What is your favorite laptop brand, and why?

[GreaseMonkey255]

Here's my take:

My favorite laptop brand as of now has to be Lenovo. They seem to offer the best balance of specs (most notably battery life) versus price in their laptops. Here is every laptop that I've owned within the past 6 years:

HP Pavilion G6 (2012): My first laptop. Horrible thermals, poor build quality, mediocre battery life (4 hours), always something failing.

ASUS F555LA (2014): The worst build quality that I've ever seen. The tongue on one of the USB-A ports broke off on the first day that I used it. In my history of using computers, I had never seen that part break off a computer, or since. :sweaty:

Dell Inspiron 15 5559 (2014): Average build quality, mediocre battery life (5 hours), great thermals, screen failed after 5 months of use.

Lenovo Thinkpad T560 (2016): Great build quality, on the heavy side (T-series Thinkpads are all a little hefty), superb thermals, superb battery life (2 batteries, one internal and one switchable for a combined 12+ hour duration).

Lenovo Flex 5 1470 (Yoga 520 outside U.S.) (2017): Above par build quality, great battery life (8 hours), great thermals, allows simultaneous use of SATA & M.2 SSD at full speeds (can't get enough of this!).

I didn't mention screen quality due to the fact that I am not a good judge of it (I don't have the right equipment to measure color accuracy). I can say that each laptop that I mentioned had enough brightness and color accuracy to satisfy my day-to-day requirements.

So what is your favorite laptop brand, and why?

 

[ochhanz]

I find there is more difference within brands than between brands, but still my humble opinion of each brand (wall of text alert ):
- Asus / Samsung: so far I like their products, but only have had 1 of each. Samsung seems to be innovative with lightweight pen-styled notebooks and good screens though somewhat expensive, and Asus with lightweight convertibles and also offers decent graphic cards options for fairly light-weight laptops and for work horses. I like the designs of both brands (except for the ROG lineup) and both seem to offer reliable devices as long as you skip their cheap laptops/tablets.
- Dell: somewhat expensive but seem to offer good hardware and their business laptops seem to be reliable and offer good maintainability. They also offer options for Linux users iirc which is good I think.
- Acer: in quality they seem to have improved alot over time and they also offer some nice looking devices with alum. cases etc. I hope that they will offer convertibles again with ezel hinges, they were more creative back in the days of win 8/8.1.
- Hp: like Acer their consumer devices' quality seems to have been improved and also like the designs of some of their devices and just like Dell their business line-up seem to be reliable (we have an HP zbook or probook of ~9 years still lying around and that thing is a tank). Though they have been caught several times with putting keylogggers on their consumer laptops (perhaps on some of their business laptop, don't know). On the plus side, they offer nice AMD products.
- Medion: good value for money brand for cheap devices but to boring for me :x .
- big Chinese brands (Lenovo, Huawai, Xinomi or whatever it is called ): since I would buy a laptop also for work and e.g. Lenovo has been caught 3 times in a row putting Superfish on their laptops, they would be my last choice and only if they offer a something that other brands just don't I would make an exception. Except for maybe Thinkpads, but I still prefer to support other country's brands since so many is already done by Chinese companies.
- other Chinese companies: I don't trust them, e.g. brand new Cubot and Doogee phones have been caught with banking viruses on them. The exception here is Clevo, cause they offer some laptops with great maintainability.
- MSI: they mostly seem to be expensive and not that innovative. Maybe okay service?
- Gigabyte: they offer some lightweight gaming laptops which seem like good devices, otherwise don't know much about their laptop line-up.
- Apple: never used Macs, seem to be expensive but also seem to offer a good overal package (good casing, keyboard, touchpad, service, etc). And like Microsoft, they stick to their 16:10 screens which is nice.
- Microsoft: I like how they innovate with their Surface line (3:2 screens, great 2-1 ideas), but atm would not buy their devices cause they are not repairable and this in combination with their high price and bad quality control (or at least history of bad quality control).

 

[DRDiver]

Actually, none anymore. When I got my Surface Pro 3 I got rid of my laptop and haven't looked back. When I broke the screen on it I upgraded to the 2017 Surface Pro and I still don't miss carrying a traditional laptop around.

 

[anon(10451427)]

Have to say that Apple used to make some really solid hardware. I bought my daughter a Macbook Air and has been solid all through college. Bought my Wife a HP ENVY notebook that has also been trouble free and my Dell Inspiron 5567 has had a battery issue three months after purchase so not so happy with Dell. My general consensus is bottom end models don't hold up as well as more expensive models. Also this seems to be getting worse as companies find ways to cut corners in costs with cheaper models or low end ones.

