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When I was recently in the market for a new laptop, my IT guy recommended either Dell (lattitude, not the Best Buy Inspirion models) or Lenovo (T series). I priced and spec'd them and they were very similar. Ended up going with the Dell Latitude E6410 - with an i5. I don't think you can go wrong either way based on what my guy told me.

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SHARKMAN

Can't say much about Lenovo... but have you considered a Fujitsu? I've been using one for two years straight with no hiccups... except the software ( vista)

Build quality is superb, and most of them still made in Japan. I get compliments all the time on my 13.3 inch t1010 tablet in the looks department. Not too bad IMO.

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"I don't got the bright watch I got the right watch" -Jay Z

If your averse to apple products, I'd either select a Lenovo or HP system for business use. Many Fortune 50 companies feel the same.

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You've gotta love huge corporations!

I tried to order the laptop last night and the system couldn't process the order. I tried again today and had to rebuild my specs. This time the promo code didn't bring the price down as much - total cost would have been $200 more. I phoned the support people and they said that the promo code was not calculating correctly yesterday which is why my order couldn't be processed and that today's price was correct.

I pointed out that I was disappointed to be facing a larger cost because of their mistake so the helpful support rep looked at ways that she could maximize the discount. So, long story short(ish).......

By adding a $20 laptop sleeve to my order that I didn't need my total price came down even more to $1,417. Take off the $20 sleeve and the price is $1,650

Ain't policies great!

All worked out in the end, I think I got a great laptop for a great price - just hope it lives up to expectations.

That's the same as I paid for the Dell Latitude E6410 (with my IT guy lurking over my shoulder saying - "yeah, add that, need more speed! That too!!")

The Dell website is the slowest website I have been on. Very quirky. So it appears Dell and Lenovo, two companies trying to sell you a COMPUTER can't seem to work out (or just don't care) a decent website for showcasing, building, and ordering.

~Strange days these. Most peculiar mama.~

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SHARKMAN

Rant ahead:

Remembering the days when Dell used to have a great (for the time) website, customer service and build quality makes me feel ancient, because that feels like it was about a million years ago. Last three computers were Dells, all were abysmal and the support when I tried to do something about it-- Not even worth discussing.

Bought an VPC EC320SE Sony (i5, 6gb RAM) two weeks ago (haven't had one since about 2001) and while it's early days, I can only report that so far, it has been amazing.

The other two experiences I have had were HP (slow, clunky, prone to massively, massively cook-an-egg-on-there overheating) and Acer (crappy quality, overloaded with bloatware, keyboard so unintuitive that I actually returned the damn thing).

The only advice I have on laptop purchase now is don't get one with the best processor available. The cases they're building these days do not seem capable of dealing with the resulting heat issues; get a moderately fast processor and a lot of RAM instead, and check where the damn vents are and that they're adequately sized. Otherwise you'll end up with something like my last Dell-- supposedly a blisteringly fast processor that only ran at half capacity, making the machine slow as molasses. The only thing blistering about it was the heat underneath. Heat sink and fan were replaced, but it made absolutely no difference. Top of the line model, too, supposedly, but I think they put too much focus on form over function-- it was beautiful and had a lot of nifty features, but when I can't have more than two tabs open in Firefox without risking third-degree burns, it's not a lot of use.

It's odd, the Lattitude I got never even gets hot and the fan runs very intermittantly. Perhaps it's because it is a business level model and it's not preloaded with a bunch of worhtless crapola. My old, old Dell laptop - my first laptop - required a pillow between the laptop and...well...the lap!

I next had a Sony Vaio and it was an amazing POS. Blue screens! They went out 10 years ago. Amazing display/graphics though. Plus they root the operating system (was XP) so it is almost impossible to upgrade (windows 7 in this instance). All of this led to my recent purchase.

I needed a new PC for the home office as well and got a Dell Inspirion from a friend (coincidently the IT guy for another lawfirm). He had upped it to 6 Gigs and deleted all the nonsense preinstalled programs. The darn thing blazes. But I have to get off he sofa, walk up the stairs to the loft, and then sit at a desk to use it. Now why would I go to all that trouble???

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SHARKMAN

I think thats it. A lot of manufacturers these days have business lines to compete with the Thinkpad. They are usually far superior to the standard line, but they cost a lot more $$.

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-RJ

I know, I told my IT guy I was going to Best Buy to get an Inspirion model and he blocked my way! And that is significant as he is a 6'6" Serbian.

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SHARKMAN

I have had a Dell for the last 4 years - it's been 'OK'. The advantage was always that you could configure them exactly how you wanted whereas with many of the others you had to take them as they were.

I would have bought a Sony from Best Buy earlier this week but they could only offer a 6 cell battery with 2 1/2 hours of battery life! Sony's Canadian website let's you spec out the same machine with some custom options, but it worked out $120 more (before the battery upgrade) just for the privilege of buying a configurable one rather than a standard one (what is wrong with these people???).

Most of the business models now seem to offer bloatware free options and HP, Toshiba, etc all seem to be decently made machines, and of course a lot of the innards are the same anyway.

Lenovo is sending me plenty of e-mails confirming my order so hopefully the estimated 9 days shipping is real!

HI ROff,

Lenovo are IBM. Well, at least thats where they started, or so I believe. The new Think Pad is from the same gene pool as the old Think Pad.

Better deals everywhere and never buy on price. Try Dell or Apple.

Jim

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Jim

"You have Control".

I thought that Lenovo were Chinese and I mean Chinese, not made in China...

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- This is Ghost Rider requesting a fly-by. - Negative Ghost Rider. The pattern is full.

[/quote] I thought that Lenovo were Chinese and I mean Chinese, not made in China...[/quote]


Yep, absolutely. Gotta start somewhere, so they bought the IBM PC business a few years back. Or, so the story goes.

Jim

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Jim

"You have Control".

I thought that Lenovo were Chinese and I mean Chinese, not made in China...[/quote]


Yep, absolutely. Gotta start somewhere, so they bought the IBM PC business a few years back. Or, so the story goes.

Jim[/quote]

Correct. They were IBM and IBM split them off into their own division as IBM wanted to concentrate on servers and storage. You cannot go wrong with Lenovo. We use them as company laptops and have been for years. Each one that I have had has never broken down ever. They just swap them out when the lease expires, so they at least last 3 years for me with some very heavy duty use (about 12-16 hours a day, plus travel).

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an endorsement from me for the T510.

like most (all, actually) other manufacturers, the massive pricing wars forced Lenovo to launch "junk grade" consumer models (running off the same production lines at Quanta, Compal, Wistron or Pegatron as the HPs, Dells, Toshibas, you name its), so some of the IdeaPads are far from perfect; but Lenovo has kept both spec and quality levels for their professional ThinkPad line quite high; build quality is excellent.
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would also suggest to add a bit of RAM and an SSD.