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Which company makes the best laptops?

Constant Flux

Constant Flux

Member
From screen to sound quality and more, in your opinion, who makes the best laptops at the best prices? I have about $600 to spend at the max and I need something with all the fixin's. I am having a VERY hard time trying to find the perfect one for me.
 
U

Unknown Soldier

Member
At the $600 price point, everything you look at will have compromises. Laptops are super commoditized and you'll be picking the features which are important to you. This is especially true if you are spending less than $1,000.

There is no one be-all and end-all laptop seller, especially since all of them are contracting manufacturing out to Foxconn anyways and your HP, Dell, Lenovo, MSI, Acer, Asus, and especially vaunted Apple are all being made side-by-side on the same assembly lines.

My favorite laptop review site is https://www.notebookcheck.net/ and anytime I see a random laptop on Slickdeals I plug the model number into Google and read the review at that site. If you aren't urgently needing a laptop, I would just haunt Slickdeals for a few months, as random laptop deals are posted, just check reviews and decide if the features you want are available at a price you're willing to pay. Never pay full price for a laptop, that's just getting ripped off. And wait for clearances on last year's models, you'll score amazing deals on stuff that would otherwise be twice the price.
 
G

gundalf

Member
I would get a refurbished 2014 MacBook Pro, I'm still rocking mine as a workstation for serious design and development work without any problems.
Alternatively you could get a refurbished Business/Workstation Laptop from Lenovo or Dell. Besides that you will not find anything decent in the consumer space that is new and just for $600.

Unknown Soldier said:
There is no one be-all and end-all laptop seller, especially since all of them are contracting manufacturing out to Foxconn anyways and your HP, Dell, Lenovo, MSI, Acer, Asus, and especially vaunted Apple are all being made side-by-side on the same assembly lines. ...
Click to expand...

In Apples case this may be true for the PCB but for the rest (case) Apple has its own tooling and machinery.
 
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AlteredForms

AlteredForms

Banned
Your budget is chump change when it comes to purchasing computer hardware. $600 will get you a mid tier laptop that's hopefully new, will probably lose half it's value the moment the box is opened and won't play recent games at a stable framerate.

Lower them expectations fool.
 
S

SLoWMoTIoN

Unconfirmed Member
Sound quality? Use headphones or a DAC/receiver or computer speakers.
 
Ellis

Ellis

Member
Macs for build qaulity.

Sony laptops were also incredibly well made and probably second only to Apple, but I believe they no longer make them.
 
Weilthain

Weilthain

Banned
Save up a couple hundred more and get one with a 1060/1070 so you can at least use it once in a while.
 
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Pagusas

Pagusas

Elden Member
Your budget is really bad for anything of quality. Sorry OP save up more or understand you’ll be buying either used or lower quality stuff.
 
DESTROYA

DESTROYA

Member
Are you going to game on it? All the fixin’s to me means a dedicated GPU and for $600 your not going to get much
Is it for school, work, just entertainment? more info would help.
 
haxan7

haxan7

Volunteered as Tribute
It’s always hard to pick a daily use laptop, especially if you haven’t done it in a while.

I would recommend keeping an eye on slickdeals.com’s laptops section. I’ve had to buy a few laptops for people at work and the last couple times I got them very decent laptops for less than your budget there.

If you have a Costco membership, the deals I’ve seen there have been the best. I bought a 4K monitor from Costco earlier this year, and even spending $60 to buy the membership, it was cheaper to get the monitor I wanted there than any other store.

I would say top priority would be to get a laptop with a solid state drive, no matter what your main uses are.
 
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U

Unknown Soldier

Member
Is it 2004 again? Macbooks haven't had good build quality for a decade or longer. They have been notorious for overheating and throttling for years, and now Apple can't even make a laptop which doesn't have a self-destructing keyboard these days. Also current Macbooks have the RAM and SSD both soldered onto the motherboard, you literally cannot upgrade a Macbook. It's like owning an iPhone, if you need to upgrade, you do so by throwing the old Macbook away and buying a new one. No thanks.

But yeah, my current 2 laptops are both Walmart clearance laptops I scored from Slickdeals threads. This HP Omen 15t gaming laptop that I got for $500 (i7-7700HQ, GTX 1050 Ti) and this Dell Inspiron 7370 I got for $340 (13" with i5-8250U). I consider both to be genuinely slick deals, you can't ordinarily get a decent gaming laptop with a good discrete GPU under $700-800 normally, and a typical ultrabook starts at around $1,000 for decent specs. It pays to just lurk in Slickdeals and watch out for laptops if you aren't in a hurry, you can even set a notification so deals are emailed to you.
 
