Laptops...

[sdkid]

Have any of you bought a laptop you really like in the last year or so---???

My old 7 year old Dell just died a brutal death. Dell support really pissed me off on a different computer, so I am Done with Dell-- those dirty lying bastards.
All I've had are Dells for 20 years, so I am lost on what to look at & what to avoid.

Budget--- under $900
Intel I5 or I7
16Gb
SSD (256G is probably OK, 512 preferred)
15.6 touch screen

I realize this is probably kind of like asking a room full of mechanics what the best engine oil is.... but watching you guys tell each other you're full of shit might be part of the fun here.

 

[wittaj]

Stay away from Acer LOL. My 10+ year old i3-2XXX was faster than the Acer i5-9xxx I bought, so I took it back.

I have no idea WTF Acer does to their system, but it was crap slow with a non-standard key board that I couldn't type one sentence without it being messed up.

 

[Timokreon]

Pennzoil.

A lot depends on what you're going to use the laptop for? Everyday driver checking e-mail, a little browsing etc... or something that has to be able to handle a serious load?
I'm partial to Asus and MSI. Samsung and Apple for certain instances.

Also if you're any good at building your own, you can build your own laptop, though it's not anywhere near as easy/friendly as a regular computer.

 

[sdkid]

Stay away from Acer LOL. My 10+ year old i3-2XXX was faster than the Acer i5-9xxx I bought, so I took it back.

I have no idea WTF Acer does to their system, but it was crap slow with a non-standard key board that I couldn't type one sentence without it being messed up.

We had one ACER laptop about 12 years ago or so.... REALLY BAD. Your experience does not surprise me.

 

[sdkid]

Pennzoil.

A lot depends on what you're going to use the laptop for? Everyday driver checking e-mail, a little browsing etc... or something that has to be able to handle a serious load?
I'm partial to Asus and MSI. Samsung and Apple for certain instances.

Also if you're any good at building your own, you can build your own laptop, though it's not anywhere near as easy/friendly as a regular computer.

I can say I will not use it for gaming-- so Intel graphics is fine. I do some university-level teaching online-- so good general performance with office and multimedia and streaming/webconferencing apps. That's why I said $900 Max--- I don't need a $2,000 laptop for Zoom... LOL...

 

[Timokreon]

Maybe the Asus Zenbook Flip 15 or the HP Envy 2-in-1.
I haven't used either of those computers, just trying to come up with some options.

 

[TonyR]

I have purchased, set up and sold over $40K (close to 50) Dell laptops since 2007 and have had to return zero and have had zero complaints from any customers. It's all I buy and will likely buy for some time unless they do what they've done a couple of times in 2022: sneaked in a $3 per month "support" plan that clearly was not on the first page or two, showed up on the last page and got by me....$%#@ sneaky, IMO.

But that being said, I still prefer Dell at this point, as parts for older Dells (screens, fans, power jacks, hinges, keyboards, USB daughter-boards, etc.) have been easy to come by as well....time will tell.

 

[sebastiantombs]

We've been using Asus laptops for quite a while with no problems. Casual surfing, watch some videos, basically "normal" use. I did swap out the platter drives for SSD drives and added more memory, but other than that they're going strong after over five years. Guess I'll have to upgrade sometime in the future when Win10 finally goes away, if it ever does.

Oh yeah, my one complaint about Asus. I had to buy decal sets to replace letters on the keyboards, they started wearing off and we both hunt and peck to type. A whole $3.00 investment for each laptop.

 

[Old Timer]

We have about 20 Lenovo laptops and 10 desktops for about 4 years now, no complaints.

 

[sdkid]

I have purchased, set up and sold over $40K (close to 50) Dell laptops since 2007 and have had to return zero and have had zero complaints from any customers. It's all I buy and will likely buy for some time unless they do what they've done a couple of times in 2022: sneaked in a $3 per month "support" plan that clearly was not on the first page or two, showed up on the last page and got by me....$%#@ sneaky, IMO.

But that being said, I still prefer Dell at this point, as parts for older Dells (screens, fans, power jacks, hinges, keyboards, USB daughter-boards, etc.) have been easy to come by as well....time will tell.

OK--- here we go...
I got a Dell laptop for my m-inlaw that was acting weird very early on. keyboard issues..... horrible slow performance on a 10th gen 1-5, and then some video issues on top of that. She lives 600 miles away and she's in her 80's. She came to visit, and she brought it for me to "fix". Of course, I just didn't see the worst of the issues in the short time I used it that weekend. I did see the keyboard issue, and then it quit doing it, then it came back. The system slowed down for me once too--- could not find any rogue services running or error messages... hmmm... Shrugged my shoulders and sent her back home with it. months later she said it was still having issues, and she would have me look at it when we went to see her in a month or so (last summer).

