Gotta agree here. I bought an Acer extensa 2 years ago and liked it so much that I bought a smaller Acer Aspire (for writing on the go) as well. Both have been the most reliable computers I'ver ever had (I've had Dell, Toshiba, Mac, and HP) and both were pretty inexpensive.
<br> I think we have the same computer. That's why I upgraded to a 12 cell battery. Thing is bulky, but without it, I think my laptop would die so fast it'd be nuts....
I agree with most of your post here. My only argument would be that yes, every brand is going to produce lemons from time to time. It's very possible to buy an HP or Gateway that lasts you 5+ years just as it is possible to get an Asus that craps out after 3 months. The fact stands though that you are playing the odds more than anything. HP and Gateway have about the highest failure rates on the market, while Asus and Toshiba have some of the lowest. And it's not a small discrepancy, either. The last study I saw placed HP and Gateway at around a 25% chance of failure of some sort within the first three years, while Asus and Toshiba were closer to 15%. I'm not totally sure what the definition of "failure" was in this case, but even still, I'm assuming the criteria was identical for brands studied. Long story short, you can buy any brand and walk away satisfied in the long term. But you give yourself a better shot at that possibility with different brands.
I didn't get a quad-core for that very reason - I got the i7 620m. I have an 8-cell. I haven't tested it, but it should get about 3-4 hours. A quad-core would've been lucky to get 2-2.5 hours.
This is true, but reliability studies don't usually separate among manufcturer's models. For example, I wouldn't touch an HP consumer level laptop (mostly because they're hideous), but their Elitebooks were highest on my list. Business/premium laptops generally are more solidly built and use better design and fail less than their consumer-level counterparts. I didn't want an Asus because they were geared more to gamers and their screens actually have had high failure rates and abysmal quality in their higher end laptops recently. I looked at Toshiba and would've loved to have bought one, but their selection is bizarre and in some cases behind the times (they were late getting i5/i7 support, for example). When I finally found a Toshiba worth buying, it was overpriced. The other funny thing about those failure rates is that they tend to change from year to year - sometimes drastically. I remember when Apple used to be #1 in many of them. Now you see them more towards the middle in some and still near the top in others.
yeah whatever dude, just trying to help the guy out if you don't have anything constructive to say then stfu VAIOs may be somewhat overpriced, but I don't know what you're trying to argue about in terms of quality
anyways out of all the brands mentioned here.. and again this is from my personal preference, MSI PWNS all of them... check out some of their slimmer laptops here http://www.msimobile.com/level2_productlist.aspx?id=4 If I had the time to find a better deal I would have bought MSI, instead I needed a net book right away due to time constraints and settled for the ASUS N10J
Perfect timing to post this recent article. Lifehacker Glad to see so many people speak out against HP. I'm sure many people live long happy lives with theirs. But I bought 2 in a row (obviously should've learned my lesson the first time), and each one died in 1 1/2 years. And I treat my laptops like newborn babies. HP is right up their with the Utah Jazz. Yeah, they're that bad.
