Notebook Brands

Depends on what you mean by best. Best overall? Best value?

Best overall IMO is Sony (won't vote Mac as I could never bring myself to buy Apple... they are good computers, its just that I think they are abit overpriced and PCs are just more convienient vis-a-vis compatibility)

Best value (and the type I have and use for hours a day) is Dell. I throughly recomend Dell and will probably replace my current one with a Dell.

Also good value/good models: IBM and Toshiba.

Avoid Mac (for reasons above), Acer (Cheap and Nasty) and Compaq (also Cheap and Nasty).

TedE

toshiba.....hands down winner
I have had 2 and just bought my daughter one..

just the best and great after sales, parts, service...locally in Perth

I've owned an iBook G3 in the past, have an iMac G5 at home, and have a MacBook Pro for work (I also use a PC at work too). I've found them all to be reliable machines and priced competitively with other 'high-end' machines.

Living in Asia, the one thing I can say about Mac's is that they are fantastic at picking up wireless networks - a great plus for the portability of a notebook. Right now in my living room there are 4 networks I'm able to jump on. I know this feature is not constrained to Mac's, but it's the ease of which they can switch, upload, and download which I'm impressed with.

Worth considering unless you want to spend thousands on a paperweight! (Read: computer without internet is like car without engine...).

One more thing - my mother purchased a HP notebook, and my father-in-law purchased a Toshiba notebook at the same time I got my MacBook Pro, and both had regrets about their purchases once seeing the Mac.

Regards,

Biased Mac-lover.

I only use/buy/sell/recommend HP, particularily HP Business Notebooks. I don't care much for the consumer models that you get from Harvey Norman or OfficeWorks.

The HP Business Notebooks are very nice notebooks, and have some really good, well thought out accessories and innovations that you rarely see in the competitors product ranges.

ie

Docking Stations




Extended Battery Design



What's clever about the extended Battery, is that it fit's around the docking station so you can charge both Batteries while the notebook is on the Docking Station.

The extended battery above provides an extra 3 - 4 hours on Battery Life and HP also makes a super extended Battery which can provide around 10 hours of Run-Time.

The other thing I really like is that the Docking stations are the same for most of the HP Business Notebook range.

My favourite configuration for clients is a Docking Station, 19" screen, Mouse and Keyboard at home and work. All they have to do is plonk the notebook on the Docking Station and off they go.

ps I love Vista, it's far more responsive than XP and looks fantastic.

Also, only get the Dual Core Processor Models, use a lot less power and run heaps cooler than the older Processors.

TedE said:

(won't vote Mac as I could never bring myself to buy Apple... they are good computers, its just that I think they are abit overpriced and PCs are just more convienient vis-a-vis compatibility)
TedE

Click to expand...

Hi TedE, I used to think exactly the same, but I'm a convert now Won't get all MacZealot on you, but things are quite different now that Macs are Intel based. Parallels or Bootcamp will have you running XP on a MacBook no problems, I do that for all my Windows development but much prefer OS X for general day to day stuff. As an example of compatibility, I use NeoOffice (opensource alternative to Microsoft Office) under OS X to work with Excel/Word documents.

Can't argue with the price, I bought a Dell for a friend for $898 (!) last week, amazing what you get for under a grand these days. But with a Mac, you're paying for a very sleek minimal look.

Hi everyone... in response to this thread ASF member Techbuy (operator of techbuy.com.au) has put together a series of great specials especially for ASF members (and visitors too I guess ). A small percentage of each sale made from this ASF specials page will go towards the running costs of ASF, so any support you can offer is sincerely appreciated.

Have a look at the specials here: http://www.techbuy.com.au/aussiestock.asp

ASUS or Metabox/ASUS

I got my laptop from www.P4laptops.com.au

Cheaper and better than Ebay

They customize your laptop for ya if you need and they are the cheapest I found... I did research on them before I bought off them and they provide laptops for the government... you can thank me later

Anyone that says that dell is the best should be ignored immediately... :