Looking for a recommendation

[Guest]

I thought I would apply a little "wisdom of the crowds" to help me select a suitable laptop.

Use - Portable Workstation / Virtualisation testing (VMware workstation 9)
Budget £1000-£1250 (company dictated budget)
CPU - i7 capable of as many threads as possible
MEM - Must be capable of 16GB or more but starting at 8 will be ok
HDD - = or > 1TB either mechanical or hybrid (not completely sure what they are to be honest)
DVD/RW
Display -15.6 - 17, preferably LED
OS - Doesn't really matter as it will have 7 Enterprise installed whatever it comes with new.

As for brands -

Dell - Owned Dell before and had no issues

Toshiba - Indifferent

Fujitsu - Worked with their servers and desktops before and they seemed OK though have not used a Fuji laptop

Samsung - Don't know enough about their laptops to pass comment.

HP - Have heard they suffer from problems with surface mounted parts? Perhaps someone could clarify?

Sony - Meh - not unless there is a compelling reason

Lenovo - Errrr No.

Any I've missed?

Edit:- After reading a thread in the Win7 section it will also need to have the ability to turn of secure boot also, assuming it it comes with it.

TIA

 

[socialfox]

I'll just drop this here:
http/www.dabs.com/products/samsung-350v-black-core-i7-3630m-8gb-1tb-17-3--nivdia-2gb-grps-w8hp-8C4Y.html?refs=54600000-56650000&src=2

Edit: Or this
http/www.dabs.com/products/acer-v3-771g-iron-17-3--core-i7-3610-16gb-1-5tb-nvidia-windows-8-8C6Q.html?refs=54600000-56650000-479460000&src=3

 

[Guest]

Thanks for those, forgot about Acer, are they good - what is their after sales and warranty support like?

 

[socialfox]

Thanks for those, forgot about Acer, are they good - what is their after sales and warranty support like?

They are ok but from what I hear from others their customer service is kind of lacking. Anyways I believe HP is a good brand, I own one of their laptops and it still runs fine today, only thing I needed to ever replace in the last 4 years was the battery...

I just looked around and HP does seem to have okay customer service, you could also consider Lenovo:
http/www.laptopmag.com/mobile-life/best-brands-overall-scorecard-2012.aspx

 

[Guest]

They are ok but from what I hear from others their customer service is kind of lacking. Anyways I believe HP is a good brand, I own one of their laptops and it still runs fine today, only thing I needed to ever replace in the last 4 years was the battery...

I just looked around and HP does seem to have okay customer service, you could also consider Lenovo:
http/www.laptopmag.com/mobile-life/best-brands-overall-scorecard-2012.aspx

Quite happy to have HP, our company is pretty much all HP, just that I'd heard that some HP laptops have issues, I think its with the GPU chips but I can't be 100% sure about that.

Lenovo - Nope sorry - won't consider them.

 

[darth pravus]

What's wrong with lenovo?

 

[Guest]

What's wrong with lenovo?

Couple of reasons I personally won't consider them , firstly and fore mostly is one of ethics, as far as I am aware Lenovo is part owned by the Chinese govt. Secondly I know 2 people who have had Lenovo products both of which failed within weeks of the warranty expiring.

I'd rather not buy products with Foxconn parts in either but I recon that is almost impossible now.

 

[socialfox]

Couple of reasons I personally won't consider them , firstly and fore mostly is one of ethics, as far as I am aware Lenovo is part owned by the Chinese govt. Secondly I know 2 people who have had Lenovo products both of which failed within weeks of the warranty expiring.

I'd rather not buy products with Foxconn parts in either but I recon that is almost impossible now.

Funny thing is, I think I heard something about foxconn employees jumping out the building.....which resulted in their deaths.

 

[Guest]

Funny thing is, I think I heard something about foxconn employees jumping out the building.....which resulted in their deaths.

I've read articles about that also. Trouble is I doubt you can buy many products these days that don't have Foxconn's name in them somewhere. Thanks for your input so far, certainly given me some reviews to look through.

 

[socialfox]

I've read articles about that also. Trouble is I doubt you can buy many products these days that don't have Foxconn's name in them somewhere. Thanks for your input so far, certainly given me some reviews to look through.

You are right, I believe the Iphone 5 is made or assembled by Foxconn...
Either way are you sticking with HP? If so let me know and I can look around for a good HP laptop. Also are there any other sites you know of that works for you? Dabs is the only site I know for your area. There are obviously more but I don't live near you (I'm Canadian) and so I don't know all the shops you can use. If you can, provide websites you can use and I will look around.

 

[Guest]

You are right, I believe the Iphone 5 is made or assembled by Foxconn...
Either way are you sticking with HP? If so let me know and I can look around for a good HP laptop. Also are there any other sites you know of that works for you? Dabs is the only site I know for your area. There are obviously more but I don't live near you (I'm Canadian) and so I don't know all the shops you can use. If you can, provide websites you can use and I will look around.

I'm happy to go with HP if someone can clarify whether or not there is an issue with some of their laptops, as for suppliers I will more than likely get it through the company's technology partner who will likely source it direct from the manufacturer. The idea of the original post was just to get an idea of what's available to suit my needs and others experience and/or informed opinion. Doubt I will get clearance from the powers that be to purchase it until Jan.