Current Events > Are there any mass-market PC/Laptop manufacturers that still have good quality?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Seems like the entire industry has been making cheaper products (both in price and quality) but that extends all the way up to their premium range as well.

There's a few that occasionally buck the trend - Dell's XPS and HP's Spectre are at least OK, but they're also overpriced for their hardware.

I mean something like the way IBM ThinkPads used to be. They were consistently excellent laptops. If you bought one, you knew you were getting the best keyboard, good build quality and generally dependable hardware. But more than that - IBM's hardware range (both desktops and laptops) were known for being rock-solid workhorses that were much more dependable than their competitors, even if they weren't always the most flashy.

But now it seems like there's no one company that straight-up makes better hardware.

Dell basically either makes cheap McDonalds computers loaded with bloat and usually have tons of small hardware problems.

Alienware is basically Ugly Dell with the added bonus of being expensive for seemingly no reason anymore. They do seem to aim for really good performance.

HP is basically the same, although their Omen line does seem to be at least above-average in quality.

Apple is Apple, and I'd argue that from a purely cost-to-performance ratio they've basically got the entire PC market whipped, but OS X has become increasingly more walled-garden, which is OK for mobile but not for computers.

ASUS is weird because they usually have great performance at a good price, but the build quality is usually pretty mediocre.

Razer computers are the opposite of ASUS in that you get pretty great build quality in a stylish package, but they tend to run unacceptably hot and their keyboards are awful.

MSI is kinda like ASUS although it does seem like they're starting to push towards super high-end performance at any cost (literally and figuratively)

Lenovo inherited the ThinkPad line when it bought IBM's laptop division and I've heard that the ThinkPads are still generally regarded as the best business laptops, but they're wildly overpriced relative to the hardware. My personal experience with their Legion laptops is limited to this one I'm using now (for the past 7 days) so I can't really comment other than to say that it's got a really good keyboard and a fantastic screen (and finally there's a company with the balls to give a gaming laptop a 16:10 screen!) but only time can tell if that will last.

Acer - Like a budget ASUS, which is kind of comical if you think about it

Samsung - They tend to make flimsy crap with mind-blowing screens. Which is basically Samsung's brand ethos, I guess.

Microsoft / Surface - I have a love/hate with these series because I think the hardware is so well-designed, but the software (ironically, considering MS is a software company) always lets it down. And that's still true. Surface computers are just buggy as hell. The problems they have with EFI and other things are so weird - and they don't seem to happen with other brands.

Lmao, laptops.

Business grade laptops were good because of the ability to repair things. You used to be able to fucking order a damn mainboard and replace it yourself.

Now? Not so much.
The majority of laptops are terrible. Mainstream are utter garbage.
The difference between a $600 and $2000 laptop by Lenovo is 'you might get to replace the SSD cause we didn't solder it'

RealityDose posted...

Business grade laptops were good because of the ability to repair things. You used to be able to fucking order a damn mainboard and replace it yourself.

Now? Not so much.
The majority of laptops are terrible. Mainstream are utter garbage.
The difference between a $600 and $2000 laptop by Lenovo is 'you might get to replace the SSD cause we didn't solder it'

This is why IBM needs to come back to the hardware space. IBM was a boring, business-like company. But by golly did they understand how to give professionals what they wanted.

I've been managing Dell machines for damn near a decade, thousands added up at this point, and their Lattitude and Precision lines have treated me well with very little problems. The newer USB-C docking stations have been a bumpy road but getting better. Still not quite perfect yet though. We have the super warranty so techs come out if a mobo needs replaced, we only have to use it a handful of times a year with ~300 devices.

Honestly just about all of the big players have bad and good lines and they come and go in waves, but im my experience Dell is most consistent and tech friendly. I was in a HP shop for a time and they sucked ass compared to Dell, hardware and support.

voldothegr8 posted...

I've been managing Dell machines for damn near a decade, thousands added up at this point, and their Lattitude and Precision lines have treated me well with very little problems. The newer USB-C docking stations have been a bumpy road but getting better. Still not quite perfect yet though. We have the super warranty so techs come out if a mobo needs replaced, we only have to use it a handful of times a year with ~300 devices.

Honestly just about all of the big players have bad and good lines and they come and go in waves, but im my experience Dell is most consistent and tech friendly. I was in a HP shop for a time and they sucked ass compared to Dell, hardware and support.

In all fairness, I've heard that the "Dell Business" side of things might as well be a different company entirely from their mainstream consumer division.