It took me a while to track down what was going on. MANY others had the keyboard problem, and replacing the keyboard would provide temporary relief to have it return later. Some tried software fixes and nothing worked. Most also had the random slowdowns and video issues. When I got out there and looked at it again, i saw something I had not noticed before. That particular model had what I would call a fatal design problem. When you raised the screen, the back edge of the lid rotated around and BLOCKED the exhaust ports. The damn thing was overheating! It would get so hot, it deformed the key connections in certain parts of the keyboard. It would get so hot the PROCESSOR would go into safe mode and slow to an absolute crawl. Of course-- that's where the video blackouts and errors came from as well.

The week we were hauling our camper to Grandma's, her WARRANTY EXPIRED. By the time I got there, Dell would not do anything. It didn't matter that their support forums had dozens of people with the same issues. It didn't matter that those issues had been ongoing for months. It ONLY mattered that I called them 3 or 4 days after the warranty expired. Fuck them.

I ALSO am responsible for many hundreds of dells being purchased by the schools I have worked at. They don't care. I spent hours and hours talking to multiple levels of "support" whose only intent was to get ME to pay for support services since the call was a few days after the warranty. They got my money, and they don't care. So... Fuck 'Em

I will buy something else. I have already bought 2 HP desktops (ebay) for different uses around the house. Any loyalty I might have had went right out the window. I told every Indian support person I spoke with that they were developing some seriously bad Karma and would come back as a cockroach...

Ahhhhhhh -- that was kind of cathartic! I feel better...

 

[wittaj]

OK--- here we go...
I got a Dell laptop for my m-inlaw that was acting weird very early on.

All where the emphasis lies LOL

 

[David L]

Have any of you bought a laptop you really like in the last year or so---???

My old 7 year old Dell just died a brutal death. Dell support really pissed me off on a different computer, so I am Done with Dell-- those dirty lying bastards.
All I've had are Dells for 20 years, so I am lost on what to look at & what to avoid.

Budget--- under $900
Intel I5 or I7
16Gb
SSD (256G is probably OK, 512 preferred)
15.6 touch screen

I realize this is probably kind of like asking a room full of mechanics what the best engine oil is.... but watching you guys tell each other you're full of shit might be part of the fun here.

So I just bought a new laptop in February, been looking since Black Friday last year. I was originally looking in your price range and ended up with great deal for $1299. I have owned many laptops over the years, even ThinkPad's when IBM sold them. My latest have been MSI's of which I have had Great luck with.

My search started with wanting an Ethernet port, good luck there, seems only Gaming or Business laptops have them now a days. WiFi 6 was also on my list, which with newer laptops, no problem. You can forget built in CD/DVD Blu-ray players now a days. Slim is In. My laptop is 5 pounds which is fine for me.

I did not want a 2 Core laptop, had to be 11th Gen or AMD (8 Cores), I recommend the Intel 11800H or the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H, Compare, the 12th Gen. laptops are coming out now too...so hopefully the 11th Gen.'s will drop in price...

In my search I found a few things I will share. The market has been changing over these last few years. HP now solders all their laptop memory not allowing you to upgrade, Dell has some of theirs that way too. Both also solder their M.2s on certain models.
Lenovo has been known to have their BIOS written to HDs, I have experienced this trying to help those who's HD dies or those who try replacing the HD with a SSD, just can't say which models, this was a few years back. Did read they have some kind of security BIOS now, I steer from them even though they are priced pretty good. Also found out you can change out the WiFi modules in laptops that are not soldered, this way you could go WiFi6E if your laptop does not have it, my MSI did...

I originally was not looking to have a graphics card, was really looking for a 14 inch to replace my Dell Mini 10 inch I use to program switches. I was trying to use it to help my son setup his Dahua Cams and found the small resolution the Mini had would not work with Dahua's ConfigTool, I even tried older versions, anyway, so was looking for a screen res of 800 or higher, 1080p actually. If you do not go with a graphics card I would consider Intel Iris Xe, don't know much about AMD's graphics...

Since I found myself close to a grand on laptops with no graphics card I widened my search. Graphic cards are not just for gaming they speed everything up, browsing, videos, etc. Since it was only a few hundred more I went for it.

Found out that for Nvidia cards in laptops many are dumbing down the card's speed by lowering the wattage allowed. Ex. a 3070 card will run as a 3060 card if wattage is lower than the 130W needed to run card at full speed, best way I can explain it. A LOT of people are very Mad at this deception. The best way to know is the A/C brick size, I have a 180Watt brick. If it is under 130Watts beware. With many years of gaming, I would go 3070 minimum, it is all about GPU memory when gaming. Never buy a graphics card under 6Gigs for today's games. 8Gigs or more is the way to go. It is worth a few hundred more, at the time the 3060 laptops were about the same price I got my 3070 for. I watched every week until the price dropped. Newegg has a Price Alert that you can set a price and get notified.

If you need good battery life be sure to check out the laptop's battery sizes, mine is a 4 Cell and only about 2-3 hours, but that is fine for me since I rarely do not have it plugged in.

Was told at Micro Center, Pulse is MSI's newer line...

I added a second 2TB M.2 and replaced the memory for 32Gigs...It was not that hard, a lot of clips though

I am extremely pleased with the GP66 MSI Leopard laptop I purchased, got a great price and an extremely fast laptop. It ended up selling out a few days after I bought it.



