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Laptop brand quality?

2

2timer

Golden Member
Where do laptop brands stand in terms of quality, today? Like Asus, Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba - are there any standouts or particular order?
 
from my usage experience have found the business models of Lenovo - T series and Toshiba - R series quite robust and reliable over long term abuse.
 
The original thinkpad lines are still pretty good, despite lenovo's best effort to ruin them (I'm considering not buying another one though, the integration of the trackpoint buttons into the touchpad is just about the last straw for me).
 
Granted, this is a one-person, one-sample comment but:

I just bought and returned a Lenovo ThinkPad E545. I bought it knowing it was a $450 laptop, but knew that the keyboard should be great b/c ThinkPads traditionally have some of the best KBs in the business. Plus these days, you can generally get a solid, low-end laptop in the $400-$500 range.

Serviceability was also an important decision point. I don't want to have to remove the KB or the entire bottom clamshell of the laptop just to add memory or swap the HD. ThinkPads are traditionally targeted at enterprises that issue them by the hundreds and serviceability is paramount.

I had planned on putting an SSD in there and doubling the memory. In my mind, I had created an $800 laptop for about $600.

Well, it didn't work out too well.

The KB was great. The rest of it, not so much. The Bluetooth worked for about an hour and then died. BT mouse worked one minute, the next it was gone. Couldn't pair the lappy with my phone either. Dead BT.

The wireless was spotty from the get-go. The screen was very bright, but colors were a washed-out mess no matter how low you set the brightness. The FN/F-key combos worked when they wanted to, sometimes requiring multiple key presses to get the hardware to recognize that I was trying to do something.

Additionally, the touchpad felt a bit flimsy. Probably b/c the touchpad had a click feature to it. You could physically click down on the touchpad vs. just double-tapping on it or using the separate "mouse buttons" above the touchpad.

Possibly, Lenovo's higher-end models are better made, but I can't say with certainty since I don't own one.

I just bought a Gigabyte Q2556N, which is really just a rebranded Clevo W650SZ. Granted, it's in a higher price bracket and has better specs (by a long shot) but my recent attempt at "getting a great laptop on a budget" blew up in my face. Hoping for a better experience with the Gigabyte.

YMMV, but IME Sony VAIOs and any Toshiba laptops are known "bad bets." I've had very good luck with both Dell and HP laptops, bought directly from them. I also have a 9-year old Acer TravelMate that still works, cracked screen hinges and all. About 3 years ago I bought a high-end (about $1,300, IIRC) Asus for a friend which is still working.
 
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Had two Acer Laptops over the past 8 years, one the power button broke on and the power lead broke after people/dogs kept knocking it out, the other I have had for about 4 years and is still going strong although the keyboard does pop up sometimes, the left click is dodgy along with a rattling CPU cooler, not bad for the price £500.
 
I pretty much agree with this here but would switch ASUS & Lenovo.





Best and Worst Brands 2013: Full Scorecard

 
I can say from personal experience that MSI is top notch, I have had three of there notebooks and have loved each one. They stand up to my heavy handed abuse that I try not to give them lol. Performance is awesome as well - my last notebook was a GT60 w/ 680m and the GT60-2OD 261US (w/ 780m 3x RAID 0 256GB MSATA SSDs, and a 3K IPS panel) that I stepped up to is of outstanding quality and the performance is just insane for something I can sit at the couch with. MSI is at the top of my personal list - then Lenovo... but unfortunately notebook quality that you have to pay for, its hard to find something that seems solid in the lower tiers
 
Every OEm has a model or series pecking order. To compare laptops by brands is really not accurate. Top of the line for each OEM are business laptops. Examples are the Latitude series in Dell and the T series in Lenovo. I'm sure that other brands have similar divisions. The problem is when one lets low price be the driver.
 
corkyg said:
Every OEm has a model or series pecking order. To compare laptops by brands is really not accurate. Top of the line for each OEM are business laptops. Examples are the Latitude series in Dell and the T series in Lenovo. I'm sure that other brands have similar divisions. The problem is when one lets low price be the driver.
Click to expand...

I'd disagree. A MacBook Air may be lower-powered than a MacBook Pro, for example, but the build quality is the same -- at least in 2014, Apple takes the view that all its systems should be well-built. The problem is that a lot of PC makers create an arbitrary split based on manufacturing quality: you either buy a well-made laptop with premium parts or suffer with a shoddily made system.

Why can't more vendors insist on properly-designed systems across their entire lines? The race to the bottom (in quality and price) is part of what's hurting the PC industry. A $500 laptop is generally a terrible experience; a $500 tablet is a good one. If I were running Dell, for example, there would be no artificial Inspiron/XPS/Latitude range... you'd just have quality systems with performance and screen size determining the price.
 
Exclude Macs from my thought process. They are a different world. The drive for lower price usually sacrifices quality. Best example I can think of are Lenovo T series and E series.

I agree with your idealistic premise - but market competition often dictates otherwise. Agree ablout tablet vs laptop prices - but, this thread is about laptops, a.k.a. notebooks.
 
Instead of relying on other people's examples, why not try something and find out? There isn't that big a disparity between the brands out there. See a laptop you like? Try it out yourself.
 
Dell is number one in my opinion. Acer is best for money and lasts so long and good. Always recommend acer., ive fixed alot of hp. Always shit parts imo... now have sony need to fix.. taping on the top will shut it down i think lose wire, waiting on seller respond to know if crack it open or not 🙁
 
I would avoid pretty much any laptop without distinct (ie. separate) touchpad buttons. Every one that I've tried that has the buttons as part of the trackpad surface is horrible to use (problems like the pointer moving during a left-click action, or the right-click action only works if the absolute extreme corner of the right 'button' is clicked. Asus laptops are especially horrible for these problems. The touchpad software for Asus laptops also misses specific options to make them more usable.

+1 Lenovo. People recommend the ThinkPad series specifically, I'll have to wait and see whether they last better than non-TP types.
 
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My personal experience with build quality:

Dell Consumer line (Inspiron, XPS): Rubbish
Dell Business line (Latitude, Precision): Good
Lenovo consumer line (Ideapad): Rubbish
Lenovo business line (Thinkpad, especially the T series): Good
Apple: Good, but overpriced
 
HP consumer-level stuff is GARBAGE, the bottom of Consumer Reports year after year. ASUS is usually #1 or 2, Apple being close under them.
Acer does quite well in the top 3-4.

HP and Acer also have a business class lineup that's notably better than the consumer stuff, though many buyers don't seem to care about quality (only price) ...at least until they've used it for a month.
 
Consumer grade laptops are usually quite low in build quality
In my personal experience HP > Toshiba > Acer > Dell

As far as pro lines, again, in my experience EliteBook (HP) > Probook (HP) > Latitude (Dell)

Some of the consumer grade laptops I had used were quite decent, the HP Pavilion DV4-2040us was very solid, had expresscard slot, eSATA, good speakers. The keyboard was mediocre, but what absolute killed it was the screen. HP probably picks the crappiest TN panels of all OEMs, and that laptop had probably the crappiest of the HP picks 😉

My current one, HP Probook 6475B is a very nice machine, eSATA, expresscard, firewire, nice keyboard, solid, displayport; with the only "ifs" the lack of mSATA slot (same model equipped with WAN has mSATA, mine doesn't) and again the screen. The 1600 x 900 is a huge improvement over a 1366 x 768, but again, it has probably the crappiest of the TN panels that HP secured 😉
Disclaimer: My main monitor is a 2560 x 1440 IPS, so that might make me be pickier on the screen. I usually use the laptop through the big monitor, but when using the laptop screen, ouch!!
 
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