 

[anon(10451427)]

Yeah I bought a cheaper Lenovo notebook, nothing special but six months into it the screen just cracked at corner and Lenovo claimed abuse because they said I opened notebook screen from corner not center top of screen causing flex. ThinkPad lines seems all good but the IdealPad line seems to be a second thought for Lenovo. Actually I think most PC makers make a better pro line of laptops then the consumer side. If your looking for durability.

 

[Wolfman93]

Well I definitely would say I love HP since I have grown up with them since I was a kid but that is the brand in general. I did have a few issues with my Envy M6 where the hinges broke internally (I was able to fix it with some glue thankfully) but I attribute that to the plastic base to the metal backing.

Now I did have a Toshiba for my first laptop the L355-S7915 and while it was not a powerhouse it was a very durable computer, sure I had to fix the part that holds the power supply once, but that computer fell many times thanks to the dogs and never once failed on me, just tended to run hot on the Intel Celeron Single core.

As for my 3rd laptop and final before going straight back to desktops again was an Asus Q551LN 3-1 laptop. Nice and powerful and could game fairly well with 8 GB of RAM the 1 TB HDD and 2 GB Nvidia GeForce 840M graphics card. I was never impressed with the support I got from Asus though when I would try to figure out why something was not working on there end of things.

 

[anon(10440410)]

Absolutely love my Lenovo Yoga 900 series.

* Watchband hinge just looks cool frankly, plus it vents heat uniquely and quietly.
* 13.3 inch screen large enough to be productive on.
* Keyboard is one of the best I've used on a laptop ever. Soft to touch, great travel, full sized arrow keys, back-lit.
* i7 with 8GB is powerful enough to compile code on, do some light gaming (stock GPU)
* Battery life is about as good as any other laptop, as long as I'm not pushing the processor
* Large bezels, but at least the camera is looking me in the eye
* Foldable into Tent and Presentation modes. And I actually use this all the time, mostly when watching movies.
* Super light. Almost tablet-light.

That said, I'm thankful to the Surface line for inspiring companies like Lenovo to up their game and create light-weight, yet powerful 2-in-1 devices. Now if they could only do that for the pocketable form-factor!

 

[TLRtheory]

Mine's kind of cheating because it's technically what got me away from using pure laptops... but it's Microsoft; specifically the Surface products. More than any other device family, Surface has really changed the way I approached everything from work to gaming to college because it brought it ALL to the table. Hundreds of thousands of awesome mobile applications, great battery life, support for legacy software, great portability... to an extent that neither Google or Apple have even come close to. Switched up the whole paradigm of needing a laptop and a tablet by being excellent at both.

I'll have to exemplify the Surface Laptop, because the way I see it, Surface Laptop is a step backwards in evolution... I bought one, and enjoy the speaker quality, build and keyboard... but it's taking me back to carrying around a laptop and tablet.

Naturally, I moved on from the Surface Pro to the SP2, SP3 to the Surface Book and the Surface Laptop until finding that the one I like the most is the non-pro Surface 3.

The non-pro Surface 3 is; without question, the most underrated of all the Surface products. It's the first non-Pro Surface to run full blown Windows... and additionally, it is even lighter than the Surface RT/RT2. And it's quite underrated under the hood too: the X7 is easily strong enough to run a lot of 3D Windows Store games, while also giving me a pass on all the loud fan issues I got with SP3/SB. Of course I don't game too terribly heavy on it, but when I wanna play some Order & Chaos Online, BlazBlue or Modern Combat 5, it proves more than capable... and it's superb for streaming from my Xbox One X. The major thing is that it's fantastic for note-taking when I'm in class or at business meetings, while being more than powerful enough to handle Visual Studio, NetBeans and any IDE I throw at it... the 4GB/128GB version of that is perfect for me, and I'm actually pretty sad that we don't have a Surface 4 that integrates Type C and an even slimmer form factor.

If those can't be counted as laptops, my runner up's gonna be IBM/Lenovo... holy hell they know how to make a long-lasting machine and they have the most comfortable keyboards for someone who's spent the last 18 years of their life in IDEs.

 

[treiz]

MSI. They offer the highest specs in the thinnest and lightest package. I travel for work and MSI's laptop means I don't have to compromise between specs and portability, and they are usually one of the first to market with upgraded hardware which means I don't have to wait around if I want to upgrade.