This price went up, found you can get a 3080 card for the below price.

Open Box: MSI GP Series - 15.6" GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU - Intel Core i7-11800H - 16GB Memory - 1 TB NVMe SSD - Windows 10 Home 64-bit Gaming Laptop - 240 Hz (GP66 Leopard 11UG-018 ) - Newegg.com

Buy Open Box: MSI GP Series - 15.6" GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU - Intel Core i7-11800H - 16GB Memory - 1 TB NVMe SSD - Windows 10 Home 64-bit - Gaming Laptop - 240 Hz (GP66 Leopard 11UG-018 ) with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

https://us.msi.com/Laptop/GP66-Leopard-11UX/Specification

11UG-018



Good luck in your search hope some of my Info Helps...I will Watch this Thread incase you have any questions, I did Month's of research...

 

[mcapeed]

I’ve had a variety of laptops, business and personal over the years (HP, Dell, Samsung, Sony, IBM) the Macbook pro has been the best one in terms or reliability and longevity. I quit windows decades ago too on my desktops.

 

[David L]

Here is a 6 Core Proc and 3060 6Gig GPU

Open Box: MSI GF65 Thin 10UE-071 - 15.6" 144 Hz IPS - Intel Core i7-10750H - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU 6 GB GDDR6 - 16 GB Memory - 512 GB NVMe SSD - Windows 10 Home - Gaming Laptop - Newegg.com

Buy Open Box: MSI GF65 Thin 10UE-071 - 15.6" 144 Hz IPS - Intel Core i7-10750H - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU 6 GB GDDR6 - 16 GB Memory - 512 GB NVMe SSD - Windows 10 Home - Gaming Laptop with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

It is an Open Box and only 75 Watts for the GPU...So a No Go IMO

 

[David L]

We've been using Asus laptops for quite a while with no problems. Casual surfing, watch some videos, basically "normal" use. I did swap out the platter drives for SSD drives and added more memory, but other than that they're going strong after over five years. Guess I'll have to upgrade sometime in the future when Win10 finally goes away, if it ever does.

Oh yeah, my one complaint about Asus. I had to buy decal sets to replace letters on the keyboards, they started wearing off and we both hunt and peck to type. A whole $3.00 investment for each laptop.

I was looking at Asus too, they have some nice laptops. Now a days, the HDs are M.2s, which are extremely fast. I just finished a PC build with a Samsung 980 Pro and am getting almost 7000 read speeds. A SSD is only 500 and HD's quite a bit slower. My new laptop and new PC boots in less than 10 seconds. Oh and Windows 11 O/S installed on my PC in less than 5 minutes. LOL. Love it...

The reason I am getting those speeds though is the PCI-E v4-5 my Gigabyte Z690 Pro has. I did buy a Sabrent 2TB for my laptop, they are a very good competitor to Samsung.

 

[tigerwillow1]

I've bought a couple of used i5 Lenovo Think Pads off ebay and have had good luck with them. It just takes patient shopping to find one in good condition at a good price. I also have a low-end gen 8 i3 HP laptop. It's not as physically rugged as the Lenovos but works great. The newer i3 CPUs are about the same speed as the pre-gen-8 i5s, making all 3 of them about the same performance..

 

[IAmATeaf]

I used to have quite a few laptops, no idea why but I seemed to have collected them over the years, mainly Dell, Lenovo, Fujitsu and HP but during COVID I sold them all except for my Lenovo as I’ve found that the most flexible. I also have a Surface, older gen which really is shite and would never recommend MS tablets to anyone.

I’ve also had Acer and ASU’s laptops and I personally avoid them due to their really crap CS which in my experience consists of avoiding a claim by trying to pass the blame for any fault back on the customer.

 

[sdkid]

Wow-- I am finding more and more laptops with hard-soldered RAM you can not upgrade.

Honestly-- what would a SODIMM socket cost to put on a motherboard? 10 cents? 30 cents? 2 cents???

 

[IAmATeaf]

Wow-- I am finding more and more laptops with hard-soldered RAM you can not upgrade.

Honestly-- what would a SODIMM socket cost to put on a motherboard? 10 cents? 30 cents? 2 cents???

I have a Dell and a Lenovo like that, didn’t give it much consideration when buying but will never buy another where the RAM and HDD can’t be changed, this is one the reasons why I hate my Surface.

 

[SJGUSMC21]

Lots of good advice here. I use to buy HP and Compaq's....just bullet proof. I also liked Toshiba's, but they did sometimes run hot. Acer's are like the cheap ones you buy at Walley World, IMO. My buddy/co-worker is our supply guy at my job, and he buys Dell's constantly because he is told to. He certainly wouldn't if he didn't have to.

It's been a long time since I purchased a laptop, haven't had the need to do so. Can't believe they are soldering in the RAM and m.2 sticks. Wow. Sorry to hear that. But that's like I won't buy a phone if I can't put a SD card in it either. Sounds like MSI is the way to go to me now.