Laptop recommendations

[gomer pyle]

What laptop do y'all recommend? I'm looking for something to surf the web, a few word documents, my wife's cricket, and to watch tv(I'll use the hdmi plug to mirror to TV from websites). I have no patience, so faster is better, but would like to stay under $500 if possible. From the reviews I've read HP seems to score fairly high every year, whereas others jump up and down. Apple is out of my price range. I think a 15-17" screen will be fine? What brand and model should I get?

[10-Ring]

I've had very good luck with Toshiba.  I'm running a Toshiba Satellite as my back up laptop.  It is 4 years old and I've put it through hell.  I did have to replace the hard drive because I dropped the laptop and ruined the old one but that's my fault.  I did replace it with a solid state drive which is about all you are going to get these days anyway.  I'm currently running an Asus, which I have not been impressed with.  It is cheaply made, I returned it to the manufacturer right before it was a year old and they replaced the motherboard because the charging outlet was not functioning properly, my USB 3.0 port was not reading and one of my USB 2.0 ports were not reading.  Within a week of getting it back the 3.0 port stopped working again.  All of these cheaper lap tops are the same they are made very cheaply with little quality control.  

 

On another note I bought a Sony laptop in 2007 and that was a very well built machine, still one of my favorites that I've ever owned.  used it for about 4 years before the hard drive bit the dust but never had another issue out of it.

[leroy]

Go to the Dell refurbished website and pick one out...

 

leroy

[chances R]

Been very pleased with a Samsung Chromebook.  Cheap and fast

[rmiddle]

What laptop do y'all recommend? I'm looking for something to surf the web, a few word documents, my wife's cricket, and to watch tv(I'll use the hdmi plug to mirror to TV from websites). I have no patience, so faster is better, but would like to stay under $500 if possible. From the reviews I've read HP seems to score fairly high every year, whereas others jump up and down. Apple is out of my price range. I think a 15-17" screen will be fine? What brand and model should I get?

 

I have used a lot of brands for both work and personal.  HP gives you some of the best bang for your buck and local places tend to have a fairly large selection of types and modules to choose from.  Toshiba isn't bad either have had very good luck with them but most shops will only have 1 or 2 models available.  Asus worked well but started having Fan problems after about 2 years.  Acer was pure junk had problems right away.  Dell a bit costly but tend to be built well.  

[Oh Shoot]

If you still want one of the best, ThinkPad. Lenovo making them still about as well as did IBM.

 

- OS

[MacGyver]

If you still want one of the best, ThinkPad. Lenovo making them still about as well as did IBM.

 

- OS

There are a lot of us who are really wondering about the depth of the motivations behind the most recent MITM SuperFish engine that came installed on the Lenovo machines.  Just make sure you give it a good scrubbing first.

 

I guess that goes for pretty much all of them these days.

 

I just made the switch to a MacBook after 35 years of being a PC guy.  After about 3 months in the environment, I'm not sure I'll consume Windows except through a VMWare environment again.  It's nice to be able to have a fresh image, load that image, do your work and start clean again next time.  I remain a big Microsoft believer, but virtualization in your personal computing consumption has a lot going for it.

[Oh Shoot]

There are a lot of us who are really wondering about the depth of the motivations behind the most recent MITM SuperFish engine that came installed on the Lenovo machines.  Just make sure you give it a good scrubbing first....

 

Interesting. And pretty sad.

 

Here's layman's guide, checker, how to nuke:

 

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/lenovo-superfish-adware-uninstall-fix/

 

My ThinkPad laptop is maybe 3 years old, doesn't have it, and neither does my quite new Lenovo ThinkCentre desktop. Thanks for the heads up.

 

- OS

Edited March 19, 2015 by Oh Shoot

[enfield]

Model  - pick 'em.

Brand - Toshiba Satellite  

 

I have a 15 year old Dell still running, but on Puppy Linux, and a 11 year old HP still running (Win 7).  

 

The Dell that I bought between these two crapped out.  It has intolerable overheating problems and Dell should never have produced it.  

 

My wife's Toshiba is an impressive machine.  I bought an ASUS for myself last time, wish I had sprung for a Toshiba but I bought based on price.

[canadienmike]

 

The Dell that I bought between these two crapped out.  It has intolerable overheating problems and Dell should never have produced it.  

 

 

 

Any chance this was a precision model? I have a Dell precision 6500 from work and it has been nothing but a pain in the neck...constant overheating and black screens. Dell has replaced the motherboard and graphics card 4 times in the last 3 years. Terrible laptop, don't think I'd go with a Dell again. 

[10-Ring]

I've seen some really good deals on laptops through Groupon, fyi.

[willis68]

Surface Pro 3, I love mine

[Sam1]

Brands are irrelevant, they're all made with chips & boards from the same factories in China.  Just look for the one that has the best hardware for the money

[Ropin4gold]

We have the Lenovo at work. Has held up pretty good for the last 3 years. Supposed to be getting surface pros. We will see.

[enfield]

Any chance this was a precision model? I have a Dell precision 6500 from work and it has been nothing but a pain in the neck...constant overheating and black screens. Dell has replaced the motherboard and graphics card 4 times in the last 3 years. Terrible laptop, don't think I'd go with a Dell again. 

 

No, mine's an Inspiron 5150.  They're notorious.

[ironsniper1]

I got a dell latitude d830 and d620 running windows 7 and they are great little laptops


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

Whatever you get ..stay away from ASUS..ask me how I know.lol

[seez52]

you can bid on Dell refurbs on ebay and they are hard to beat. 

[ironsniper1]

you can bid on Dell refurbs on ebay and they are hard to beat.

id offer to sell one of my spares but it needs a screen, hinges and a new hdd


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tnhawk]

I've had good service from HP over the last 15 years.  I had Toshiba, Dell, Compaq before the HPs.