Laptop Brand Recomendations Anyone?

Hey, I'm purchasing a new laptop, and I'm not quite sure which brand to purchase from, here are some of my thoughts and my internet research results:

Toshiba: Reliable, least number of complaints, one of the first brands in the laptop production bussiness, expensive, least amount of battery hours.

Apple: Good Deals, quality, up to 6 hours of battery life, can run Windows Xp (or Vista) side by side with Mac OS X (just in case I regret getting a Mac instead of a PC).

Dell: (Inspiron E1505 Custom Built) Great Battery, Good Deals, don't know quality level.

Can anyone help me by giving me sugestions? Or probably experienced users who own any of the previous brands can help me choose.

My main focus in on battery life and quality, Thank you so Much

My friend picked up a Toshiba awile ago. Core 2 Duo and 7600 for a few hundred dollars cheaper than whatever Apple had at that time. Havn't heard any complaints about it yet.

Frankly, I say stay away from Apple laptops. They're overpriced. If you really want OSX, get a regular PC laptop with a Core processor, and look into OSx86.

This month or the next, Intel is going to be rolling out their Santa Rosa chipset platform. My only advice is to hold off your purchase until then, to weigh all choices.

Supposedly though, Dell is going to be one of the first to use the chipset.

One thing I can tell you is that my sister has a E1505, and the speakers leave much to be desired.

Originally Posted by Mr. Wonderful

One thing I can tell you is that my sister has a E1505, and the speakers leave much to be desired.

Has she had any problems so far with the Dell? Is the Quality any good? And how long does the battery last?, Thank you

Originally Posted by Da_Fonz

Has she had any problems so far with the Dell? Is the Quality any good? And how long does the battery last?, Thank you

She's had no other problems. To save costs, she got the basic CD drive, and that has given her troubles from the get go. It takes forever to work and makes the sound terribly staticy if you try playing from it or listening to any music while the drive is otherwise in use. She really should have called Dell, but she hasn't, so what can you do. I've owned three laptops in my life, and all three have had faulty disc drives. What can you do? I've just taken it to be a given with laptops now.

I've got a toshiba laptop which works well (wasn't an expensive one, it has a core2duo with 1gb ram, but integrated graphics). it was only $1000cdn. The battery life is alright, says it's "up to 4 hours" but most of the time it dies after around 2.5-3 hours (depending on what i'm doing with it).

I could never recommend Dell (I dislike dell) so I won't say anything about them

Apple is okay now that you can run Windows on their systems. Personally though I have OSx86 (which runs stable) and I have found myself using windows most of the time. There really isn't anything you can do on a mac you can't do on a windows pc (but there are things you can't do on a mac that you can on a windows monster) only really because of how many users there are on windows. There are so many more programs and games for windows that I really don't see the point of switching.

It's all preference. If you want to try it out, you should go for an apple. You would have a half decent battery life and be able to play around with OSX and see if you like it better.

Originally Posted by Da_Fonz

Dell: (Inspiron E1505 Custom Built) Great Battery, Good Deals, don't know quality level.

I was pretty happy with the DELL friend has one, It is made of thick plastic (heavy) It can take some abuse...

Pretty much any new PC will come with a lot of 90day trial's
This program will give info on what they are and uninstall the one's you select
yorkspace.com » The PC Decrapifier


I personally use a sony vaio SZ series.. It actually has more cpu than I need.. I wish I had got the smaller TX series.

As for CPU, any core2 (even the slowest) is extremely fast

Well Acer has increased it's sales by 45%, they're cheap and work fairy well. Battery power on most of them are only 2 hours, which kinda sucks.

But I don't think you can go wrong with Dell or Toshiba, nothing really wrong with Apple's either. Sure they're expensive, but they look hip and Eiji Aonuma has one.

For gaming, go with an Alienware. The ones ive played with are awesome.

For just a laptop, Toshiba. Reliable, and priced right.

