Are there any notebooks worth getting besides a Dell???

[Pr0d1gy]

Well, I just want to find out if anyone thinks any notebooks other than Dells are worth getting? If so, tell me which ones are good for businesses and also some that are good gaming notebooks.

 

[phisrow]

IBM is the stock business recommendation. Sleek, solid, and serious; but not particularly good for gamers. The various A64 DTRs, emachines/gateway used to have one that people liked, I'm not sure which one is cool at the moment; are well received by the mobile-gamer-on-a-budget crowd.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Thanks for the good info, anyone else have useful info for me?

What about Toshiba, HP, and Sony Vaio notebooks?

 

[fbrdphreak]

Sony is overpriced for the features IMO; flashy but that's about it
Toshiba is okay, but doesn't seem to offer anything revolutionary for the money
HP is great for the money IMO, their business line is supposed to be excellent

But IBM still rules for business. Gaming wise right now Dell is leading for the money with the 6800 Go in the 9300. There's also other uber-expensive notebooks, but those aren't worth the money IMO.

 

[trikster2]

Most big companies have a business line.

There is always lenovno (the makers of thinpads now) if you want to pay big bucks on last years graphics technology. That's OK if all you do is word and powerpoint and are not too picky about your eyecandy and high res gaming. Check out the Toshiba Tecra M3 (I think that is what it is) and the HP business line:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02d/321957-64295-89315.html

(the one with nw or something in the name is there mobile workstation based on the V5000 (kicks the V3200 in the lenonovno T43Ps but)

Almost everyone (except lenovno) makes what could be considered a decent gaming notebook. Toshiba has their Quioso series (great keyboard bright screens) Popular alternatives to the dell mondo gaming notebooks are the sager variants (alienware etc). Gateway now has a slim X600 based 17" notebook that looks atractive (no DVI though!) and there is always the apple powerbooks.

Course I'm typing this all on a Dell Precision M70. Best laptop I've ever owned. The thing to realize about dell is the inspirons (that you always see the big sales on) are not the bussiness line. If you are looking for business laptops check out the Dell lattitude or Precision portable workstation series. The D810/M70 are rock solid with decent keyboards and (in the case of the M70) pretty good for gaming (3Dmark 05 2300 stock, 3000+ OCed).

Good luck shopping. It's a lot of fun. Let us know what you end up getting and how it works out (so few OPs return to give us some feedback!).

 

[eri7154798]

try looking at www.powernotebooks.com.

they sell powerpro and sager notebooks. pretty much just a reseller of no-name brand computers, but very fine internals from what i hear.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Actually guys I sell notebooks & I am trying to learn more about them. The Dells seem to offer so much for so little money comparitively that I am starting to wonder if regular stores can compete with them in the notebook arena. I mean when someone says they're also looking at Dells & want a gaming notebook, I am starting to wonder if I should feel bad suggesting anything but the Inspiron 9300 or XPS2. Unfortunately, I am one of those sales guys who has a conscience & will tell my customer to go download Ad-Aware rather than tell them to pay for it.

 

[Davegod75]

asus has some nice laptops

 

[ShellGuy]

It really depends on what they want to do with the lappy other than game. I am keepin my eyes open for the new ACER Ferrari cant wait 4 that one to come out. the Emachines were great 4 their time. The prob with dell is they are basicly a RESELLER they don't really make anything of their own.


Will G.

 

[imported_malcontent]

Sager makes some nice laptops.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: ShellGuy
It really depends on what they want to do with the lappy other than game. I am keepin my eyes open for the new ACER Ferrari cant wait 4 that one to come out. the Emachines were great 4 their time. The prob with dell is they are basicly a RESELLER they don't really make anything of their own.


Will G.

First, just about every company that sells notebooks doesn't make anything on their own; OEM companies like Dell, HP, etc buy laptop blanks from ODM companies like Arima, IBuyPower, etc and stamp their name on it.

Second, I started another thread to announce it, but the general release date on the Acer Ferrari 4000 is 6/14/05 (more of an ETA actually)

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: ShellGuy
It really depends on what they want to do with the lappy other than game. I am keepin my eyes open for the new ACER Ferrari cant wait 4 that one to come out. the Emachines were great 4 their time. The prob with dell is they are basicly a RESELLER they don't really make anything of their own.


Will G.

First, just about every company that sells notebooks doesn't make anything on their own; OEM companies like Dell, HP, etc buy laptop blanks from ODM companies like Arima, IBuyPower, etc and stamp their name on it.

Second, I started another thread to announce it, but the general release date on the Acer Ferrari 4000 is 6/14/05 (more of an ETA actually)

Some stamp logos, and some just farm out the manufacture of their own industrial design.

IBM/Lenovo Design their own, and co-own the manufacturing lines - least the lines they have with LG.

HP does mostly their own design as does Apple.

Dell does some in house design, but still likes to pick models that they are just as happy to just plain stick their logo on.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I though Toshiba was the last MAJOR notebook vendor that had their own factories?

 

[trikster2]

Yeah whacky you nailed it.

