Sony is known for it's quality, power depends on the series.
Though i can assure you. most vaios now come with pretty good
specifications. it is the first manufactuer to come up with
switchable graphics. and blue ray
Acer laptops have Quality control
issues.
I recently attended to 1 Gemstone series. with a faulty
entertainment touch pad.
Steps i did:
-Drivers update ( useless)
-Took out the battery and pressed the power button (to drain out
remainding power),
-this is a step few people will do, but many professionals
will.
In summary: faulty part.
this is not an isolated case. i have seen power adaptors burning
out after 6 months.
People can argue how good they are, and that they use parts made
by nvdia and other companies (intel, msi ect). The fact of the
matter is, their inhouse manufacturing, which creates the casing,
the touch pads, ect, have QC issues. - Balding keyboards, Hard
keyboards, casings that are easily chipped, faulty power
adaptors....
HP/Compaq warranty is just normal. Due to the
location of the service centre, they just offer this service to
send your laptop to you after servicing.
You will be shocked at how long it will take for you to get back
your laptop. 3 - 5 days? nah, it will be 1 - 2 weeks. Unless you
make a hooha. You will have to call and rush them. I had a failed
hdd. It took more than the specified 3-5 days. I called them up.
and they said that they have not accessed the laptop. I then called
them 2 days later, they have accessed but they dont have the part.
When i said i need it in a rush, out of the blue, in a day, the
part came and they said my laptop was ready for collection.
I sent my pavilion laptop only to get it back scratched at the
casing and with lots of finger prints smudged at the screen. and
they dare tick machine is cleaned. The pavilion laptop i sent in
was checked and there were no scratches. The cso, did not
tick the scratches column.
oh and i sent 2 HP
laptops. One for faulty hdd and one for faulty
keyboard.
IBM/Lenovo is
not the company it was. Don't ever go for a Lenovo series. The
thinkpad series is still alright, but if you go google it up, it
has flex on it's plastics (when you depress some force, the
plastics on the laptop wrist area will sink down) showing the
quality of the plastics used. Thinkpad has good
specifications. Switchable graphics (dedicated and integrated
graphics) and on top of that spill proof keyboards (though u would
not want to try spilling things). Lenovo/IBM laptops have problems
with the 5300A/G/draft N wireless card. - a search on plenty
of online forums and search engines will show to u the extend. -
it's most probably driver issues, but somehow, even after updating,
problems still persist.
I wont comment about fujitsu. it's about portability and it has
great battery life. It is still the only one which makes it's
lifebook series in
Japan. Note, lifebook and not other series.
like the L series. which is made in china.
I am familiar with Acer's reputation for terrible quality. I'm
using a Gemstone, and like the problem above, my volume touchpad
isn't as sensitive as it should be, the fingerprint reader sucks
(My friend's sister has my exact same model, he managed to log in
with HIS finger) and the fingerprint reader agin disconnects. The
HD webcam lags, like hello. So, it actually depends on what you use
the laptop for.
Acer: Powerful/Cheap laptops, but not very good lasting
HP/Compaq: Good quality, but laptop cooler required or *ahem*, I
have experienced problems with their DV series, the metallic finish
stains quite easily, actually. Quite fast.
Lenovo: MIC. No need say
IBM (Business Division, still under IBM): Very good, reliable,
not too powerful, but enough for basic tasks, portable
Fujitsu: Portable, good service (My friend repeatedly bricked
his laptop, they fixed it), but only the Lifebook series. More
towards basic tasks (I don't see the point of putting a 2.4GHz proc
with X3100 GPU)
Toshiba: Cheap, but gets quite warm. Acceptable performance.
Very good build quality on their Qosmio series.
Dell: I qouldn't suggest Dell's Inspiron and XPS line, though
XPS warranties are some of the best I've seen. Vostro and Latitude
lines are business, though from what I see on the Latitude, you
might as well get an Acer.
ASUS: King of the kings, very good build quality, very
innovative features (N10Jc anyone?), high performance. Expensive,
but warranties are some of the most covered. Accidental, travel,
they have a warranty for everything, I think.
Sony: Expensive, price-to-performance ratio may not be par with
other makes, but high end models are very powerful, stylish, thin,
most boast dual graphics. Warning: Gets hot!
That's from my experiences with these brands, Axioo, never seen
anyone with it. MSi, BenQ, never used one, except for the MSI Wind
netbook.
I think we should make another thread for laptop
recommendations....