Thank you for your suggestions, I'm specially focusing on Battery life and quality vs. price right now, and then just advance using those two as bases, so far these are my options:

Dell: 6 Hours Battery life, ??? quality
Apple: 5 hours battery life, Good quality but expensive
Toshiba: 2 and a half hours of Battery life, very reliable.

Acer (suggested by V99): Battery life: 2 hours, Quality standards rising

I was thinking on getting a Dell, but need to find out on the quality to be positive, could any users please tell me their experiences (with Dell)?

Suggestions Anyone? Thanks

Dell Is nice battery wise,but if your not planning on conditioning it,it will be your worst nightmare.
Otherwise,its generally nice...Their initial graphics cards(usually integrated)suck...and to upgrade is almost always expensive.
They almost always have "offers",so thats a good thing.
Oh,they have the best,well,atleast the loudest speakers

Honestly,I think you should go with either an Alienware or a Mac Book.
And also,try not to buy a pre-built system.
Its always best to configure your own.
That way you get exactly what YOU want and this way you can budget better.
Check out the alienware site.
They specialize in custom built products.
Their initial battery sucks,but choose a better one and you're good to go.
Looking to learn a easy,probably "new" OS and work with audio and visuals,try a mac.They are great with alot of things.

Finally,hold of a while with your purchase(especially if you want a Dell).New chipsets are due to be released which means you get a better deal if you wait.
Oh,Btw,DO NOT take Vista...Try to get XP...if you can't,well,format as soon as you get it and install XP

If you have the Moeny get an Asus laptop.

but avoid the V6 Series if you want Battery Life.

Thank you very much.

Originally Posted by oni_lunk

Oh,Btw,DO NOT take Vista...Try to get XP...if you can't,well,format as soon as you get it and install XP

Is Vista really that bad?, could you tell me som details on the pros and cons against XP please? Thanks

^vista is good except they put it out pre-maturally so it still has some bugs on it which slows down your computer. but if it didn't have those bugs then it would be the best thing you ever owned, but until they work out the bugs, get XP.

but a good brand is alienware, but it is pricey and it is only good for hardcore gamers, but you can do some business on it.

I've been looking at laptops for a little bit now. Thso tablet notebooks are pretty neat and I was looking into one of those, as one of my friends purchased one and he loves it.

But I've been leaning towards Toshiba and also Sony. Sony Vaios I have heard are good and are good for a media based system(which is what i'm looking for).

if you're going for general use, don't care about gaming and just want an overall OK OS without much thought involved when it comes to setting it up, just get a mac. OSX is a nice toy and gaming on laptops is waste on the whole so that removes the biggest reason for opting for windows.

Originally Posted by Mr. Wonderful

This month or the next, Intel is going to be rolling out their Santa Rosa chipset platform. My only advice is to hold off your purchase until then, to weigh all choices.

Supposedly though, Dell is going to be one of the first to use the chipset.

One thing I can tell you is that my sister has a E1505, and the speakers leave much to be desired.

doesn't Santa Rosa user DDRIII? I thought that wasn't going to be commercially available for a few more quarters. Or does santa rosa have a separate northbridge for DDRII?

Overall good advice though, newer chipsets are always a good thing. I kind of wish I had waited for 650i instead of going with 975X

Originally Posted by nighthawkx

doesn't Santa Rosa user DDRIII? I thought that wasn't going to be commercially available for a few more quarters. Or does santa rosa have a separate northbridge for DDRII?

Overall good advice though, newer chipsets are always a good thing. I kind of wish I had waited for 650i instead of going with 975X

Santa Rosa uses DDRII, but now up to 800mhz. The FSB of the CPU has been increased from 667mhz to 800mhz, with a new socket type (hopefully with a change in the actual bus speed before the multiplication). Santa Rosa's Wireless Networking card is Draft-N, and the integrated GPU is DX10 compatible, which, while not good for gaming, is probably a could thing for a lot of every day uses as well. Santa Rosa also has a hybrid hard drive, part flash, for speed and battery saving. It will also get rid of BIOS completely for the newer...whachamacalit, replacing it.

Energy saving C