The really biggies like dell are big enough to do their own design. With the sagers/clevo's you can find 20 laptops that all look exactly the same with different names, not so for many of the dells, lenenov's toshibas, apples, HPs, sony's....

Ok what's a Dacal CD Donut (awesome). I just ate and now you are making me hungry !

OP: Can you tell us where you work/what you sell. We'll tell you why we think they suck/don't suck. Then you can pick the "don't suck" to aleviate your concience. If some anonymous guy on anandtech said it..... it must be true....

 

[Pr0d1gy]

LoL @ anonymous guy

Well we sell Sony, HP, Toshiba, Acer (which has a rep for being junk where I work), Compaq, and a couple of others...but those are the main ones.

 

[ManyBeers]

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
Well, I just want to find out if anyone thinks any notebooks other than Dells are worth getting? If so, tell me which ones are good for businesses and also some that are good gaming notebooks.

I have a Sony Vaio PCGFXA-47 that I have had for 3 years now and it has worked perfectly so far. I had to buy a replacement battery, but that is true of most notebook batteries after 2-3 years. No flies on Sony here.

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: trikster2
Yeah whacky you nailed it.

The really biggies like dell are big enough to do their own design. With the sagers/clevo's you can find 20 laptops that all look exactly the same with different names, not so for many of the dells, lenenov's toshibas, apples, HPs, sony's....

Ok what's a Dacal CD Donut (awesome). I just ate and now you are making me hungry !

OP: Can you tell us where you work/what you sell. We'll tell you why we think they suck/don't suck. Then you can pick the "don't suck" to aleviate your concience. If some anonymous guy on anandtech said it..... it must be true....

This is my CD Donut....

Dacal 101 CD Donut

There are some newer models out... But I love this thing for it's simplicity and how it helped me get my most important CD's organized in one spot, and at my fingertips with a click of the mouse.

 

[Artek]

NO HP!!!! My friend has got one and all it is, is trouble...He went through 2 HDs in a week because his HP keeps killing it. Toshiba is a great Laptop producer, i had 2 and i loved them. The next Laptop i`m getting is a Dell Inspiron 9300

 

[miniMUNCH]

Acer and ASUS laptops are nice and a little more solid feeling than dells.

But Dells are much, much cheaper in general than performance equivalent systems from Acer or Asus and, in some cases like the 9300 w/ 6800 graphics, Asus and Acer do not have a performance equivalent.

I have a apple powerbook right now but will probably be ditching it for a 9300 from dell, or an acer travelmate 8104 or a may wait a month or two to see what new laptop designs from dell, asus, and acer surface.

 

[trikster2]

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
Actually guys I sell notebooks & I am trying to learn more about them. The Dells seem to offer so much for so little money comparitively that I am starting to wonder if regular stores can compete with them in the notebook arena. I mean when someone says they're also looking at Dells & want a gaming notebook, I am starting to wonder if I should feel bad suggesting anything but the Inspiron 9300 or XPS2. Unfortunately, I am one of those sales guys who has a conscience & will tell my customer to go download Ad-Aware rather than tell them to pay for it.

> Unfortunately, I am one of those sales guys who has a conscience

Gosh I hope you don't work on commission!


> Sony, HP, Toshiba, Acer (which has a rep for being junk where I work), Compaq, and a couple of others...but those are the main ones.

Dell offers a lot for the money but the manufactures you list also make some notebooks with good bang for the buck. Head over to www.notebookreview.com and www.notebookforums.com (sponsored by a sager dealer, but decent). Check out the reviews on what you sell, and more importantly what real-world users say about your products.

Also check out CNET/PCMAG/PCWORLD/Amazon. Most of those laptop reviews really suck. However check out what the users are saying at CNET. They suck too but sometimes you'll find some actual information, and if there is a big delta between the cnet score and the user score, see why the users don't agree, it could be some useful info when you are selling (other than I am an IBM fan boi T anything rocks rah rah rah go IBM I mean Lenovono Rah Rah Rah)........

 

[imported_Kensai]

Sager and Acer are good too.

 

[2cpuminimum]

speaking of notebooks, I noticed that the oem version of windows xp home that comes with a hp uses up roughly 50-70MB more RAM just sitting there doing nothing than xp pro on a desktop. Is there a list of services to disable somewhere, or is this RAM wastage unavoidable? It's just a little annoying that a bp6 celeron with 256MB has less trouble running warcraft III than an athlon 2800 with the same amount of ram. No matter what laptop you get, buy extra ram aftermarket; vendors typically overcharge for RAM and undersupply on the default config.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

It could just be the HP software that's running in the background, unless I missed something?

 

[beverage]

the HP's usually have a windows install disk, and then a dvd full of drivers and apps. meaning you should be getting a clean install of ONLY the OS if you use the first disk... maybe this really isnt' the case?

or maybe it's xp home running a bunch of stupid wizards in the background because they assume that you don't know how to do anything on your own if you're running XP Home.

 

[blinky8225]

Dells are normally the best value for the money becasue of their coupons. I have an i9300 myself. Besides Dell, Asus' notebooks are nice.

 

[BrianH1]

I just got a new 12" powerbook yesterday and absolutely love it. But I have been bitten by the mac bug many years ago.