Ask HN: best windows laptop
What's the best Windows laptop? Assume price is not an issue, it's moved around a lot. For developing and browsing, mainly.
If portability isn't an issue, than the new W520 or T520.
If you don't like lugging around a giant monster, the new X220.
Everyone will chime in with a reason to avoid $Manufacturer (for me I avoid Dell and HP), I'm not sure if there's really a consensus.
On the inside, pretty much all manufacturers are using the same components (Wifi cards being the only real exception), but Thinkpads have always seemed much better constructed than the equivalent Dells or HP's.
There isn't really any PC laptop brand you can buy to escape the "reminds me of crappy company laptops", with the possible exception of Sony.
Some point to Vaio's as being the most "Apple-like" PC's. That description can be either positive or negative depending on how you feel about Apple machines.
As it is, I've never really liked Sony's manufacturing process for laptops (I've only had 2 over the years though, and it's hard to divorce yourself from personal experience when recommending a brand).
For what it's worth, I wouldn't ever buy another non-Thinkpad PC laptop. I've had an Asus, about a dozen Dell's, and a bunch of HP's. They were all giant pieces of shit (Dell's being the worst from a hardware failure perspective).
If I get a Thinkpad, I am fairly confident I won't have any issues for at least a bunch of years (my last T series put in a good 6 years of daily use without any issues).
As far as I'm concerned, they're the Honda of laptop manufacturers.
HP is absolutely the worst laptop brand I have ever owned, I've known plenty of people with HPs and almost every single laptop has overheated to the point of shutting down the computer and breaking within a year and a half.
Thinkpads have the added feature of being pretty compatible with linux, though I think some of the nvidia cards that come with the T series are not compatible yet.
I've had three hps in five years- one hard drive crash was the only issue, aside from a keyboard button falling off of one. (Kids have them now and they are doing fine).
Currently running two Asus'- a "business" laptop (UL50V) and an eeePC for travel. Both with Ubuntu/Mint linux. The Biz machine is nice, the eeePC is what it is. Boots fast, standby works in ubuntu, etc. Better value than an ipad for my road needs (although the ipad is nice for other things).
The other factor is a good screen.
Pay attention to the parts you will constantly interact with.
Spend your "pretty" dollars on a good suit.
P.S. Over the past decade, I've found that discrete graphics support has significantly extended the useful life of several acquaintance's laptops. One is on a decade old Dell; still usable for "normal" work -- it just won't play large videos.
I don't recommend going a decade, but it works for them and it accentuates my point. This is also from a time when Dell still had good keyboards, and the screen was a good looking, high resolution upgrade.
Using my criteria for all of that, the best windows laptop is probably either Asus's U30Jc or U36Jc. I'm a fan of Asus, though, so that might just be because of that bias.
I find the whole process of choosing a laptop to be some kind of voodoo science. Everyone seems to have loyalty to some brand X based mostly on personal anecdotes.
For example, a lot of people diss Dell. But I've used a Dell inspiron 9400 for many years now and it's been really good. Will I buy Dell again? I don't see why not. I think they sell good cheap computers.
In terms of spec, I find that all new computers are good enough now that I can't be bothered to drop more than £500 on one. If I need crazy processing power, it's probably going to be for some web data processing and will just use one of the many cloud services.
But currently, my personall challenge is to build a laptop for myself. I posted the other day asking for help on how to go about it - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2599389. I'm really surprised by the lack of know-how about it. So I'm even more motivated to do it. I hope to have something to show for my experiments in the coming weeks.
I spent a little time with one of the new T420 models recently and it was superb, as well.
They should not be confused with the other Acer machines which are power sucking junk if you ask me.
Do you recommend any particular one? Do you have an online store?