Need a New Laptop - what do you recommend ?

[ofey]

My first ever laptop was an IBM ThinkPad. In those days, Macs were useless with OS9 and I was about to start my undergrad degree, PCs seem the most sensible then due to lecturers spelling out how they wanted your assignments and Powerpoint only ran on PCs. I bought another ThinkPad towards the end of my degree. Only got my first Mac, a 15" Ti MacBook with my first postgrad scholarship cheque. I was pretty faithful to Mac often believing it was more special. So had a 15" Ti Mac Book, a 12" MacBook and 14" iBook and finally a 13" MacBook White now. Up till recently when I discovered Hackintosh.

As you get older, you realise portability is crucial and price matters. Unlike when you're NOT married and didn't have kids.

I would strongly suggest the Alienware 11". It's a GREAT GREAT machine. It's what I would buy. Wait for Dell to have a sale online via eBay on LCD displays and buy one huge one ( i have 2 X 23" LCDs from Dell I bought off eBay for A$160 delivered for BOTH).

It's not about who has the most powerful machine but what you can put together for the least amount of money.

[anzac_77]

I bought a new ASUS last october, its very good. previous laptop was a dell, it was actually pretty shitty, ended up keeping the PC running for 7 years and using the laptop as the backup, when both finally died it was time to get serious.
I got a Core i5 with 1GB RAM, 540GB HDD, HDMI output etc for round $1100, my advice would be to NEVER buy used/ebay, go for brand new especially for the warranty (even tho dell was crap i got any problems fixed straight away, including replacing the charger when a wire bent on the tip)

IF you dont mind buying online, check out catchoftheday, they often have notebook laptops on there for really cheap prices, with manufacturers warranty. I found out about it after i had the laptop already, could have got an i7 with a 450GB drive for the same price as mine.

[tadz0rz]

I personally work in a computer store and technical repair center so i see hundreds of different notebooks go in and out of the place. If your going to be buying a notebook, stick to the Asus range. Warranty service, build quality and features cannot be beat.

Most common notebooks we get in for repair are Toshibas with DC jack repairs and keyboard repairs, HP notebooks with the NVIDIA graphics chipset with the card failing and dells usually for hinges. The notebook we get in least is the asus, the only time we really get an asus in for repair is for software repair. Which is something you get accross all PC's. Last asus we had in for repair was because the wireless card had died, $30 fix and done.

[exaltd]

I agree with Tadz, completely. I have NEVER had any problems with Asus laptops. I use and recommend Asus to everybody, and nobody has ever complained after years of recommending products for IT.

[SXLancerMum]

I'd go for Dell all the way. Pay the extra for the 3 year on site warranty. It's definitely worth it. My 19 yr old had a problem with his just before the end of the 3 years and they couldn't get it fixed so they gave him a new one. The original was a top of the line, you beaut $4000 one that we got for $2000 on a half price special and that's exactly what they replaced it with. There's no way I could afford the replacement laptop. It's brilliant.

My laptop is a 2 year old Dell and my daughters is about 15 months old. Our Dell desktop is 9 years old and still going as is our sons 6 year old desktop and his 3 year old quad core beauty that he got to handle his aerospace engineering stuff for uni. We're a Dell kind of family

The really good thing is that if you get the on-site warranty the nice little Dell man comes out to visit you (even if you live in the middle of nowhere like me) and fixes it free of charge within a couple of days. Win