 

[Hirox K]

I had a VAIO, bad CP.

Then there's Alienware.
Often you see people complaining about the 1st wave free Win10 update because the driver from their HW provider of choice wasn't ready yet (esp when you have an older NB or a custom build).
My older m17xR4 came with Win8 and Dell blocked the win10 update even when I requested it manually. That's good after service. I force installed Win10 though a thumb drive and... so far so good. No slowness, no Edge issue, no weird rendering or anything after every Win10 update.
Then I upgraded to the new 17 R4 a year ago.

I also have a Surface Pro. It's my new daily drive cause it's lighter. And as a programmer, I actually prefer 1st party HW + SW (same reason why I only buy 1st party Android).
The down side... don't think I'll buy another Alienware if there's no touch screen tho...

So, my pick is Surface then Alienware. I don't actually own a Razer yet but I'm interested.

 

[curiousross]

Razer

My Razer Blade Stealth has held up after a year of heavy daily use and travel. Truly the only manufacturer who rivals Apple in build quality and aesthetics.

 

[terezagevor]

To explain this I need to go back a few years of my life.
I was a HP lover when I come to the Laptop world (2010). I loved each and every product HP produce. After 3 years I familiar with DELL (2013). I have bought low configuration laptop of DELL which has only 2GB RAM. I realize it's doing better then the HP. I thought it's because the modern generation update. After using DELL for 2 years I decided to become a DELL lover. I have bought https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-GeForce-i5577-5335BLK-PUS-Chassis/dp/B06XFGDD8P laptop for my personal and business job. I am not a professional Gamer but I play game sometimes. I am a Graphic Designer and Video maker. I use Photoshop, After effects and some other tools in this laptop. It works too fast and I am satisfied with it.
Believe me anyone can be satisfied with this type of performance. Here are some reference website which has great honest review of Dell Product.
https://www.cnet.com/products/dell-inspiron-15-7000-g7-gaming-laptop/review/
https://top10suggest.com/best-gaming-laptop-under-900/
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3239776/computers/dell-inspiron-15-7000-gaming-laptop-review.html

 

[Geodude074]

Asus for me. They always seem to have the best blend of low price + performance + design + build quality + expandabilty.

Past Asus laptops for me include:

$500 Asus F510UA, my current laptop for school, easily the best $500 laptop you can buy today.

$1100 Asus Vivobook Pro 17, beautiful stunning 17 inch thin and light with a GTX 1050. I only used it for a day though since it had two dead pixels (a first ever in a laptop for me) so I returned it for my new Asus.

$1000 Asus ROG G751, it had an i7-4720HQ and a GTX 970M, at the time it was a beast for the price, it performs about the same as a 1050Ti today. The screen today is still stunning. Too big and heavy for lugging around everywhere though.

Then a whole bunch of other Asus with model numbers I can't remember, admittedly Asus is terrible at naming their laptops.

$150 Asus laptop for my mom, all she needed was basic web browsing so it was perfect for her, this was when BayTrail was introduced and $150 Windows laptops were unheard of.

$350 Asus F-something laptop with an i5-5200U, absolutely terrible screen and build quality, it makes a hollow thunk sound as you type on it, but holy crap was it cheap for an i5 so it got a pass for me, plus I added 8GB more ram and an SSD really easily to make it blazing fast for about $450 total.

$400 Asus back when Windows 8 first came out, it had a touchscreen. Awesome build quality, made out of aluminum, 11.6 inch thin and light, it was like a Macbook Air for less than half the price.

Before Asus I had a mix of crappy HPs, Dells, and Compaqs, all totally forgettable. My work always gave out Lenovo Thinkpads and those things are built like bricks, they're great work laptops but too bulky, heavy, and plasticky for my taste.

 

[Mary Nichole]

My favorite laptop is from the ASUS brand. I have brought the Asus Vivobook s15 s532fl laptop from Lazada. I have been using this laptop for last 2 years. I use this laptop for both gaming and work purpose. This laptop is having excellent features about ram, battery life, and also speed. I haven't face any problem in the last two years and also I use a laptop for more than 10 hours per day. Previously I have HP laptop, I have faced many issues with that laptop within 2 years. It always gets stuck in the middle of my work.

This Asus laptop is having two model core i5 10th Gen & core i7 10th Gen. I'm using the i7 model which is having stunning look with 15.6” LED-backlit FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare NanoEdge display, 1.8 GHz quad-core with Turbo Boost processor, & 8GB RAM. It is very light-weight and easy to carry. If you are worried about price, I would suggest you to buy on any season sale using Lazada coupons. Lazada offers best discounts on laptops. I have bought my laptop on Black Friday sale from Lazada at discounted price.

