Reliable Notebook Laptop...

[SpeedKills]

I haven't bought a computer since the days of Alienware, and every desktop I've had since then were custom-built.  But, you can't really do that with laptops, so...

I need a reliable, long-term writing / programming laptop, it doesn't have to be anything crazy, just fast and long-lasting.  I don't need a crazy super-gaming machine or anything like that.

Anyone know some brands I should look at?  I've been looking on NewEgg and OverStock, but nowadays I feel like an old man, and don't really know anything about all the new specs that are important for a computer, especially a laptop....

[Mag-X]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/laptop-reliability-survey-asus-and-toshiba-win-hp-fails/

[HiddenJumper]

Why does everyone think having more RAM means better?

Look at it this way even if you installed 3 or 4 gigs ram on a 32 bit OS you're only going to get about 2.5 gigs of it for use. Take my custom built for example, I only have a 32 bit OS with 4 gig ram (original purpose was for a 64 bit OS but I hate 64 bit now after using it for a while) but my 32 bit OS only allows me about 2.7 gigs of the 4 gig possible. Now more RAM for me is good (aside from 64 bit OS) because I do video editting and photoshopping at the same time so having that extra temp storage is good. However for a video watcher/gamer you don't need the extra ram. You can save yourself some money by only having 2 gigs.

Also it doesn't matter which manufacturer you get as far as processor goes. Intel or AMD, makes no difference these days because the line between a gamer's processor and number crunching processor is too blurred. So save yourself more money by going with a Core 2 Duo or an AMD equivelent.

A 500 gig hard drive is about 80 USD (not sure what it is in Euros) so you can get em cheaper these days. Shouldn't need anything bigger than that. Make sure the mobo you buy fits the case you use. Would be rather pointless to get a full ATX board only to find out you have a mid-size or smaller case.

I say the money you save from slimming down on cheaper parts you swing for a higher end graphics card. Lately I recommend an ATI card only because Nvidia drivers have been crap lately (my nvidia driver crashes at least once during any game I play and I play FPS and RTS games). These are my recommendations. When I built my computer I was in the same shoes as you with a fix budget so I sacrificed in areas only to upgrade at a later date when I got more money. Go piece at a time. Take your old computer and scour it for parts that work good so you don't have to spend money on new components.

[Mag-X]

Why does everyone think having more RAM means better?

Look at it this way even if you installed 3 or 4 gigs ram on a 32 bit OS you're only going to get about 2.5 gigs of it for use. Take my custom built for example, I only have a 32 bit OS with 4 gig ram (original purpose was for a 64 bit OS but I hate 64 bit now after using it for a while) but my 32 bit OS only allows me about 2.7 gigs of the 4 gig possible. Now more RAM for me is good (aside from 64 bit OS) because I do video editting and photoshopping at the same time so having that extra temp storage is good. However for a video watcher/gamer you don't need the extra ram. You can save yourself some money by only having 2 gigs.

What problems are you having with a 64-bit OS? I've using 64-bit since XP x64, and I've never had any major issues. In fact, I've never had any issues what-so-ever with Vista or 7 that were caused by them being 64-bit.

Windows 32-bit can see 4GB or RAM. It's just that your video memory counts too.

Anyway, as far as gaming goes, I found the difference between 2GB and 4GB to be quite noticeable. I'd never go back to gaming with only 2GB.

[mgz]

Why does everyone think having more RAM means better?

Look at it this way even if you installed 3 or 4 gigs ram on a 32 bit OS you're only going to get about 2.5 gigs of it for use. Take my custom built for example, I only have a 32 bit OS with 4 gig ram (original purpose was for a 64 bit OS but I hate 64 bit now after using it for a while) but my 32 bit OS only allows me about 2.7 gigs of the 4 gig possible. Now more RAM for me is good (aside from 64 bit OS) because I do video editting and photoshopping at the same time so having that extra temp storage is good. However for a video watcher/gamer you don't need the extra ram. You can save yourself some money by only having 2 gigs.

Also it doesn't matter which manufacturer you get as far as processor goes. Intel or AMD, makes no difference these days because the line between a gamer's processor and number crunching processor is too blurred. So save yourself more money by going with a Core 2 Duo or an AMD equivelent.

A 500 gig hard drive is about 80 USD (not sure what it is in Euros) so you can get em cheaper these days. Shouldn't need anything bigger than that. Make sure the mobo you buy fits the case you use. Would be rather pointless to get a full ATX board only to find out you have a mid-size or smaller case.

I say the money you save from slimming down on cheaper parts you swing for a higher end graphics card. Lately I recommend an ATI card only because Nvidia drivers have been crap lately (my nvidia driver crashes at least once during any game I play and I play FPS and RTS games). These are my recommendations. When I built my computer I was in the same shoes as you with a fix budget so I sacrificed in areas only to upgrade at a later date when I got more money. Go piece at a time. Take your old computer and scour it for parts that work good so you don't have to spend money on new components.

