Favourite laptop/computer make? e.g. Dell, Asus, HP etc.

[Outdoorwill]

Who makes the best computers and why?

[PiberiusWilde]

Why I can only pick one??? I there's three guys here that I liked.

 

 

Fine I'll go with Lenovo 'cause Thinkpads are awesome.

[NeuesTestament]

All vendors had bad and good products making it impossible for me to pick a single one.

[Lord Vile]

Desktops aren't really a great value when DIY is a thing so have to go with Apple.

[trag1c]

Honestly I would probably pick specific products from any of them except for dell because fuck dell. I had alienware 17 back in 2013-2014 that I had to RMA 6 times in a 1 year period....All because 1 one mic jack didn't work and they kept replacing the mobo with poorly refurbished ones that all had something else wrong with them. One of them the only way I could get the display to work was to take an HDMI cable plugged into the HDMI out and the HDMI in port...Another had a dead m.2 slot for the wifi card so they took out my nice AC wireless card and replaced it with a random shitty wireless N card and then I get it back with no working wifi and I found out they stole my card. The list goes on.

[mousesnob]

Lenovo or Dell for laptop.

Desktops i prefer to build my own.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Laptops and Pre-Built Systems

[Commodus]

The "best" really depends on what you're trying to do. A gaming laptop isn't the same as an ultraportable or a pro workstation.

 

My favourite is easy this year, though: Apple. It now has better overall performance than many (if not most) Intel laptops, better battery life than virtually everyone, great keyboards and trackpads, and virtually silent designs. It's hard to argue for other ultraportables unless you can't swing Apple prices or need Windows.

[exhaustedbrit]

If strictly talking about laptops, definitely Apple because of the amount of compromises you have to make going for anything else. Not perfect by any means, but ticks enough boxes that I think they're genuinely the best laptops you can buy if you're not after a desktop replacement. You can spend less to get a Windows laptop with a better display or better battery life, better upgradability or better performance, and you should if only a few of these things matter to you. But when you add up all the little things that I actually care about, like the panel brightness, colour gamut, trackpad, wifi chip, audio amp, speakers, weight, usb-c charging, thunderbolt etc... the windows laptops that compete with the Mac laptops just fall short in too many ways or end up being drastically more expensive anyway. The only laptops that I feel come close are things like the Dell XPS line and the carbon thinkpads, but even then to get a configuration that ticks all the boxes I might as well save some money and go for a MacBook. At least when I flip it in a few years for the next latest thing it will be worth more than a quarter of what I paid for it.

[pythonmegapixel]

My laptop is an HP at the moment - because they happened to offer the best combination of hardware for me and my budget - and it's doing fine. However if Dell or Lenovo or Acer or anyone else made something nicer then I'd buy from them instead.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that, in my opinion at least, once you've chosen Windows/MacOS, there really isn't much to choose between them - at least the major ones. They're all the same, so just buy the one with the hardware that meets your needs best.

[Outdoorwill]

Loving the comments.

After 10 hours:

1. Apple is winning 

2. LENOVO

3. ASUS

4. HP

Everyone else with no points. 

 

I always thought Alienware had a certain appeal to it but maybe I was mistaken. 

I decided to go in the end for the Asus Zenbook Pro Duo, the two screen will make it perfect for my work as currently I can not work away from my desk with my two monitors. 

But I agree with comments saying any make that fits the bill is probably the one to go for. 

I have only ever had issues with Acer laptops. I wish the Lenovo ThinkPad red mouse button thing came with all their laptops. 

 

 

[Mnky313]

I've never had problems with Dell, I had an Inspiron 7559 and that thing ran super cool and quiet, after that I replaced it with a Precision M6700 which I absolutely loved. All of the Precision M6X00 laptops are awesome and have tons of ports and even the dock making easy to dock and undock.

Not a huge fan of them anymore because even the 'precision mobile workstations' are lacking in ports and upgradability. Just got a Clevo (X170SM-G) and the port selection is amazing, starting to see why people like Clevo so much XD

(noticed you didn't have Clevo/Resellers on you list btw.)

[LloydLynx]

I choose Lenovo because of great Linux compatibility and good build quality. But some of their computers have soldered RAM which I can't stand for.

[panzersharkcat]

Lenovo are the only laptops I will buy for my own use because ThinkPad keyboards and the TrackPoint. I've recommended the MacBook Pro 16 to somebody before. I've looked at Dell and HP business grade laptops for other people as well, though I typically recommend used ThinkPads since I'm more familiar with them. I've never owned one but I think the newer MSI ones (GS65 and GS66) look the coolest out of the slimmer gaming laptops. The creator version of the GS66 and an Asus, IIRC, were among the choices I gave to the guy who ultimately went for the MacBook Pro 16.

[Lord Vile]

23 hours ago, panzersharkcat said:

Lenovo are the only laptops I will buy for my own use because ThinkPad keyboards and the TrackPoint. I've recommended the MacBook Pro 16 to somebody before. I've looked at Dell and HP business grade laptops for other people as well, though I typically recommend used ThinkPads since I'm more familiar with them. I've never owned one but I think the newer MSI ones (GS65 and GS66) look the coolest out of the slimmer gaming laptops. The creator version of the GS66 and an Asus, IIRC, were among the choices I gave to the guy who ultimately went for the MacBook Pro 16.

