laptop brand reliability

aidanki

buying a new laptop at the minute

>100GB H Drive, core 2 duo, 2GHz RAM

saw this on dabs.ie
seems like a decent machine

http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=56JX&SearchType=1&CategorySelectedId=11012&SearchTerms=toshiba&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=50540,11012

was in PC world the other day and came across this

Advent 6411
http://www.laptopreviews.org.uk/advent-laptops/advent-6411-laptop-pc/

I think the dell machines are a bit more expensive for the same spec

For those that know what are labtop machines like for reliability are Dell more reliable than Advent, are Toshiba better

the specs are essentially the same for the Toshiba and the Advent having a slightly bigger harddrive and bigger screen
I don't know much about graphics cards/sound card, the Advent has an Intel GM965 Graphics and a Realtek ALC883, the Toshiba has GMA X 3100

anyone any idea what are the differences and how would these fair for small gaming usage

Kershaw.D

Hi The Best Laptops That You Can Get Are HP or Samsung
the samsung r510 is great
the hp pavilon dv5 is also good
Go to laptopsdirect.ie i got a samsung one from them last week

projectmayhem

As far as branding goes, in fairness the vast majority of the guts of the machines are made by someone else (intel, nvidia, et al). I would go as far as to imagine the only thing these companies do is design the cases and decide what specs to throw in there. Generally, if something was to go wrong, there's a good chance it would go wrong on any brand of laptop. An expensive Sony laptops processor is no better/worse off then a cheaper laptop with the same processor...

Overheal

Its really down to personal preference, customer service, and style. You wont typically find that one company is much greater than the rest. Dell has the lions share of the market; HP likely comes second, but I like their lappies better for sheer sex appeal.

seraphimvc

*whisper*type in google :komplett T61

900ish for a Thinkpad in those specs...drooling 3 years international warranty...cost you about 1100+ in most places

my 1st laptop is R52,i am still dazzled by its awesomeness,solid build,perfect keyboard,very handy international warranty.my new T61 has been with me for few weeks now,loving it so far.havent tried any decent pc game on it so i cant comment much of its performance but vista is running smooth ,i think the onboard video card is a let down,judging from its 3.5score on vista scoring thing,the rest goes up to at least 4.8.you see,Thinkpad,the name tells its story.

Greenman

I like Toshiba, we have 2 here no problems so far in over than 2 and a half years.

Would love a Dell Mini one day or if Toshiba made a mini with a solidstate HD.

ejmaztec

After wasting two years trying to cool down a concrete-block of a Dell Inspiron 5160, I'm now quite happy with an HP DV 6000 series. I agree with Overheal on the HP sexyness, Dell being more of a bad blind-date with a bunny-boiler.

AlmightyCushion

The new metal effect hps are very nice looking.

Burnshard

I myself would generally only purchase a decent branded Laptop, as I have had severe problems with drivers in the past. This probably isn't so much of an issue anymore, but years ago Laptop makers also have to provide the drivers for the Laptops as the component manufaturers don't write drivers with laptops in mind etc and won't stand over there product in laptop environments so most companies had to write the drivers for Laptops themselves. This lead to serious dodgy blue screens for no reason.

DisasterIRL

One thing I can say for dell is their drivers are amazingly eazy to access and download

Caibre

I just got the Acer 5930g in Harvery Norman and its pure class, got it for 900 yo's and couldn't believe it came with a 9600m gt graphics card and is full HD, can't go for wrong with the acer, hasn't give me any grief and playing the s*it out of COD 5 now with no problems!!!

Fysh

I deal with Dell at work a lot and while their consumer models aren't necesarily great, I do find the Latitude range to be worth the money most of the time. Their support is good and their website is really well designed for things like driver downloads and general information about the machine (it's great being able to find out the original hardware configuration of a machine from the service tag, for example).

HP I'm not so keen on, although that's probably partly because I've mostly dealt with consumer-level laptops that are loaded up with the new shiny features, have dodgy build quality and a load of crapware installed when they ship, and then fail after 15 months. (Then again, this is how I feel about Vaios and I keep having arguments with twits who think they're great because they have nice cases...)

Edited to add:

Now I come to think of it, Acer generally seem to have higher spec components in their machines than rival offerings in the same price range, but from what I can work out that's offset by their support offerings being of a lesser standard. As far as I know you can't get a three year support contract from them, and I don't think they offer any next-business-day support either (I could be wrong on the latter though). I know it's not necessarily a big deal for a personal home computer but at the same time it's worth bearing in mind...

Skitz

I have had 2 Dell laptops, one Latitude about 4 years ago and an Inspiron I got just under a year back.

With the Latitude I got 2 batteries, after 15 month both failed within a week of eachother, (I swapped between them regularly), batteries are only covered for 12 months even if you get the 3 year extended warranty. The lesson was don't use standby on your laptop a lot as I foolishly did! Aside from that it worked fine for the next year or so, at which point one of the RAM modules became faulty, Dell replaced it. Its been running fine since.

With the Inspiron, after about 6 months I was getting constant hangs and problems when upgrading to vista SP1, then roll back stopped working, then eventually had problems even reinstalling the OS from scratch. I think it may have a hard drive problem. I have to get round to calling Dell at some point.

I don't know if my experience has been normal from Dell laptops, but I have had problems from both and not been particularly impressed, although I did use the laptops a lot.

I think laptops in general are going to give problems, unlike your desktop PC they are shifted around a lot and get bumped here and there. They also have a lot less room inside and so cooling is more difficult, meaning components usually run hotter which reduces their life and performance. I don't know where other manufacturers place their fans, but the 2 Dells I have both suck in air from the underside and blow it out the side, it means if you want to use it in bed or on your knees you have to be careful not to cover the vent, bit of a pain.

I've also had a Dell server, ran a constant 100% CPU load for over a year flawlessly until I sold it. Also had 3 Dell desktops over the years and all were rock solid, no issues at all with them. I think Dell stuff is generally good, but I have some reservations about their laptops.