Top laptop manufacturer for reliability and looks

[vishalaestro]

looking for a laptop for college purpose don't know which brand to choose ?i'm ruling apple out since its very expensive this poll is only for budget buyers.

 

[dollings]

For only college purposes (are you gaming?) I'd say personally I really love hp - they tend to be extremely portable (probably the best after apple), and I've never had issues with them despite my family owning 3 hp laptops, and 5 hp desktops over the past 5 years. I also tend to think they make the prettiest looking laptops (though I'm a girl). However, I think dell runs a lot of student discounts/deals, and actually, I'm not saying to get apple, but I think a lot of universities also run deals with apple.

Probably though it's better to look at models instead.

 

[paul_preib]

I cannot comment too much on looks given how subjective that is (some people like utterly clean and spartan, others a bit more trussing up, etc.) however in terms of reliability I can talk to both personal experience and bit of the results I've seen from personally digging around

First off in terms of personal experience:

I would avoid HP from a reliability standpoint. Personally I had an extremely poor experience. I purchased one for a black friday deal because it had the best bang for the buck, and in roughly a week I had to exchange it. Just shy of the one month mark from the original purchase the exchanged model also started severely acting up. At that point I said forget it and exchanged it for a Toshiba with comparable hardware, paying the difference. This leads into my second notion....

Toshiba-- I cannot help but give Toshiba a ringing endorsement. In terms of price vs. reliability I have been extremely happy with them. My first laptop was a Toshiba and ran strong for about two years before I started looking for a new one merely because it was feeling a bit dated, that's when I went through the aforementioned HP fiasco. I am right now typing on the Toshiba I exchanged with the HP about three years (possibly more, hard to remember) after buying it, with no issues at all. I can also vouch that my experiences lead to my Sister and Father both purchasing Toshiba laptops, both of whom are extremely happy 3-4 years into having them.


As far as what I've found in terms of research (i.e. secondhand knowledge):

Good bets: Asus, Acer, Toshiba

Have heard some good and some bad: Sony, Lenovo, Samsung

Have heard a lot of bad, very little good: HP, Compaq, Gateway

Out of all of those I'd still edge Toshiba as my vote for a student-specific laptop in terms of the very solid reliable variations they have all in the low to lower-mid price ranges (say 300-600)

 

[Vaz711]

I cannot comment too much on looks given how subjective that is (some people like utterly clean and spartan, others a bit more trussing up, etc.) however in terms of reliability I can talk to both personal experience and bit of the results I've seen from personally digging around

First off in terms of personal experience:

I would avoid HP from a reliability standpoint. Personally I had an extremely poor experience. I purchased one for a black friday deal because it had the best bang for the buck, and in roughly a week I had to exchange it. Just shy of the one month mark from the original purchase the exchanged model also started severely acting up. At that point I said forget it and exchanged it for a Toshiba with comparable hardware, paying the difference. This leads into my second notion....

Toshiba-- I cannot help but give Toshiba a ringing endorsement. In terms of price vs. reliability I have been extremely happy with them. My first laptop was a Toshiba and ran strong for about two years before I started looking for a new one merely because it was feeling a bit dated, that's when I went through the aforementioned HP fiasco. I am right now typing on the Toshiba I exchanged with the HP about three years (possibly more, hard to remember) after buying it, with no issues at all. I can also vouch that my experiences lead to my Sister and Father both purchasing Toshiba laptops, both of whom are extremely happy 3-4 years into having them.


As far as what I've found in terms of research (i.e. secondhand knowledge):

Good bets: Asus, Acer, Toshiba

Have heard some good and some bad: Sony, Lenovo, Samsung

Have heard a lot of bad, very little good: HP, Compaq, Gateway

Out of all of those I'd still edge Toshiba as my vote for a student-specific laptop in terms of the very solid reliable variations they have all in the low to lower-mid price ranges (say 300-600)

You should take acer off of that, never ever heard good news about them and their brand is usually the one i get for free from programs.
From personal experience and research i can say the most reliable brands ive had are Lenovo,Toshiba, and Asus

 

[JD88]

Lenovo and Sony all the way. Lenovo has Thinkpad which have outsanding quality and reliablity. The new Ideapad line is probably the best gaming value out there.

Sony is Sony. Great quality, but you pay dearly for it.

I consider HP and Asus to be in the middle somewhere. I like the look and feel of a lot of the new HP units that are coming out.

I would stay away from Samsung and Toshiba, especially on the low end. Nothing but cheap junk.

 

[MegaBUD]

Asus usually have their own case with better cooling...


I went with MSI simply because the laptop was thinner and lighter than all the other "mid range gaming laptop 15.4"


Never had a problem with them... And the canadian service center is in Toronto... and they ship "express".

 

[jaguarskx]

I wouldn't exactly call ThinkPads inexpensive...

However, I did manage to snag a 15.6" ThinkPad T530 with a 1920x1080 resolution screen, 500GB HDD, 8GB of RAM and the default i5-3230m CPU for $870 before tax. Should arrive by the end of the month and I'll have 21 days to decide if i want to keep it.