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C

ClanOfNone

Member
Hmmm, was looking to purchase a laptop for my daughter that just started high school. She doesn't really do much gaming beyond Minecraft. Was gonna get her an ipad pro, figuring she could use it for her drawing too, but she seems to prefer the laptop route. Any suggestions in the same price range as the op?
 
decisions

decisions

Member
Having made the switch from PC to Mac laptops about a year ago now, I gotta say if you're not trying to play games on your laptop (which never really works out anyway in my experience), Macs are a huge upgrade. Everything is just so much faster, the OS is much more pleasant to use and for something I use on a daily basis that's just totally worth the high price tag for me.
 
Hari Seldon

Hari Seldon

Member
What is the best laptop brand other than apple if money is no object? I don’t care for the keys on the MacBook Pro and I’m going to be rocking Linux anyway.
 
MultiCore

MultiCore

Member
Best for what?

Raw performance?

Small size?

Battery life?

Price?

These things all directly fight with each other.
 
Last edited:
U

Unknown Soldier

Member
Yeah there are many different kinds of laptops at all sizes. 12" and 13" ultrabooks, 14" subnotebooks, 15" mainstream sized laptops for office use and gaming, 17" lapzillas for gaming and pro workstation use.

What you will do with your laptop is the first thing you decide before you even start thinking of shopping.

(1) Frequent travel with the laptop? Or mainly used at home?
(2) Office? Email? General use like college work?
(3) Gaming or media production work?
(4) Usually used mobile off the outlet, or usually chained to the nearest outlet?
(5) Screen type? 4K/HDR or just basic 1080p is fine?
(6) BUDGET?
 
newtypepilot

newtypepilot

Member
You need a bigger budget because it sounds like you have some unrealistic expectations. "all the fixin" is too vague. Please be more specific on what you'll be using it for. College? youtube? gaming?

$600 will only get you low end budget ones unless you are willing to buy refurbished ones.
 
DESTROYA

DESTROYA

Member
ClanOfNone said:
Hmmm, was looking to purchase a laptop for my daughter that just started high school. She doesn't really do much gaming beyond Minecraft. Was gonna get her an ipad pro, figuring she could use it for her drawing too, but she seems to prefer the laptop route. Any suggestions in the same price range as the op?
Click to expand...
This seems like pretty good deal for $600


It’s a 2-1 and the base model has decent specs, nothing mind blowing but overall decent for a student that’s not into gaming.

For more choices look here, they have sections for cheaper laptops if you want to have other options.


www.ultrabookreview.com

Best 2-in-1 laptop and ultrabook in 2024 - detailed reviews

Some of the thin-and-light notebooks available these days in stores are 2-in-1 laptops, or convertibles/hybrids, which means that they get some sort of
www.ultrabookreview.com
 
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newtypepilot

newtypepilot

Member
damn, didn't realize who OP was at first. Looking at his previous threads, It seems like OP is just too picky and wouldn't shell out the appropriate budget for it.

www.neogaf.com

Laptop or iPad Pro?

So, I just bought a HP Envy x360 and returned it because it didn't live up to expectations. I recently posted about the avatars on here looking low quality and I never had that problem with my 6th Gen iPad. I do graphics and write a lot, so having a Windows based platform for my graphics program...
www.neogaf.com www.neogaf.com
www.neogaf.com

Best laptop under $500?

I am in need of a new laptop as mine has pretty much shit the bed on me, so I am looking to buy one. I can't afford a lot. I am thinking around $500 or less. What's the best I can get? I'll mostly be using it for browsing, making graphics with Paint Shop Pro, streaming/watching Netflix, Hulu...
www.neogaf.com www.neogaf.com
 
Mahadev

Mahadev

Member
ASUS are very reliable and most models are pretty easy to fix for small problems like fans. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT buy HP, most unreliable garbage on the market.
 
haxan7

haxan7

Volunteered as Tribute
newtypepilot said:
damn, didn't realize who OP was at first. Looking at his previous threads, It seems like OP is just too picky and wouldn't shell out the appropriate budget for it.

www.neogaf.com

Laptop or iPad Pro?

So, I just bought a HP Envy x360 and returned it because it didn't live up to expectations. I recently posted about the avatars on here looking low quality and I never had that problem with my 6th Gen iPad. I do graphics and write a lot, so having a Windows based platform for my graphics program...
www.neogaf.com www.neogaf.com
www.neogaf.com

Best laptop under $500?

