Which Brand manufactures durable consumer level laptops?

[RLBalane]

Hey guys! I need your help. I am planning to replace my 6 year-old Fujitsu Esprimo Mobile V6535 Laptop because I need a "higher-spec" laptop for everyday use specially that I am now in college level. But, but, but ... the problem is can't find any Fujitsu Laptop on the store where my father used to go when buying laptops. So I need to switch to a new brand and ended up on this 3 brands with specific models.

HP Pavilion 15 ab009nx
Dell Inspiron 5558
Acer Aspire V Nitro7-571G

It is not necessary to include the specs of each model since all of their offered specs work fine for me. So the question is, which of those model is the most durable, has a good quality build that will last for more than 5 years like my Old Fujitsu Laptop.

Sharing your experience with any of those models or series is highly appreciated.
A big, big, big thanks in advance.

Store:Jarir Bookstore

 

[DarkSable]

Lenovo, then Asus. Dell and HP are terrible, mostly because they come with ridiculous amounts of bloatware.

 

[jaguarskx]

To be fair, at least Dell and HP do not sell consumer laptops with malware installed.

Lenovo shipped consumer laptops (not business laptops) with Superfish earlier this year which basically was a "man in the middle" type of software to help drive adds. But that type of "service" has a very high vulnerability to fraud type attacks. More recently, it was found that Lenovo consumer laptops had program a program installed which loads before Windows loads. The purpose is to keep certain drivers up to date, but it also checked if certain bloatware that came with the laptop was removed. If the bloatware was uninstalled, then the program would reinstall the bloatware.

http/www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/08/remove-bloatware-from-lenovo-computers/index.htm


While all brand name laptops have some amount of bloatware installed, none seems to be as insidious as Lenovo. Or at least they have not been caught doing so like Lenovo has been caught....

 

[mrmike_49]

None o fthe above,Toshiba make the best, longest lasting laptops

 

[jaguarskx]

Perhaps the following article published in March 2015 can help.

Best & Worst Laptop Brands 2015

#1 - Apple
#2 - Dell
#3 - HP
#4 - MSI
#5 - Samsung
#6 - Lenovo
#7 - Asus
#8 - Toshiba
#9 - Acer

It is pretty widely known that Asus is notorious for having very poor tech support.

 

[RLBalane]

Thanks for the response guys!

The reason why I didn't include Lenovo on the list, it is because I am already disappointed with their Lenovo A7 A330GV Tablet . It suddenly died for an "unknown reason" so I need to take it to their service center for repair. Another issue is that, the Touchscreen sometimes hang for a short period of time which makes my head hotter than the hardware inside it.
Although it is not a Laptop, the disappointment made me hard to trust Lenovo Products in terms of durability.

 

[RLBalane]

None o fthe above,Toshiba make the best, longest lasting laptops

Any detailed experience please? [not necessary write a novel :lol:]

 

[GreyCatz]

Greetings, RLBalane:

As a heavy Lenovo user I'd just like to offer a second opinion on this brand. While it's true that Lenovo shipped non-business PCs with some odious software from October 2014 to January 2015 (and this of course is offensive not matter how you look at it), your original question did address durability. This I consider to be one of Lenovo's stronger suits, and while their products don't feature Apple-grade design, the ThinkPad series is generally considered the very definition of rugged durability.

If you expect to use your laptop for 5 years and beyond, ThinkPads come with a proven track record covering more than 20 years. As for the other Lenovo products currently available, I have to say they seem to be designed more for 'general lifestyle' rather than rock-solid build quality.

Lenovo has a lot of innovative and head-turning models today, e.g. the Yoga, the Horizon and the Helix, but to be perfectly honest, I think Lenovo is going for market shares rather than trying to topple Apple on the design front. On that note, make sure to go for an IPS screen - Lenovo's TN screens are almost useless.

In short, do take the time to consider a Lenovo ThinkPad series.

Cheers,
GreyCatz.

 

[mrmike_49]

Had 1 Toshiba Satellite (forget exact model #) that came with Win 98, 2nd edition, was still running after ~10 years, when I bought a new Toshiba, cause Win98 was just plain obsolete. 2nd Satellite is ~6 years old and still running fine, although I bought a new, faster one. All 3 laptops were fairly cheap Toshibas, typical price $400 - $450

 

[daddywalter]

While durability is your primary concern, be sure to consider "future-proofing" too. The factors I look for, in order, are: amount of RAM (8GB should be adequate); storage (more is always better); available ports (I prefer a minimum of 3 USB 2.0 ports, USB 3.0 is even better and USB-C will become more important over the laptop's lifetime); CPU (depends on what you will be doing with the computer); and GPU (again, depends on what you'll be doing).