 

[me just saying]

I really do not have a favorite laptop brand. I will generally only get one of the main brands but as long as it has the features I need, able to do what I need it to do effeciently and at a decent price, then that is the laptop for me.

 

[Pistle123]

This is an interesting question. I am working on computers and laptops for over 7 years and I have favorite makes but it really depends on what is important to you? If you simply want the maximum performance at the lowest price, then you might go with an Acer, HP or ASUS laptop. If you are looking for a rugged laptop for business and travel, I would suggest Lenovo or Fujitsu. But if you want a computer that you plan to have for many, many years to come and want to be able to get it repaired or upgraded at a lower cost and not have to wait weeks for parts then I would go with Dell. I would stay away from Sony and Toshiba, they have so much proprietary software and drivers that it will drive you crazy.
I prefer Dell computers because it is typically easier and cheaper to get replacement parts and the selection of drivers available on the Dell Website typically far exceeds any other manufacturer. There is no way to make the blanket statement that HP is a great product because they have both consumer and business products. Personally I would stay clear of their Consumer product line but I really love their business computers such as the ProBook and EliteBook line of laptops. I am not fond of their retail line of laptops. ASUS is a great product but tech support and accessibility of parts and support is not so good. In the end, I would highly recommend purchasing Business grade computers from Dell or HP, if you want something that will last and hold up.
The bottom line is always: What do you want the computer for? What is important to you? This is no different than asking what is the best automobile????

 

[GrooveRite]

This is an interesting question. I am working on computers and laptops for over 7 years and I have favorite makes but it really depends on what is important to you? If you simply want the maximum performance at the lowest price, then you might go with an Acer, HP or ASUS laptop. If you are looking for a rugged laptop for business and travel, I would suggest Lenovo or Fujitsu. But if you want a computer that you plan to have for many, many years to come and want to be able to get it repaired or upgraded at a lower cost and not have to wait weeks for parts then I would go with Dell. I would stay away from Sony and Toshiba, they have so much proprietary software and drivers that it will drive you crazy.
I prefer Dell computers because it is typically easier and cheaper to get replacement parts and the selection of drivers available on the Dell Website typically far exceeds any other manufacturer. There is no way to make the blanket statement that HP is a great product because they have both consumer and business products. Personally I would stay clear of their Consumer product line but I really love their business computers such as the ProBook and EliteBook line of laptops. I am not fond of their retail line of laptops. ASUS is a great product but tech support and accessibility of parts and support is not so good. In the end, I would highly recommend purchasing Business grade computers from Dell or HP, if you want something that will last and hold up.
The bottom line is always: What do you want the computer for? What is important to you? This is no different than asking what is the best automobile????

I tried buying a brand new Dell XPS 13 from them a month ago and they sent me a DEAD PRODUCT!! I called them and they asked how they could try to help me FIX IT!?!?!? I asked for a new replacement, not used or refurbished because they sent me a DEAD PC! Thats not my fault!! Then I had them send me at XPS 15 and was not impressed at all with the PC.

I do not understand why Dell gets so much praise online. There must be some kind of PR happening behind the scenes because......

1. Their PC's are not that impressive to me personally!

2. Their customer service is HORRENDOUS!!!!!!!!@@@

.......moral or story.......stay away from Dell laptops if you want to keep your sanity.

 

[kolyan2k]

I tried buying a brand new Dell XPS 13 from them a month ago and they sent me a DEAD PRODUCT!! I called them and they asked how they could try to help me FIX IT!?!?!? I asked for a new replacement, not used or refurbished because they sent me a DEAD PC! Thats not my fault!! Then I had them send me at XPS 15 and was not impressed at all with the PC.

I do not understand why Dell gets so much praise online. There must be some kind of PR happening behind the scenes because......

1. Their PC's are not that impressive to me personally!

2. Their customer service is HORRENDOUS!!!!!!!!@@@

.......moral or story.......stay away from Dell laptops if you want to keep your sanity.

I am not sure you can judge dell by 1 dead laptop lol

I bought HP and it arrived with dead speakers, returned it.....no issues sht happens. Bought Dell XPS 13, everything is great so far. I would probably trust Lenovo more buy similar laptop was $500 more. Previously had Surface Pro, no issues as well. If you are looking for best customer service, best to get Microsoft or Mac I think, you can get replacements right in local store.