Which is the best laptop?

[naomi24]

I'm buying a new one, but I'm not sure which to go for. I only know I don't want Apple.

Thanks.

[VHG]

Bit like saying what is the best car. If you have got thousands of pounds then maybe a Rolls Royce or a Ferrari. If you only want to pop to the shops then a VW Golf may do.

So the two main thigns we need to know are:

What do you plan to do with it (simple internet/email, or web design, play games etc)

How much have you go to spend.

A "basic" laptop can be got for around £300, you can get a decent laptop for say £400, anything above that gives you more power etc, but you may not need it.

[Answerprancer]

afaik Sony Vaio is supposed to be very good, and if you can get hold of one of the last IBM Thinkpads they made - although a bit out of date- they were supposed to be excellent.

[woofgang]

Why don't you want Apple?

[bazwillrun]

You need to be looking at battery life as well in case yo, an awful lot of laptops will give you only around 3-4 hours , more you pay to a degree, better the battery life

[ChuckFickens]

VHG points are valid.

Sony laptops are a royal pain in the preverbal, you start by paying over the odds for the name, they use proprietary hardware ID's on a lot of their hardware meaning standard drivers won't work with them and then they have a habit of dropping support for "older" equipment fairly quickly so you suddenly find you can't get drivers for them easily (I get really fed up with having to customise driver packages to make them work on Sony's!)

HP, Dell, Toshiba, Acer, Samsung, lenovo (basically all the big brands) are normally a pretty safe bet, out of all of them I would go for either Dell or HP as their support tends to be better than most.

[naomi24]

Thanks chaps. It's appreciated.