I need a laptop for home and basic business use (my part time manifold/parts business). So most use will be basic office stuff, browsing, updating website etc plus simple to mid range 3D CAD use (Autodesk inventor) - simple in that my models are not massive, memory hogging assemblies.

I've done a fair bit of searching and found this Lenevo to be pretty good value as far as I can tell:

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Lenovo_G570_Windows_7_Laptop__M517BUK/version.asp#top

Main points are 6gb ram, i5, dedicated graphics. The blu ray is a nice to have and I am quite keen seeing as we now use a blu ray player at home and therefore most media bought from now on will also be.

Absolute max I want to spend is £600 and I want something that will last so build quality needs to be considered. Am I right in thinking Lenevo are pretty good quality? I cant really seem to find much to beat that spec even from Acer etc

looks good to me - I have several IBM thinkpads and the oldest is 8 years old and still going strong

That's a pretty good spec for the price, though you'd get similar or better for less at the Dell outlet if you are prepared to lurk on there for a few days.

I have had 3 Lenovo work supplied laptops, and find the quality and reliability very very poor, the support is bad too, my most recent problem was a failed wireless chip, they just sent me a new chip and expected me to fit it myself!

Since IBM sold the Thinkpad range and rights to Lenovo, they have gone down hill.

For personal use, I have a Toshiba and have never had a problem with it, or the tosh I had prior to that.

My advice would be to look at the Dell, HP, Toshiba ranges for something which meets your requirements.

My mate had one of these, and it was poor.

When kit was IBM it was ok, when it went over to Lenovo we didn't use them after a few units we bought didn't last.

Cheers

Rich

Tosh or Dell, Tescos and Asda sometimes also have loss leaders too if you're patient.

Hope you and your Dad Ok,got the back of your house straight now?hope so,happy new year mate.

Bought a mid-range Lenovo (paid £400) thinkpad from UK (with a Spanish keyboard, so it was discounted). That was 5 yrs ago. Used it 2 years and my lad has used it since. Totally reliable, no complaints.

Replaced it with a similar priced Tosh' satellite 2 years ago (I've had Tosh's previously). Excellent!

I believe when Fujitsu were bidding for a big chunk of the NHS records-computerisation contract, their employees were using Toshibas to work with. Says a lot.

Yes, about 5 years ago Lenovo were in the honeymoon period still producing IBM designs, the T400s on, from about 2008 is when the rot set in.

I work for that other company supplying IT to NHS, using Lenovos

i always buy asus, they are a good spec and good quality, at a fair price, buy from america if you get the chance, laptops much cheaper over the pond, don't buy from america online though or you will pay tax and duty when it gets to the uk, see if you can find a friend going that will bring it back for you., bestbuy.com is a good place to look for prices and spec in america

quote:

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Originally posted by r1_pete
Yes, about 5 years ago Lenovo were in the honeymoon period still producing IBM designs, the T400s on, from about 2008 is when the rot set in.

I work for that other company supplying IT to NHS, using Lenovos

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Personally I wouldn't trust a laptop to have great build quality, but what I would recommend is buying it from Currys and take out their insurance. It's cracking. So far stepson has had 2 new ones out of it (if they can't fix it in time they replace it) and mine's had 2 new hard drives, battery, screen and case (pretty much refurbed)

Also according to the guy I last spoke to if the third time it goes in they just replace it so I'm looking forward to a new one seen

hmmm sounds like the lenovo is a bad call then?

What about HP? Pavilions are cheap at Currys:

HP Pavilion for £500

Or Dell Q15R:

Dell Q15R for £500

The Toshiba's all seem to be less spec for the price - but then I guess thats to be expected of a better brand name.

quote:

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Originally posted by RichardK
When kit was IBM it was ok, when it went over to Lenovo we didn't use them after a few units we bought didn't last.

Cheers

Rich

Tosh or Dell, Tescos and Asda sometimes also have loss leaders too if you're patient.

Hope you and your Dad Ok,got the back of your house straight now?hope so,happy new year mate.

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There's some good stuff on Dell Outlet right now, apparently..

Lenovo very poor, 5 PC's all failed with capacitors that inflated like little balloons, can't see the laptops being much better

Cheers
David

I've had Dell's have the same problem with capacitors doming, although they always replaced the motherboards whilst in warranty. A mate had an Inspiron that failed first week but was sorted the same week, including remote instal of operating system by a helpful CS person. My experience of Dell regarding CS is good.

Acer, were best spec per buck but lack longevity and reliability in my experience using them in a software training environment.

Toshiba have my vote currently, had a Tecra that was bomb proof, survived 6 years hard graft and even being run over by the misses, but that had a metal chassis. Easy and cheap to replace parts too, my laptops average 12 hours a day 6 days a week so I expect something to fail, with the Toshiba harddrives, disc drives, RAM, screens, keyboards are very easily replaced and upgraded. The only niggle is the Satellite L series I bought for my wife just over a year ago is that the hinges failed which seems to be a common fault and sourcing the right pair - you won't believe the variations there are - even with part numbers has been "fun" and will be trickier to replace. The other niggle with them is the auto HDD recovery is useful but is always installed with the drive partitioned in half, which in effect halves the drive capacity. But is a useful feature, turn on press F8 fill in a few user details, leave it for a few hours, hay presto rebuilt - That's on the Qosmio anyway

Asus usually have great press, you get one with any budget from £150 my only issue is that they do so many model variations that when looking for a bargain it is almost impossible to compare.

With Lenovo my experience has been the same as what others have posted.

Ultimately you'll find a nightmare story with each make and model.

Set your budget, if you need mobility go for small, light battery efficiency (take figure with a pinch of salt!) , if media go for highest processor and RAM - storage can easily be extended.

Good luck!

I recently returned a Lenovo Z570 (same chassis with a different veneer finish, I think) because the screen quality was really poor. Colours looked washed out, and black shades looked grey. Viewing angles were really bad too, which made it very unpleasant to use.

I think screen quality is something manufactures often compromise on at the budget end of the scale.

I bought my current laptop from http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/laptop-computers/ and I'm really happy with it. Each one is built to order so you can choose the components you like, and the standard screen (at least the one used on the Optimus II model) is great. Comes with a clean Windows install without all the rubbish trial version software you often get, too. You do have to wait a couple of weeks for delivery though.

Jek



[Edited on 4/1/12 by JekRankin]