If you expect to use your laptop very often away from your dormitory desk, also consider how usable the keyboard and pointing device are, and the battery life. I'm well beyond typical college age, and when I'm home I use a wireless "desktop" keyboard and mouse; sometimes they go with the laptop when I'm traveling, simply because I'm spoiled and make fewer errors with them than the laptop's own keyboard and trackpad.

If you will be using the laptop primarily for writing assignments, the CPU and GPU don't need a lot of power; but if you study anything involving lots of graphics, video or serious number-crunching, you will obviously need more computing and/or graphics power, and you'll certainly want more power if you are a gamer or shoot much video as a hobby.

A laptop with only 4GB of RAM might be enough for writing assignments, but bear in mind that some laptops' graphics systems use part of system RAM; the HP laptop I'm using now takes nearly 1GB of its standard-config 4GB total. You can upgrade the RAM easily enough on most consumer laptops, but it's often less expensive to buy the amount you need factory-installed.

When it comes to storage, consumer laptops usually come with either a relatively small SSD or a larger HDD. But you can always use an external USB drive to hold things you don't need on the computer constantly. I'd recommend a small portable drive that doesn't require a separate power adapter, for those times when you'll be using the laptop away from home -- you never know just when you'll need something that you didn't think was important enough to keep on the internal drive. (In fact, I recommend getting two such drives, or one portable and one desktop-style external drive, using the second one to backup everything on both the internal and the first external drive.)

If you connect an external drive, keyboard, mouse and printer when you're home, you'll want a minimum of three appropriate ports -- you can always disconnect the keyboard and plug in the printer when you need to, or buy a USB hub to get more ports. My laptop usually resides on the coffee table in my living room (with the printers in another room, connected via Wi-Fi) and I still frequently find all three of its USB ports in use. In fact, I usually have a little USB hub plugged in for connecting flashdrives.

As for your first concern, durability, a lot depends on just how durable you need the laptop to be. I'm on my third HP. The first one went six or seven years before I outgrew it. The second died after five years with a graphics-system problem. My current laptop is less than two years old. All three of my laptops have been primarily stay-at-home machines that I moved from room to room, occasionally traveling by car and rarely by air (in stowed luggage). I've never owned other brands of laptop, so I can't comment on their durability.

I consider battery life a durability factor, but one that isn't critical; most laptops have easily-replaceable batteries, and I'm seldom far from an AC outlet when I'm using a laptop. It's hard to find a Starbucks that doesn't have at least one duplex outlet near every seat inside the store, and I've even seen a couple with weatherproof outlets on the patio. (If you prefer McDonald's, finding an AC outlet might be more problematic.) A battery that's good for over four hours per charge should be adequate unless you expect to be using your laptop away from AC most of the day. I will recommend buying a second AC adapter, keeping one at your desk at home and the other in the laptop bag or backpack.

 

[RLBalane]

Thanks daddywalter for the response. I really appreciated it (your experience with HP, your tips, I read it all )
I already made a decision two-days ago. I will buy a Toshiba Satellite L50-C1597.

Toshiba Satellite L50-C1597 Specs:

CPU: i5-5200U (2 Cores @ 2.2 GHz)
RAM: 6 GB
Graphics: NVidia N16P-GT [GTX 950M]
Storage: 8GB SSD and 1TB HDD
ODD: SuperMulti DVD Drive
Audio: Harman Kardon Speakers, DTS Sound
Display: 1366 X 768 HD-LED Display
Wireless ConnectivityWi-Fi and Bluetooth
Weight: 2.20 Kg

About the specs, As I said ages ago :lol:, all works fine for me. CPU model, RAM amounts (easy to upgrade so not a problem if I need more), Storage capacity enough for college stuffs such as making documents and powerpoint presentations. Doing AutoCAD, and Circuit Simulations [I'm a 2nd year Electronics and Communications Engineering Students] and maybe some heavy stuffs in the future. For gaming, aside from the CPU, RAM and HDD, It has a NVidia GTX 950M that is enough for my gaming experience. Yeah Engineering Students must play games for brain relaxations . It also come with Optical Disc Drive which is an advantage for installing software and writing on discs. For the battery, it is not built-in, so it is user replaceable. The weight? at least it is .55 kg less than this FUJITSU Laptop I'm using right now. Last thing, the color, its gold :lol:. It's ok if it is made up Polycarbonate ABS

 

[daddywalter]

@RLBalane, sounds like you made a wise choice. Best wishes for a great success at college and a stellar career to follow.

 

[RLBalane]

@RLBalane, sounds like you made a wise choice. Best wishes for a great success at college and a stellar career to follow.

Thanks man!