I am in need of a new laptop as mine has pretty much shit the bed on me, so I am looking to buy one. I can't afford a lot. I am thinking around $500 or less. What's the best I can get? I'll mostly be using it for browsing, making graphics with Paint Shop Pro, streaming/watching Netflix, Hulu...
www.neogaf.com www.neogaf.com
Click to expand...
Backlit keyboard as a major criteria... no, just no.

Sub $600, for someone who does graphics, your priorities are having an SSD, a dedicated GPU, and a screen that doesn't suck ass.

Edit: Honest advice, get a windows laptop in the $1200 range for something that is GOOD and will last you. A laptop is something you use a shit ton, so don't cheap out on it. Think of the amount of money spent per time using it. You will be SO much more satisfied this way instead of trying to find the perfect "cheap" laptop, which doesn't exist.

Can't go wrong with a Dell XPS 15:

www.laptopmag.com

Dell XPS 15 (2019) Review

The Dell XPS 15's striking OLED screen, Core i9 CPU and Nvidia GTX 1650 GPU make it a beautiful and powerful workhorse.
www.laptopmag.com www.laptopmag.com

This is my own daily use laptop.
 
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Constant Flux

Constant Flux

Member
Wel, I have made threads before because I am looking for something cheap, but I think I'll shell out a couple hundred more.

This has caught my eye:


I messed around with an 11 inch Acer Spin at a local Walmart and I liked what I saw. I figure the one I linked would be more than sufficient for my needs. I kinda wanted to get an Acer anyways.

I do want to apologize for all the threads. I've just been struggling to find the right laptop for me. I didn't mean to cause any problems.
 
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Constant Flux

Constant Flux

Member
I really loved my 9.7 inch 6th Gen iPad. The only complaints was that it was too small and the keyboard I bought wasn't great. In one of my other threads I mentioned getting an iPad Pro (11 inch). Maybe that's my best bet? I thought the screen and sound of the iPad I had was phenomenal, so the Pro would only be better.

I honestly don't need to do graphics anymore or write long documents. But I found these keyboards: www.brydge.com

I think that with the Pro would be a killer combo. I want it mainly now for browsing the internet, posting here, streaming movies/shows, listening to music, and that's about the jist of it. I think that would make me the happiest out of everything.
 
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EverydayBeast

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
If I were the OP I would give Alienware a chance, from gaming, to specs. it could be your gaming PC.
 
Birdo

Birdo

Banned
Tesseract said:
tbh there aren't any good laptops left, it's a dead industry
Click to expand...

Here in the UK Laptops are king. It's desktop PCs that died. My local electronics stores don't even sell them anymore.

Tablets are doing well, but they compete with phones. It's mostly laptops that people use for general computer use.

Anyway, HP and Asus have never done me wrong. Last a long time with no technical issues.
 
Ovek

Ovek

7Member7
The last several generations worth of MacBooks have been utter fucking bollocks and should be avoided. Lenovo or Dell would be solid picks in your price bracket.

My advice look for second hand Lenovo Thinkpads on eBay etc as they will most likely have come from office clear outs. You can get some really well spec'd machines cheap that can you upgrade the ram, storage, cpu and even the screen easily in the future.

Look for the Lenovo Thinkpad T440P which can come with a Nvidia or Intel gfx chipset, neither are going to set the world on fire for gaming but everything else it would be fine.
 
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Cato

Cato

Banned
Lenovo makes really good laptops. Both ThinkPads and some of the IdeaPads.
Mac-books are very good too but I dont like their keyboards and I don't want to carry around an external kerboard all the time.

But for 600$ you are not going to get a very good laptop. Sorry. Possibly an ok-ish lower-mid tier from a cheaper vendor and very poor graphics and screen.
 
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DESTROYA

DESTROYA

Member
JuiceboxHero said:
https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ these are pretty darn good from what I heard. I have been considering buying one for a while now. I have an MSI AeroX laptop that's doing pretty good so far, but their support is garbage.
Click to expand...
Take it from me CyberPower sucks , first one I got was OK but after buying a 2nd one I swore I would never get one again, on the 2nd laptop they sent me a laptop with different specs advertised not only that when I first started it up there was a awful grinding sound coming from the fans so after talking it apart I found a loose screws rattling around in the fan assembly. So I called them up and told them the situation and they basically blamed me for dropping a screw into the fans. Packed it up and returned it the same day.They do have some decent prices but awful service.
 
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