I have a thinkpad for work and a MBP 16 for personal and thr Thinkpad is just so far behind the Mac it's just not even funny.

[panzersharkcat]

4 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

I have a thinkpad for work and a MBP 16 for personal and thr Thinkpad is just so far behind the Mac it's just not even funny.

 This crap again? IIRC, you have an E series ThinkPad. Those are barely above consumer grade stuff. Given the choice of a ThinkPad P1 or the MacBook Pro 16, I would take the P1. There are ups and downs to each but the ups of the P1 are more important to me than the ups of the MacBook while the downs of the MacBook would take it out of consideration for me. They have the same CPUs and have GPUs in similar classes, with the MacBook one being ahead if you spring for the 5600M. Stop being such a fanboy.

[Lord Vile]

35 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

 This crap again? IIRC, you have an E series ThinkPad. Those are barely above consumer grade stuff. Given the choice of a ThinkPad P1 or the MacBook Pro 16, I would take the P1. There are ups and downs to each but the ups of the P1 are more important to me than the ups of the MacBook while the downs of the MacBook would take it out of consideration for me. They have the same CPUs and have GPUs in similar classes, with the MacBook one being ahead if you spring for the 5600M. Stop being such a fanboy.

The lenovo has literally no advantages, it's built like crap, the screen is bad, the trackpad is poor, the keyboard is so so and overall it's just worse. Maybe you should stop looking at logos? 

[panzersharkcat]

38 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

The lenovo has literally no advantages, it's built like crap, the screen is bad, the trackpad is poor, the keyboard is so so and overall it's just worse. Maybe you should stop looking at logos? 

My P53 and its 4K OLED display says otherwise. The thing is built like a tank. This guy accidentally spilled a can of Sprite on his P73 and outside of needing a new keyboard, there was no damage to the machine. The only liquid that got to the interior was a little bit in the battery bay. The rest drained out. Your MacBook would have died if that happened. I don't care about trackpads. I prefer using the TrackPoint. The keyboard is far superior to a MacBook's, which barely feels above typing on a flat surface, with much more key travel and curved key shape that helps center my fingers for touch typing. I can upgrade the RAM and SSD myself with a ThinkPad, even with a thin and light like my old X1 Extreme, which also had excellent build quality, is much lighter than the MacBook Pro 16, and can also have up to a 4K OLED display. Can't say the same with everything soldered on like on a MacBook. I can also open up a ThinkPad without having to deal with proprietary screws. You are comparing the ultra-budget option to a flagship and complaining that it sucks. (I owned an E480. It was adequate, at best.) I'm not the one looking at logos when I've recommended the MacBook and other laptops to people. (I've picked out the AMD variant of the 15" HP Envy x360 for somebody before.)

[pythonmegapixel]

4 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

My P53 and its 4K OLED display says otherwise. The thing is built like a tank. This guy accidentally spilled a can of Sprite on his P73 and outside of needing a new keyboard, there was no damage to the machine. The only liquid that got to the interior was a little bit in the battery bay. The rest drained out. Your MacBook would have died if that happened. I don't care about trackpads. I prefer using the TrackPoint. The keyboard is far superior to a MacBook's, which barely feels above typing on a flat surface, with much more key travel and curved key shape that helps center my fingers for touch typing. I can upgrade the RAM and SSD myself with a ThinkPad, even with a thin and light like my old X1 Extreme, which also had excellent build quality, is much lighter than the MacBook Pro 16, and can also have up to a 4K OLED display. Can't say the same with everything soldered on like on a MacBook. I can also open up a ThinkPad without having to deal with proprietary screws. You are comparing the ultra-budget option to a flagship and complaining that it sucks. (I owned an E480. It was adequate, at best.) I'm not the one looking at logos when I've recommended the MacBook and other laptops to people. (I've picked out the AMD variant of the 15" HP Envy x360 for somebody before.)

Lenovo are a very mixed bag. Their high-end ThinkPads are very good, and have been for a long time - basically, what they inherited from IBM.

 

However their cheaper stuff really seems to sacrifice the quality of the build, the modularity you describe, and particularly the keyboard to get the edge on specs. They are also one of the worst companies for preloading crapware on the system, something I'd like to see more reviewers mention, as while most of it is easy enough to remove, it does say a lot about the ethos of the company as a whole.

[Lord Vile]

8 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

My P53 and its 4K OLED display says otherwise.

Which is great if you don't want an accurate panel.

8 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

 

The thing is built like a tank. This guy accidentally spilled a can of Sprite on his P73 and outside of needing a new keyboard, there was no damage to the machine. The only liquid that got to the interior was a little bit in the battery bay. The rest drained out. Your MacBook would have died if that happened.

My MacBook doesn't bend when I type either?

8 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

I don't care about trackpads. I prefer using the TrackPoint.

