The most durable yet inexpensive brand?

[tomshardwarerocks]

I am using a dell inspiron 1545, it's been over 1250 days since i bought it.

it's still in good condition besides the fact that the battery completely died a while ago.

I am planning to buy a new inexpensive laptop(around $400~500), this time i am thinking about getting a laptop from a retailer, not a computer builder. as sometimes you can get really good deals if the retailer is trying to get rid of old stocks.

I mainly play games (for example, world of warcraft) on my laptop so I semi-violently smash some keys (for example, WASD keys) often.

I never purchase any warranty, which brand would be ideal?

 

[tomshardwarerocks]

i guess any brand has low end laptops, so let me rephrase this: which brand is the most durable?

 

[jaguarskx]

Lenovo ThinkPads are probably the most durable laptop you can buy unless you are specifically looking for those specially ruggerized laptops that are meant to be taken into desert, jungle or any extreme environment. Those laptops are neither inexpensive or light to carry around.

ThinkPad T series are generally designed to survive a 30MPH impact. It won't look pretty, but the laptop will still function so that you can salvage the data on the hard drive.

 

[tomshardwarerocks]

Lenovo ThinkPads are probably the most durable laptop you can buy unless you are specifically looking for those specially ruggerized laptops that are meant to be taken into desert, jungle or any extreme environment. Those laptops are neither inexpensive or light to carry around.

ThinkPad T series are generally designed to survive a 30MPH impact. It won't look pretty, but the laptop will still function so that you can salvage the data on the hard drive.

I see.

But let's say if there are no lenovo on sale, what other brands should I consider? or let me put it this way, what brands should I not consider?

 

[jaguarskx]

Well, I tend to avoid scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to electronics, but I would definitely avoid.

Acer (Except TravelMate and TimelineX)
HP
emachines

Asus makes decent laptops, but they are fairly new to the laptop market. Well, they have been making laptops for other brands for a while. It's only just relatively recently that they sold laptops under their own brand name.

 

[photonboy]

Brands I recommend:
Asus, HP, Lenovo

(avoid Acer. Toshiba has poor customer support)

You can check out www.bestbuy.com and filter based on your requirements.

$400 to $500 isn't very high as a "gaming" laptop so you need to concentrate on the GRAPHICS portion. Your best bet at $500 is an AMD APU comprised of a quad-core CPU and adequate graphics portion. Graphics should be HD6000 or HD7000 series.

Example:
http/www.bestbuy.com/site/Lenovo+-+IdeaPad+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+6GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Gunmetal+Gray+Metal/4845199.p?id=1218548287807&skuId=4845199

Just an example. It's difficult to find a half decent casual gaming laptop at this price.

If you use your laptop at home you may wish to hook it up to an external monitor and use an external keyboard and mouse.

 

[tomshardwarerocks]

Best answer selected by tomshardwarerocks.

 

[tomshardwarerocks]

thanks guys, i will definitely avoid Acer then.

 

[tomshardwarerocks]

$400 to $500 isn't very high as a "gaming" laptop

see this thread i made yesterday. 400~500 is actually enough for 95% of PC games.

http/www.tomshardware.com/forum/82201-35-does-price-cover-cost-make-ship-laptop