Yea as far as things go more functional memory = BETTER. Thats why i upgraded to 64 bit os from xp pro 32 bit.
Because the upgrade from 3 gigs of memory to 8 gigs is awesome.

As far as a laptop goes, you need to set a price range and then work around it. Since functionality and what its used for can go anywhere from a beefy netbook to a 5k sager laptop or falcon NW

[fohfoh]

@Jumper: Do you really know much about notebooks? Brands are a BIG deal in this age. You're obviously not looking at anything useful to be made into a proper decision about reliability.

Notebook reliability - REQUIRES AIRFLOW.

Dell (low to mid end)
Compaq
HP (low-mid end)
Gateway

All fail in this area. It's not the components that go in, but the housing that holds them.

Ram: Ok, I'll give you that one. But seriously, is it really that big of a deal that you went with 3GB instead of 4 GB? Is the redundancy of 1 GB on a 2GB ram chip really that big of a deal? It's fucking like 5 bucks! Who gives a shit? It's 5 fucking dollars! The difference between the purchase of a 1GB ram chip vs a 2 GB ram chip is negligible.

HDD: Big one here. You need to find one, (Or swap one our yourself manually) to something that's about a 7200 rpm one. I recommend WD. Seagate has been weird lately. But if you can afford it, SSD is the way to go. Fast and cooler temps. (As long as you're not torrenting, and keep a good back up) But if you have a built in SD card reader, USE IT. Readyboost if you want, or just plain storage (Sort of like a USB stick without the damn thing sticking out)

Video card: If you're not going to game at all, get an integrated one for better battery life. Unless you're going to boot linux in which compiz needs a dedicated card... I really don't recommend one. They heat up. + Heat = not good for reliability in a notebook.

Screen: I personally wouldn't get the cheapest one on the market. But going high end on a notebook isn't worth it either. But a good screen doesn't heat up (Older ones do). But I think we're in the age where the standard screen is already high quality.

Processor: Although I really don't like swaying to a certain side... AMD CHIPS RUN TOO FUCKING HOT. Go intel. Want power, battery life and lower heat? I recommend the P series (Centrino 2) chips. I'd rather not go into the T series (old, hot and shitty battery life), and i7/i5... too expensive. + Not entirely sure about the battery life. (Almost seems on par with the old C2Ds)

As stated before, above brands are pretty much fail.

I personally recommend either:

*Lenovo
*HP Business Edition (difficult to find, but generally are better than the consumer grade stuff. DO NOT BUY THOSE)
*Toshiba
Sony (Rare. Usually again only the business level ones are the only decent ones... though Sony USA sucks for warranty. Canada seems to be good though. Not sure why)
Acer(Clunky)
Asus (Don't buy low end and you're good)

Personally I think you should be able to do well with around 1100-1600 USD

[SpeedKills]

Guess I should have been more specific.

My price range is around 500-700.  That's why I said I didn't really care about its gaming capabilities, because I'm sure I'll have to sacrifice things like a lot of RAM or a decent video card.

http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Edge-13-Laptop/4582778/product.html

Has such a small screen though

Was also hoping to get Windows 7 on it, simply because I've never used anything past XP.

[mgz]

http://www.staples.com/Acer-Aspire-AS7740-5691-Laptop/product-nr_851638?cmArea=SC3:CG71:DP4118:CL161747

fairly cheap laptop with some pretty nice stuff in it. Same laptop on newegg but with 500gig hdd in its place is 680 so its really not a bad price at all

[SpeedKills]

nice, thanks!

[fohfoh]

I need a reliable, long-term writing / programming laptop, it doesn't have to be anything crazy, just fast and long-lasting.  I don't need a crazy super-gaming machine or anything like that.

Damn I misred.

But if you're looking for stuff, Lenovo has some nice reliable ones. Tossing on Win7 add some speed too. Again though, avoid AMD procs. (Your first link).

But You should easily be able to find a decent lenovo in your price range. (Funny thing is... Lenovo promotes self upgrading of the laptop for ram and HDD) But there's a lot of other ones out there that meet your needs and budget.

[NaRu]

Lenovo is awesome.

[fohfoh]

Lenovo is awesome.

I know, right? They had that one model one year they advertised that you could pour a cup of coffee on the keyboard and the liquid would drain harmlessly out the bottom. Though even if I had it, I'd never do that to my laptop.

[Micharus]

Lenovo is awesome.

Lenovo = IBM. Seriously.

Work uses Lenovo desktops and towers, good machines.

I can't see that a Lenovo laptop would be any worse.

As far as buying a laptop goes, virtually any big name brand one will do the job, just keep in mind the specs you want and remember that no matter which one you end up with, that you need to keep the airflow happening or it will overheat and go *poof* (more likely it will auto shut down to save itself.)

