I was hoping to get your guy's opinion about this :)
I'm speaking in overall terms..
I personally have an HP laptop, HP is decent I guess, well at least in my experience, but maybe there's better?
I'd guess Dell would be highly rated as well.
The problem with the manufacturers is that the average selling price and average profit per sale is way down from where it was 10 or 20 years ago. As a result, profit margins have been squeezed. The manufacturers have consequently tried to reduce costs as much as possible to restore margins---with customer support being the most notable casualty.
I had a horrid and inexcusable customer support experience with Dell about 5 years ago on a monitor and I swore I would never give them another dime. And I have not. Having said that, as far as I know they are still in the top tier for manufacturers and would be where I would point the typical non-enthusiast who wants a PC but does not want to build one.
I've always had good luck with Dell. The last two companies I have worked for exclusively used Dell and I've worked with thousands of desktops and hundreds of laptops and they have been solid for me.
I've bought a few Dells for home use and always been happy with them as well.
My wife currently has an HP laptop and it's been fine too.
I always thought Dell sucked because thats what all the schools I attended had in their computer labs lol.. How noobish of me..
Dell are often used for corporate purposes as this is really their niche, offering price breaks for bulk orders and tailored service contracts they do much better in the corporate market than the home user market. Most of their home market is generated by people buying personal machines after having used them daily at work and developing a sense of trust through daily useage. All the market leaders are producing products of acceptable quality however for budget brands like acer there are obviously drawbacks such as component quality (especially laptop batteries). Sony's VAIO's are obviously overpriced but do pack some performance for their buck, ASUS have an excellent reputation for reliability and my personal experience of their RMA procedure was satisfactory enough.
Unfortunately you cannot source laptop motherboards online and do a custom build. Not as far as I have been able to find anyway. I want to make a carbon fibre laptop shell from a mould of a nice machine and then put SSD's etc in there.
I personally trust HP, and Dell as well for the reason that I'm used them because of school.. Not to be a hater but i think Apple products are immensely overpriced and cannot imagine myself paying more than $2,000 for a computer just because it has a fruit as a label. I rather buy a Hp or dell for lesser price with the same or better specs..
Last edited by MaxPayne; 16 Aug 2011 at 14:01.
Sorry I didnt mention Apple as I dont even consider them, they make designer toys... thats about it.
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