sony wor, give face a bit lah..at least 1 year la.

Anyway, my point of view is that both function and style are equally important. However, function comes first and then style.

hehe .. ya must have a balance actually..juz take what u think suits u the best ..in terms of style and also specs hehe

Actually, i think have to take into account the built quality also such as the built of the joints, material used as housing for the laptop.

My fren's laptop LCD surrounding plastic housing actually bent as time goes by, and now the lid cant close properly. damn...it was an acer btw.

HP got Pavillion D series and T series... then got compaq presario DV3 and 6 series...
Pavillion D are like high performance mobile desktop... T series are Tablets... DV6 are normal mobile desktop... DV 3 are normal cheapest notebook from HP...

Any1 here know anything bout this...? quite similar to Vadim but this site looks cooler...

dell lappy has the uncle looks design

i thought 3 yr old laptops
those early introduction to computers where they learn abc.
but dell is value for specs, undeniably

My experience after 5 years having a Dell Latitude; it won't win awards for aesthetics, and back then the body was all plastic but still tough. I have had people knock my Dell down while I was playing CS and it fell to the floor from a height of more than 4 feet. Still running even today but the CMOS battery (i think) that powers the clock is dead, and the hinge for monitor kaput on one side. Oh and it came with Samsung SDRAM.

Dell utilities CD is also useful compared with other brands. my 2 cents.

Except for XPS i think. That machine looks cool to me, but the air vent on the side is damn hot when it's running, almost burned my palm while i was playing FIFA 2007 on my friend's XPS.

i sell toshiba laptops and the new satellite m200 series sure looks good ...

i think they have 1 of the best laptop speakers around ... (Harman/Kardon)

just tested the new satellite m200 ... beats the hp altec big time ...