Because you've never used a good one

8 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

 

The keyboard is far superior to a MacBook's, which barely feels above typing on a flat surface, with much more key travel and curved key shape that helps center my fingers for touch typing.

Again have you used a MacBook?

8 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

I can upgrade the RAM and SSD myself with a ThinkPad, even with a thin and light like my old X1 Extreme, which also had excellent build quality, is much lighter than the MacBook Pro 16, and can also have up to a 4K OLED display. Can't say the same with everything soldered on like on a MacBook. I can also open up a ThinkPad without having to deal with proprietary screws. You are comparing the ultra-budget option to a flagship and complaining that it sucks. (I owned an E480. It was adequate, at best.) I'm not the one looking at logos when I've recommended the MacBook and other laptops to people. (I've picked out the AMD variant of the 15" HP Envy x360 for somebody before.)

Pity the RAM and SSD aren't the things that age a laptop then isn't it. Honestly I can tell you've never touched a MacBook and are just copy pasting opinions of the old 15" from 2016.

[panzersharkcat]

1 hour ago, pythonmegapixel said:

Lenovo are a very mixed bag. Their high-end ThinkPads are very good, and have been for a long time - basically, what they inherited from IBM.

 

However their cheaper stuff really seems to sacrifice the quality of the build, the modularity you describe, and particularly the keyboard to get the edge on specs. They are also one of the worst companies for preloading crapware on the system, something I'd like to see more reviewers mention, as while most of it is easy enough to remove, it does say a lot about the ethos of the company as a whole.

Yeah, I would absolutely not recommend their lower-end stuff. I had an IdeaPad and I wanted to throw the damn thing off a cliff. I sold it to a friend and it's barely usable at this point. The display does not consistently turn on and the fans are constantly on. The only thing keeping it somewhat responsive is me swapping out the hard drive for an SSD.

[panzersharkcat]

1 hour ago, Lord Vile said:

Which is great if you don't want an accurate panel.

Which is an indication you've never looked at the 4K OLED display on one of these.

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My MacBook doesn't bend when I type either?

And neither does my P53 or my old X1 Extreme. The former will survive spills like what I linked to that would destroy a MacBook, which was my point. Your comparison is with an E series, which I have said here and in different threads are adequate at best.

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Because you've never used a good one

I've used the MacBook Pro 13's of coworkers when they wanted me to show them something on their machines. I've also used the MacBook Pro 16 of the guy I recommended it for. They are nice touchpads but I prefer the convenience of the TrackPoint. I find it very annoying to take my hands off the keyboard just to move the cursor. That sort of thing is why I would look into getting a Tex Shinobi if I decided to build a desktop again.

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Again have you used a MacBook?

Like I mentioned above, yes. I also had one in college, a 2008 MacBook Pro which was a great laptop. Their old keyboards were far superior.

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Pity the RAM and SSD aren't the things that age a laptop then isn't it.

 

The point I was making was expandability and ease of maintenance on higher end ThinkPad models is much better than on MacBooks. If I can only get a 512 GB SSD and 16 GB at the moment, I can still upgrade the storage and the RAM down the line. I would have to configure that ahead of time with a MacBook. 

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Honestly I can tell you've never touched a MacBook and are just copy pasting opinions of the old 15" from 2016.

Like I said above, I have used them and there are a lot of things they do better than ThinkPads. They have fantastic speakers, really good touchpads, good battery life, and great displays with a better aspect ratio than the 16:9 ones on ThinkPads outside of the new X1 Nano. I think Apple does a better job with displays than Lenovo does. They're sharper than 1080p while not being the battery life destroyers that 4K displays are. Some of the issues with the old 15" MacBooks (soldered everything, lack of ports) are still there on the new 16" ones. Those downsides and my preference for the upsides on the ThinkPad listed above* tip the scale for me there. A lot of MacBooks are great laptops.** They're just not for me. Somebody's being a fanboy and it ain't me.

 

*My P53 also has a Quadro RTX 5000, so there's that too.

** The new ones with M1 chips are very interesting. I can't wait to see what they do with the M1 with the 16" MacBook Pro.

[Roswell]

7 hours ago, panzersharkcat said:

Which is an indication you've never looked at the 4K OLED display on one of these.

It’s not a matter of what they subjectively look like, it’s a matter of OLED having awful uniformity issues making them useless to professionals that need accuracy. Not to mention that even if they didn’t suffer awful uniformity and clipping issues, you’d still need to manually calibrate them every few weeks due to their selective color degradation over time.

[panzersharkcat]

4 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

It’s not a matter of what they subjectively look like, it’s a matter of OLED having awful uniformity issues making them useless to professionals that need accuracy. Not to mention that even if they didn’t suffer awful uniformity and clipping issues, you’d still need to manually calibrate them every few weeks due to their selective color degradation over time.

Fair point. I was thinking of it in terms of how good-looking the images are.

[Roswell]

35 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

Fair point. I was thinking of it in terms of how good-looking the images are.

Yeah, they definitely look great for content consumption, no doubt.