Jon77

After 4 years of being carted around the world, bouncing around in my car down dirt tracks and being bashed around and drooled on by my son my lap top finally gave up at the weekend and I don't think I can be bothered to get it repaired, it didn't cost me anything to buy 5 years ago, I had it given at the time. It was a Toshiba and I never really liked it all that much, too big and heavy and not that reliable.


So what does everyone else have on here and what is good and what is bad?


I don't like the really small ones but need something slim and light as I get around a bit.


Any recommendations? Anything I should keep away from? I know there are some good techie types here.

GarryP

Look towards the cheap ultrabooks. Intel have tried to force overpricing on them, but the market won't wear it and prices have fallen (particularly if the manufacturer doesn't call it an ultrabook).

These tend to have no DVD/Blu Ray drive, and use an SSD to cut the thickness/weight down.

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/836-c...-alternatives/
http://www.ultrabookreview.com/251-u...abook-laptops/

Or just go for the cheapest 15" laptop you can find - processing power isn't likely to be a problem over a 5 year old laptop, and couple with a 7" tablet for when you need the pocketability.

commonwealth

lenovo is cheap but reliable

carolinephillips

I've got a Toshiba!!

Admittedly it doesn't go anywhere, as it is the substitute for the PC that I killed.

Amazulu

I'm generally not a big fan of laptops - overpriced, slow, hard to fix etc, but I recently got a Samsung Series 9 ultrabook for university. It's a beautiful machine. All solid state, HD screen, quality build. It boots in seconds, weighs about 1.5kgs and has an amazing battery life. It has no DVD drive but that is not necessary, as everything I need can be downloaded or stored in the cloud.

Recommended.

DrWho

MacBook Air. Fantastic unibody build, quick, better graphics than anything else backed by the best warranty in the business.

old.sparkles

How much are you considering spending?

Swerv-o

+1

The Thinkpad X1 Carbon is a spectacular piece of kit IMHO.


S

furbacchione

The original IBM product had the reputation that you could kick it to work and home again and it would keep working no matter what. The Lenovo doesn't quite have the same reputation but it's apparently still good. For computers they're my second choice. My first choice is a macbook pro running windows on a virtual partition. That way I can have my cake and eat it to.

furbacchione

And if the OP is like me and needs windows based applications they could load parallels or VMware Fusion and run windows at the same time. That's my preferred config now. I couldn't imagine going back to a single operating system anymore. Apple has the best backup regime in TimeMachine and still fairly resistant to internet based security issues, but Office for Mac is shit and IWork is worse. And there aren't a lot of good productivity applications for mac out there.

derab

+1 for the Lenovo, you could probably pick up 3 or 4 of them for the price of the Macbook .
I have an I5 15.4 inch Lenovo that cost less than $600.
the Chassis is a lot stiffer than most of the competition.

commonwealth

i dropped my lenovo on the hard tiled floor. and it still works just fine.

Evelin

+1

Swerv-o

My roof leaked while I was away, and my T61 spend 2 weeks sitting in water. I dried it out using silica sachets, and it still works to this day. Very robust, and very reliable.


S