New laptop time

[Fishface]

I have been using Thinkpads for 10 years - they have been great.

I currently have a Lenovo Thinkpad T60 - very good although...

ATI has caused a hardware issue since the recent Vista service pack and have no intention of fixing it any time soon - I get harware failure all the f'ing time now - blue screen, parity failure messages and others.

lost confidence - its 8 months old.

[StuartM]

I second the Lenovo T61's. I got it on a considerable discount from a former employer and has been one of the best purchases I have ever made. I would buy one even if it was at full price but maybe a bit lower spec!

One thing I would defiantly add on though, regardless of the brand, is the extended warranty for a minimum of three years. ALL laptops have a failure rate and you will only ever get anecdotal evidence on which manufacturer is better, I doubt they would ever release those figures.

Consider the terms of the extended warranty, like crossing borders etc. In Australia, if I had bought a particular Acer laptop I would only be able to get it repaired in Australia and not worldwide. Compared to my lovely T61 here which I got back within 3 days when it went back recently, and I'm in London now but bought in Sydney.

Working in Desktop Support not too many moons ago we were sending back a huge number of T4X T6X laptops each week for warranty repairs in a fleet of a several thousand, everything from dead screens to faulty motherboards and RAM modules. Lenovo support had great customer service and quick turnaround in only two or three days.

Another consideration is the type of processor used, some models of the cheaper brands (not all) used a modified version of a Desktop grade CPU instead of a specifically designed mobile CPU - this is how they can get the cost right down. The laptops with the cut down desktop CPUs have shorter battery life because they have less control over the power consumption of the CPU and also have to be considerably bigger to dissipate the heat generated. The baseline performance between the two was only marginal in the cheaper models favor, with the benefits of a true mobile processor far outweighing the minor performance increase.

At the end of the day a laptop is built for mobility and not performance so there is always going to be a trade off. The important thing is what happens when, not if, it breaks and how long it will take to get fixed.

Stu

[Platypus]

I have been using Thinkpads for 10 years - they have been great.

I currently have a Lenovo Thinkpad T60 - very good although...

ATI has caused a hardware issue since the recent Vista service pack and have no intention of fixing it any time soon - I get harware failure all the f'ing time now - blue screen, parity failure messages and others.

lost confidence - its 8 months old.

Check ATI's website - new driver releases recently

P.S. Also are you sure it's the ATI? Check for overheating... Google "t60 overheating"

[voodooflux]

I'm now looking to hackintosh a Lenovo.

My next laptop will be a Lenovo - the build quality is outstanding from what I've seen.

[bogeyman]

Given that the OP seemed to be referring to Windows development platforms, there are probably a number of reasonable options available, depending on pricing considerations.

But - surprise, surprise - I would suggest at least considering MacBook hardware, even if you trash the OS X installation and stick Windows on it instead. It's quality hardware, in my experience.

@bogeyman: I'm surprised at your experience. Not only has my own MacBook worked well for a couple of years now, but over the last 18 months or so I've worked in places where there would have been, in total, something like fifty or sixty MacBooks or MacBook Pros in use, and I don't recollect any of them ever suffering a hardware failure. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it may be you had a run of bad luck - and, given that the replacement would probably be a "reconditioned" previously-returned unit, the probability of it having a lurking, unremedied flaw would be increased.

(And before the chorus chimes in, you face the same problem with every manufacturer - if your Dell laptop has to be replaced under warranty, you're very unlikely to get a brand new machine. You'll get one that somebody else returned and which they reckon they've fixed. This is the most shameful aspect of the hardware-vending side of the computer industry, but they all do it.)

I think I am unlucky with hardware Nick but also think MacBook reliability is somewhat variable. You saw 50-60 and no hardware failures?

As for Apple Service, it's like some kind of surreal game. You never know what you're going to get back. The first returned MacBook had a big scuff on the lid that definitely wasn't there when it was sent back (it was the same s/n). They do seem to scratch incredibly easily, dunno if the black ones are any better.

The last return was a brand new machine as far as I could tell. I think they just keep trying to palm off the lemons.

[FarmerPalmer]

Another vote for Lenovo.

I've only got the budget N200 ... which has been fault free for over 1 year now.

Mine only has 2gb ram and then I only added the extra 1gb because I was running multiple developed applications in virtual machines for testing - 3 XP VMs under XP.

I am running XP Pro, Office 2003, Visual Studio, Enterprise Architect etc etc