[iindigo]

Don't bother with HP or any of its daughter companies. For whatever reason, their engineers can't figure out something as elementary as airflow. Dell and most other big names fail at it as well. The only exceptions that I personally know of are Toshiba, Lenovo, Sony, and Apple. Sony can be hit or miss.

For less-known companies, Acer has nice offerings.

And whatever you do, don't be tempted by the lower prices of a netbook. You get what you pay for: a slow machine with a tiny-ass screen and keyboard/trackpad that will frustrate the living hell out of you. While I have never owned one, I've worked on a few belonging to friends, and I can honestly say that after two days I'd just throw the thing out the window.

[fohfoh]

Don't bother with HP or any of its daughter companies. For whatever reason, their engineers can't figure out something as elementary as airflow. Dell and most other big names fail at it as well. The only exceptions that I personally know of are Toshiba, Lenovo, Sony, and Apple. Sony can be hit or miss.

Technically Apple sits on that shelf for having poor flow. But only for last gen. When there were issues with the NVidia 8200/8400, HP and Dell had the most issues, but Apple was in "3rd place". It probably was only like 10-15% in comparison to HP and Dells 60%+ but still it was the highest margin in comparison to the others based on the reports.

It was something like OTHERS 3 reports < Apple 4-5 reports < HP/Dell 20 reports each

Supposedly the new gen of macbooks (I hate that black and silver design) aren't bad. But the older model had some issues with airflow. (Technically in the same time frame as when people began to figure out the issues with airflow for laptop cases from different companies)

I will add though... Apple wasn't as big of a douche as HP and Dell to initially address the issue.

[iindigo]

Don't bother with HP or any of its daughter companies. For whatever reason, their engineers can't figure out something as elementary as airflow. Dell and most other big names fail at it as well. The only exceptions that I personally know of are Toshiba, Lenovo, Sony, and Apple. Sony can be hit or miss.

Technically Apple sits on that shelf for having poor flow. But only for last gen. When there were issues with the NVidia 8200/8400, HP and Dell had the most issues, but Apple was in "3rd place". It probably was only like 10-15% in comparison to HP and Dells 60%+ but still it was the highest margin in comparison to the others based on the reports.

It was something like OTHERS 3 reports < Apple 4-5 reports < HP/Dell 20 reports each

Supposedly the new gen of macbooks (I hate that black and silver design) aren't bad. But the older model had some issues with airflow. (Technically in the same time frame as when people began to figure out the issues with airflow for laptop cases from different companies)

I will add though... Apple wasn't as big of a douche as HP and Dell to initially address the issue.

I think maybe the difference between the old and new macbooks isn't necessarily airflow, but has more to do with the solid aluminum case. It throws off heat exceptionally well rather than keeping it pent up.

[NaRu]

My Toshiba has perfect heat flow. It never over heats

[mgz]

Lenovo is awesome.

Lenovo = IBM. Seriously.

Work uses Lenovo desktops and towers, good machines.

I can't see that a Lenovo laptop would be any worse.

As far as buying a laptop goes, virtually any big name brand one will do the job, just keep in mind the specs you want and remember that no matter which one you end up with, that you need to keep the airflow happening or it will overheat and go *poof* (more likely it will auto shut down to save itself.)

no lenovo =/= ibm

but ibm laptop divison was purchased by lenovo and doesnt seem to have fucked up much

[Tatsujin]

Why does everyone think having more RAM means better?

Look at it this way even if you installed 3 or 4 gigs ram on a 32 bit OS you're only going to get about 2.5 gigs of it for use. Take my custom built for example, I only have a 32 bit OS with 4 gig ram (original purpose was for a 64 bit OS but I hate 64 bit now after using it for a while) but my 32 bit OS only allows me about 2.7 gigs of the 4 gig possible. Now more RAM for me is good (aside from 64 bit OS) because I do video editting and photoshopping at the same time so having that extra temp storage is good. However for a video watcher/gamer you don't need the extra ram. You can save yourself some money by only having 2 gigs.

What problems are you having with a 64-bit OS? I've using 64-bit since XP x64, and I've never had any major issues. In fact, I've never had any issues what-so-ever with Vista or 7 that were caused by them being 64-bit.

Windows 32-bit can see 4GB or RAM. It's just that your video memory counts too.

Anyway, as far as gaming goes, I found the difference between 2GB and 4GB to be quite noticeable. I'd never go back to gaming with only 2GB.

+1

[fohfoh]

Lenovo is awesome.

Lenovo = IBM. Seriously.

Work uses Lenovo desktops and towers, good machines.

I can't see that a Lenovo laptop would be any worse.

As far as buying a laptop goes, virtually any big name brand one will do the job, just keep in mind the specs you want and remember that no matter which one you end up with, that you need to keep the airflow happening or it will overheat and go *poof* (more likely it will auto shut down to save itself.)

no lenovo =/= ibm

but ibm laptop divison was purchased by lenovo and doesnt seem to have fucked up much

Agreed. Lenovo even took time to create their own designs.