Laptop Brands
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britechguy
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I guess that depends on what you consider to be "off," and if it's anything outside those three you're cutting off a lot of good options.
Over the years I've owned HP, Dell, Asus, Acer, and now LG. By far and away the best of the lot so far has been this LG Gram. While HP, Dell, and Lenovo may be "the Big Three" there are many other worthy competitors.
Over the years I've owned HP, Dell, Asus, Acer, and now LG. By far and away the best of the lot so far has been this LG Gram. While HP, Dell, and Lenovo may be "the Big Three" there are many other worthy competitors.
Blues
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I wouldn't exclude them but for those you know less of feel free to bring models to the group here to provide feedback and input on the models and or brands.
Computer Bloke
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I hear Apples are pretty popular with the kids today, and could be a reasonable choice if you plan to support non-Microsoft systems. Nothing beats that daily-driver familiarity.
carmen617
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I currently tell my clients to stay away from Chinese owned companies - seriously, you have no idea what the Chinese government mandates these companies install on their electronics. For your own daily driver, you can make that call. As far as alternatives to Dell or HP computers are concerned, I have owned Sony and Asus laptops and the biggest problem is lack of support and drivers, websites that are difficult to navigate, no service manuals available. The nice thing about Dell is the service tag, and on-line service manuals, for each of their products. HP's support is not quite as good - they take down drivers for products older than 7 years, for example, but at least you can Google the model number and almost always find a decent break down video.
Canadian Tech
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I'm hearing a lot of good things about the LG Gram, apparently it's built to military specs.
DRPCNZ
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Are you saying that Lenovo is not a good brand, and shouldn't be used. Off topic, but Chinese Goverment own so many comapnies that make computer chips, and they are used in everything. W have no idea what instructions they are putting in those chips
britechguy
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Canadian Tech
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LOL...ok maybe they exaggerated a little bit but that's what I was told by the LG Rep. Not being from the USA I do find that document interesting although I won't read through all 800 pages
britechguy
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Well, not all 804 pages are really meant for "light reading." Suffice it to say there are a couple of sections that deal with shock resistance/drop resistance/etc. that are what are relevant.
The weight (or the lack thereof, actually) of these things is almost not to be believed. The magnesium shells are also remarkably rigid for as thin as they are.
Markverhyden
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It's a great way to fall asleep more quickly.......
Speaking of Lenovo, we (should) all know ThinkPad models are excellent (at least T/P/X series). What do people think about ThinkBook models?
I supplied a ThinkBook 16P model to a customer recently, because they wanted dedicated graphics (for graphics work not gaming). I was quite impressed with the specs and build quality, and very nice screen. These are the specs and ex-tax prices from the small Australian distributor XIT Distribution:
| Lenovo ThinkBook 16p G2, R5 5600H 3.3/4.2Ghz, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 16.0" WQXGA, RTX 3060 6GB, Win 11 Pro | $1,299.00 |
| Lenovo ThinkBook 16p G2, R7 5800H 3.2/4.4Ghz, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 16.0" WQXGA, RTX3060 6GB, Win 11 Pro | $1,399.00 |
| Lenovo ThinkBook 16p G2, R9 5900HX 3.3/4.6Ghz, 32GB, 1TB SSD, 16.0" WQXGA, RTX3060 6GB, Win 11 Pro | $1,699.00 |
Probably reduced prices because of the older generation Ryzen CPUs, still plenty powerful though (45W TDP).
Markverhyden
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I don't implicitly trust Chinese made stuff. But I'm comfortable with brands that are accepted by the Fed's as the check those things 6 ways to sundown. So I'll use Dell's, HP's and Lenovo's. The bigger problem I had and still have is the disposable nature of so much hardware.
Blues
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I will say on the Chinese made aspect many brands will be using parts from Chinese manufacturers so looking at the brand doesn't say where it's components were made
britechguy
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Most majors manufacture in China. My LG and HP both had "Product of China" on the bottom.
Anyone who thinks they can get away from Chinese made goods in the IT industry, from the tiniest chip to the whole computer, is deluding themselves.
As @Markverhyden has said, all of the "Big 3" have their products checked by the government before they'll use them. But it is also not in China's best interest to literally be spying on potentially every computer user on earth. Were that to get out, and it would, the collapse of the computer manufacturing sector of the Chinese economy is pretty much assured.
Most of our smartphones are of Chinese manufacture, too.
carmen617
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I actually think there is a big difference between purchasing components made in China (which cannot be avoided), systems manufactured in China for a non-Chinese company, like Apple, Dell, or HP; and systems completely manufactured and set up by a Chinese owed company. We know perfectly well that Chinese manufactured smart phones contain the spyware the Chinese government uses to keep track of their citizenry. There is no reason to suppose that Chinese manufactured computers are not also set up to call home. The risk to the average Joe western consumer is small, but it is there, and is enough that I stay away from purchasing from Chinese owned companies.
britechguy
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I do not know of any of these that are available in the USA. But I know of scads of "completely manufactured and set up by a Chinese owned company under contract to {insert your favorite maker here}" systems.
If the Chinese want to "sneak something on" they have every opportunity to do it. It's not in their best interests to do this for the export market, because were such exposed the damage would be incalculable.
I also doubt that every Huawei, Xiaomi, and the list goes on, device created for the export market is configured with exactly the same state spyware that is known to be on Chinese market devices. This is not something that's possible to hide, and those brands are huge in areas of the world where this would "be noticed" were it happening.
The EU, Canada, Australia, etc., are not stupid and there is certainly monitoring of what sorts of "phoning home" is being done for any device you can name. Chinese companies have legitimate telemetry just as companies in all parts of the world do. There's no such thing as a telemetry-less device in today's world, regardless of who makes it or who it's made for. All "phone home." It's a matter of what it is they're phoning home for. And all the various "big brothers" (read: governments) are most assuredly watching who's phoning home for what.
Blues
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@britechguy my point was that fighting to have a china free electronics experience is nearly futile or requires so much individual effort and skill it is impractical for all but those like us who work within or so close to the industry.
Lenovo (23% market share) are Hong Kong owned, effectively Chinese.
Fujitsu laptops are made in Japan, but I'm not sure whether they use any Chinese-made components (probably do). I resell ex-lease Fujitsu laptops from time to time as refurbs, they seem well made (solid black plastic like traditional ThinkPads).
en.wikipedia.org
Fujitsu laptops are made in Japan, but I'm not sure whether they use any Chinese-made components (probably do). I resell ex-lease Fujitsu laptops from time to time as refurbs, they seem well made (solid black plastic like traditional ThinkPads).
List of laptop brands and manufacturers - Wikipedia
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