Posted on 03/03/2013 5:17:13 PM PST by Lexinom
Looking to spend $400-$700 for a decent notebook to be used primarily for software development and graphics. Need some speed and horsepower, and durability. These things typically last me about five years, and this one here (a Sony Vaio) is nearing the end of the line.
Brands you'd recommend? Lenovo is highly regarded but very, very Chinese. I'd like to stay away from that. And I hate Apple with a passion.
This will be running Linux.
Buy Lenovo - their quality build is top notch. Go for a Thinkpad and you’re thinking IBM which made it world famous. You can’t go wrong with their laptops and the price is quite reasonable for what you get since IBM sold off its computing division several years ago.
I got an ASUS after being fed up of HP indian call centers and HP breakin down.
I could not want anything better than I have now, love Asus, I get to call Amercia and speak with English speaking people, who are helpful and polite.
Got my oldest boy a ASUS tablet and he loves that too, plus they;re quite cheap compared to other makers.
Some American Companies are Dell, HP and Gateway, but at least some components will be Chinese regardless of who you deal with.
Current laptop used at work is a HP and works great thus far after 1.5 yrs. Since china makes all our stuff now I’ll ignore your “not made in china” stipulation. :-)
Take your pick and don't bid high.
If you miss one, another identical will be about a half hour behind
Got an ASUS laptop and tablet and LOVE THEM.
Their call centers are in America and are helpful unlike HP which was a pain dealing with mohammed or mustapha from India telling me his name was Steven or Mike
You might have to buy expensive, high-end laptops from Fujitsu, which I believe are made in Japan.
Ha... and if a laptop was 100% made in the USA, you could bet it would not sell in the range of $400-700.
ASUS is in Taiwan.
Virtually every computer in the world today is manufactured in either Taiwan or China as are virtually all aftermarket peripherals and accessories.
The only notebooks that are not made in China are the older ones that you can only find in pawnshops.
Check Fujitsu. Bought one not long ago for the girlfriend and it’s a BEAST....and a very affordable price. I now understand why she loved her old Fujitsu so much....
Beware of their low cost ones. If you open and close it a lot, the display ribbon cable fails (three times in the family) Now we buy Asus. If you move the power supply cable around a lot, it fails and is tough to repair (two times in the family). New ones are expensive and cheesay, but knockoffs are cheap and even cheesier.
OTOH, the business models are much tougher, but more pricey, of course. Never had those failures.
Just our experience.
I must disagree. I wouldn’t touch another HP laptop with a 10-foot pole (their printers, servers rock....PC’s and laptops? fuhgedaboutit).
Bought the girlfriend an HP laptop for Christmas 2011....by Nov. of 2012 the motherboard fried. It was a brick. I’m 30 years in the biz and tried everything to fix it. Tossed it in the trash and bought her a monster Fujitsu (see my reply just above). She, and I, couldn’t be happier with the decision.
BTW....I use an HP laptop every day for work, and I hate the damned thing.....
I also have a Gateway laptop & it is great too.
Ditto. My XPS15 died after 5 mos. Hard drive and motherboard had to be replaced (under warranty, but Dell would only provide a refurbished motherboard). 2 months later, same thing happened. 5 mos after that, same thing again. After hours of over the phone troubleshooting with technical support (with people with poor command of English) and 2 home repair visits, Dell finally agreed to examine it at their repair "depot" (but absolutely refused to replace the computer). It's been working ok now for a few months, but I use it with the assumption that it could die again at any minute. I will not buy another Dell.
My current XPS 15 is 14 months old. It’s on its 4th hard drive (hard drive has been replaced 3x) it’s on its 3 motherboard, it’s on its 2nd battery and 2nd AC adapter. The only thing good I can say about the company is I like that with the warranty I bought they will come to my home to fix it.
Well, you have a choice:
Chinese, with their backdoors to your stuff - or
US Govt, with their backdoors to your stuff.
Right now, I’d go with Chinese.
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