Laptops

[Heretic]

Who is putting out the best of the best of laptops now days?

I'm look for a new laptop for my self as I am going back to school. Since I wasn't able to afford college while I was younger. I was thinking about getting Associate of Applied Science then work on my Bachelor of Applied Science. Is fifty to old for this? I just don't know which discipline I should follow or which would have the most job openings.

Computer Programming
Database Management
Networking
Management Information Systems
Multimedia and Web Design
Telecommunications

[Krom]

I like Asus for now, they have an ambition to be one of the biggest laptop makers in the world within the next few years so they aren't being lazy unlike some other brands (HP, officially the worst laptop manufacturer on earth).

[Cuda68]

I like Asus for now, they have an ambition to be one of the biggest laptop makers in the world within the next few years so they aren't being lazy unlike some other brands (HP, officially the worst laptop manufacturer on earth).

Yea, but HP products provides me with great job security. Assuming they don't go under anyway.

[Heretic]

How about Toshiba are they any good?

[Grendel]

Yes, Toshibas are top notch (as far laptops can be that). HP is the bottom of the list.

[Xamindar]

DO NOT get an HP. Sister had one and the Motherboard died twice, second time out of warranty and they refuse to fix it. Should be a class action lawsuit on the problems with her model.

Dell is what I have and it is average. Solid hardware but cheaper case (hinge already failed once). Maybe the newer models are better. Mine is an Inspiron E1505. I mainly got it because it's good with Linux, has well supported hardware.

I'd stay away from Sony unless every other device you have is also Sony. Most things in Sonys hardware is proprietary.

I hear great things about Asus. Toshiba used to be great but have not heard anything lately on them. Probably average now.

[Spooky]

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[flip]

My vote is for Asus. They do seem to go the extra mile. I bought a X83V about 2 years ago at bestbuy for 5 bills. 64 bit Vista, 4 gig memory and a 2.14 core2duo. It's been solid the whole time with zero problems.

[Heretic]

The Candidates

Dell Studio 17 Touch $2,249.99

Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate, 64bit, English
Intel® Core™ i7-820QM Quad Core Processor 1.73GHz (3.06GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache)
2 Year Basic Service Plan
500GB SATA HDD (7200rpm)
8GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
Intel© Centrino© Advanced-N 6200
Standard Keyboard
17.3” HD+ (900p) LED Display with TrueLife™, Camera & MultiTouch
Slot Load Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
Soundblaster X-Fi Hi Def Audio - Software Enabled

Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q880 $1,899.99
Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Processor
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
6GB DDR3 memory
500GB hard drive (7200rpm)
64GB solid state drive
1GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® 360M
Blu-ray Disc™ and DVD SuperMulti with Labelflash®
LED backlit keyboard
1920x1080 native resolution
Bluetooth®
802.11n wireless
Integrated webcam
Display Size 18.4\" widescreen

And this is also in in consideration.

http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=8je5Ot4HBnKOdT81

[Xamindar]

I'd go for the Toshiba. If you are spending that much on one you might want to get the extended warranty. If nothing breaks you will probably at least get one or two new batteries out of it.

[Krom]

I know of no major issues with the two you listed if that is what you want although one minor issue with the dell is the screen, since it has a bluray it should have 1080p too, I think the Toshiba wins just because of that.

However that is assuming you are planning on not moving these laptops around, those look very much like heavy duty desktop replacement units and will be backbreaking to haul around with you. Not to mention you can never extract significant usable battery life out of laptops that are so large. If you are getting one to take with you and use at school then either of those are a bad idea, you would definitely not regret getting something in the 13\"-14\" range at the most. They won't be quite as fast as the big ones but you can easily get 6-8+ hours of battery from one and they will be far less of a burden on the road.

Also the Asus link you posted is broken.

[Xamindar]

Kinda funny how computer resolutions have actually been reduced because of the 720p/1080p standards and are not being actively increased like they were before the HD fad. With the cost of those laptops I would want a higher resolution.

[Heretic]

The Toshiba comes with a 12 cell battery and I am considering to buying a second one for a spare. I have a Studio 17 from Dell already They come with a 9 cell battery. The power saving mode works well with it as long as you are not trying to play games or watch a movie. I think you maybe right about the weight of the Toshiba it weighs in at almost 10 pounds. Hell my first laptop weighed more than that and ran on two 3.5 floppies and only ran lotus. The Dell is little over 7 pounds lighter. The Asus comes in around 8.5 pounds.

I guess I could go smaller.

my first laptop

[Jeff250]

My two cents: the most important part on the laptop is the display. A bad display will be much more annoying than a processor that's 100MHz slower than another. In the case of the Dell vs. the Toshiba you quoted, I'd be nervous about the Toshiba because it doesn't list that the display has an LED backlight. LED backlights save battery power and are much brighter and can produce much \"whiter\" whites. Brighter displays are nice in general, but are particularly useful if you want to use your laptop outside, where your display has to compete against the sun's ambient light. With my LED display, I don't have to squint to read from my laptop's display when I'm outside on a nice summer day! Google for led vs. lcd for more information. I wouldn't buy a new laptop without an LED backlight. It may well be that the Toshiba has an LED display, but I'd look into it, since, if it did, you would think that they would readily advertise it! Since it looks like you're going to look into laptops that are a bit smaller anyways (I've found 15\" displays to be a good niche, but I think that 13\" or 14\" would work too), keep LED displays in mind when looking around.

Also, to reiterate Xamindar, HP is awful.

[Krom]

LED displays are good, but they aren't perfect. Unless the manufacturer opts for the considerably more expensive and a bit more power hungry RGB LED backlight you will end up with a display that uses a white LED backlight. The problem with white LED backlights is that the color quality of the display suffers as a result, they will have a smaller color gamut and be more blue tinted than a CCFL or RGB LED backlight which produce a much better spectrum.

Also laptop displays are pretty much universally just plain cheap and bad compared to desktop displays. The market average is around 200:1 contrast at best (Desktop LCDs rarely go under 400:1), and a lot of them don't have that great of a brightness level.

Course desktop displays have their own problems, some of them go as high as 400 cd/m2 brightness which is actually way too bright and will cause significant eyestrain in most lighting conditions.

[Sirius]

Thankfully, you can turn the brightness of desktop LCDs down... I pretty much have to with mine, don't think I could stand the full output.

[TechPro]

I guess I could go smaller.

my first laptop

image of an ancient IBM laptop

Yikes! I remember repairing those things!! (not good memories)