I bought an HP for business use a year ago and the mother board is already dead.I knew I should not have bought HP...anyway I need advice on a more reliable product.All I care about is speed and storage.I have looked at Asus and Lenova.Does anyone with tech knowledge have some advice...thanks.

 

Well honestly if your going for speed and storage then a desktop is the way to go. For the same money desktops are always faster and have more storage. Working on them is easier and cheaper and parts for them are cheaper. So if you don't have to have a notebook then I would say have a local computer guy custome build you a PC or do it yourself. Having one custom done is 9 times out of 10 a better computer than you can buy from a company and cheaper.

BTW if you have to have a notebook, look around at the local computer people and find one that you trust to build you a notebook to your specs and you will be much happier with it.

 

I have had 3 toshiba and 2 gateway laptops over the years. The first toshiba I sold when I replaced it with a gateway. I then bought a second gateway for myself, the first one died just past the 1 year mark and the second is slowly dying from the same cause. My wife now has a toshiba A 305 series 64 bit thats a year and a half old and still going strong and I have a 32 bit version of the same laptop that I bought a month later.

So I would stay away from gateway products. I've had good luck with toshibas.

 

I see Toshiba rates higher on the reliability scale...I will check it out. About the desktops...I'm with you there...I need something that is portable though.

 

My girls mother is in technology and they are a big purchaser of computer equipment. They have had much, much better luck with HP than anybody. They just bought 1400 notebooks from HP to give you an idea. If you bought yer notebook from somebody like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc, you bought a notebook that is labeled as an end of life unit. That's all these companies carry. The items they have are out of production buy outs. Some are even refurbished but sold as new. If you want another HP, buy directly from HP and ask if it is an end of life unit. But buying direct from the maker and asking the right questions will get you a good product.

 

Normally I don't recommend Dell products because of all the crapware and the increased prices.

But I had 2 Dell Inspirion 6000s that lasted 4.5 years and died right around the same time. They were both bought brand new. The FIrst one belonged to me and got beat to hell because I took it everywhere and dropped it plenty of times. The second one belonged to my mom and also got quite a beating over the years. The systems worked perfectly until about the 3.5-4 year mark when they started to finally have USB ports die and eventually the Hard drives went out before the actual computers died.

So I have had pretty good luck with every dell product I've owned.

I currently have ASUS(Mine), HP(Mine), Toshiba(Mom's), and ACER(Sister's) in my house and I must say that the Toshiba is probably the best. Though it doesn't get anywhere near the abuse that the other three get. I use an HP netbook that I keep in my truck most of the time.

 

I did buy direct from HP...did not ask about used or end unit.Good to know though.

 

My last notebook was a dell and it lasted 5 years...I was considering Asus...do you like it?

 

I have had 2 Toshibas, one almost ten years old and still running. One of the kids who worked for me carried a Toshiba, around Iraq for two years, while on deployment as a Marine, with no issues. I had two Think Pads at work, one IBM, and one Lenovo, both were great units with zero issues. If money isn't an issue check out Panasonic Tough books. I had one on my FARO at work and it was darn near indestructable. A lot of police and government agencies are going to these.

 

I love my Asus. It has amazing amounts of power for the price I got it at.

I purchased it at Best Buy. I normally laugh at Best Buy when it comes to computers because they are normally way overpriced and not all that good.

The reason I actually did buy from them was for 2 reasons:

1. They were the only ones who sold it and it had every spec I wanted.

2. They were $300+ cheaper than any similarly equipped laptop I could find anywhere else.

It seems to be fairly durable and is capable of playing every game I've thrown at it. I got it primarily as a gaming on the go thing but it works perfectly for everything else too. At this point I've actually stopped using my desktop that I built myself completely because of how capable this laptop is.

Asus doesn't have the best customer support but for me that's not a big issue since I can fix almost any computer problem on my own from experience or with a little research on the internet.

 

Don't think that changing brands is going to get you a more "reliable" computer. Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. do not manufacture their own computers.

Dell, Acer, HP, Lenovo, Gateway and Toshiba are all designed and manufactured by Quanta Computer. The OEM just slaps there name on it.

By the way, I have an HP laptop. That's because it is provided by my employer and I can do the warranty work myself. In 7 years and three HP laptops I have had to replace a system board on one of my own laptops just once.

 

Honestly if you are computer savvy and are handy, you can buy a case and build your own. This is the best way to go if you are capable, plus you can upgrade and repair it easily because you know exactly what components are in it. If that's not an option I would go with an acer before dell or hp.

 

Stay away from HP laptops. http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/recalls/index.html

http://www.catanosocomputing.com/blo...laptop-recall/

They are notorious for having bad motherboards, batteries, and cd/dvd drives. I have 2 relatives that had the models that were recalled and both experienced motherboard failure and 1 experienced battery failure, all in the first year. Both were not abused or even scratched, etc.

Sony, Panasonic, and Toshiba seem to have the fewest problems, in general.

Windows is what made me go with a Macbook Pro though.

 

Lenovo or Toshiba. I prefer Lenovo myself. Get a "business" class laptop, they are typically made from higher end components. Also, while the end mfg company may be the same in certain situations you will see differences in quality due to component quality and OEM engineering.

 

I appreciate all the advice,but some people love HP and have had little problems...others like myself have had big problems.Maybe I have a lemon...better my laptop than my truck.