Laptop Brand Names to Avoid / Suggest?

[lifematrix]

I used to be fairly up-to-date with computers. But I'm afraid I'm rather out-of-touch now. And a friend recently came to me for advice on getting a new laptop since his old one quit on him.

So I'm asking here for suggestions on brand names for laptops. I know that Dell used to make good laptops and they were extremely popular. But from what I've been told, that's not exactly the case anymore and my friend wants to avoid them. (His old laptop was Dell and it served him well for a number of years, though.)

If it helps, my friend is looking for something in the $500 to $1000 range and I believe he wants a 15-16" screen. The other details are a bit more flexible. This will be for business, home use, and some older games - but nothing very recent or hardware intensive. Still, something with either Radeon or nVidia graphics is strongly preferred.

Also, he needs it right away and wants to buy local, which probably means either Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Already, I see those restrictions limits the brand names as some do not offer those features in his price range at these outlets.

Some of the brands we're considering:

Best Buy: HP, Toshiba, ASUS, Samsung, Acer, Compaq, CyberPowerPC, Gateway, Lenovo, MSI, Sony

Wal-Mart: HP, Acer, Toshiba, Lenovo, ASUS, Gateway, Sony, Samsung, MSI, Compaq, CyberPower

I'm already rather leery of Lenovo and CyberPower as my impression of them is that of "economy" hardware targeting the "bargain" audience. I believed such economy brands had a bad rep for customer service and/or reliability. And my impression of HP, Toshiba, and Acer was the opposite of that. But, as I said, I'm rather out-of-touch now and I'm not even confident in that. I'm tempted to give ASUS another chance, though I have had some problems with some of their video cards in years past.

Again, any sort of feedback on these brands would be helpful.

 

[olin9]

Lenovo, ASUS and MSI are of good quality. Lenovo is the best bag for your buck at this time.

 

[g-unit1111]

So I'm asking here for suggestions on brand names for laptops. I know that Dell used to make good laptops and they were extremely popular. But from what I've been told, that's not exactly the case anymore and my friend wants to avoid them. (His old laptop was Dell and it served him well for a number of years, though.)

Dell is not the brand they used to be - they went way down hill after about 2004. I had a couple of Dells. I liked the first one but absolutely hated the second, it was bad right out of the box with a defective pixel, which they tried to pass off to UPS as a shipping error.

 

[scottiemedic]

Samsung is on a huge upswing and do all of their builds in house with no outsourcing. I've been HUGELY impressed with the Series editions and Samsung will be my next laptop, even if I have to pay a bit more. And they are aesthetically GORGEOUS!

 

[lifematrix]

Thanks for the input! We did take it under consideration.

Lenovo was tempting and several models came close to offering the features he wanted. Sadly, all the Lenovo models in the low to mid price range seemed to lack a high quality (nVidia or Radeon) video accelerator, so that was a deal breaker.

My friend ended up getting a Toshiba in order to customize it with the features he wanted. Their online custom build form allowed him that - and in his price range. The downside, though, is the long wait for them to get around to shipping it.

 

[attk mast3r]

i suggest:
lenovo, samsung, asus, and msi. they're all great brands and have good quality products. hp is decent and may or may not have good quality products, depends on the model. lenovo doesn't have very impressive battery life for their ideapad line, but their thinkpad line can have over 20 hours of battery life, but terrible options for graphics. samsung blows the competition away with high build quality, long battery life, and good hardware options, a very strong mac competitor. asus is good, especially with gaming, but too overpriced and under equipped with battery life. msi is a great alternative to asus, boasting great hardware for quite cheap prices.

avoid:
toshiba, sony, acer, and dell. toshiba should be avoided at all costs, their build quality is the worst in the industry and their support is crap. sony is overpriced and offers limited hardware, their battery life is bad as well. acer is a hit or miss company, and seems to make cheaper products, try to avoid it but if you can't it may be worth taking a look at. dell has gone to crap, they've got good options, but they're overpriced and the battery life is complete trash, quite disappointing.