In general, if you're looking for quality, you're going to have to buy from the "business" line from a given manufacturer, assuming they even have one, or get lucky on a consumer-enthusiast line like Alienware. E.g. you buy a Latitude from Dell, not an Inspiron or a Thinkpad from Lenovo, not an Ideapad. Even that's hit or miss, but at least it'll get you on the right track. All but the highest end models on the consumer line are usually pretty crummy. They load them up with good looking basic specs (reasonably clocked CPU, decent amount of RAM, etc.) but the construction quality is poor, and they're always the low end parts (higher power CPU, slower/higher power RAM, etc.). An amusing thing to do is pick up a copy of the service manual, if you can get it, and look at how many screws it takes to tear into the machine at varying levels. The more, the better.
The downside to the business lineup, aside from cost, is that they're rarely gaming powerhouses, if that's important to you.
As far as I'm concerned, there are very, very few decent laptops on the market these days. I'm still rocking my old W500 from 2009: it still works, and it has more pixels than your laptop probably does (unless it's a "Retina" Apple, a Chromebook Pixel, or a Kirabook). Then again, my previous laptop (from 2003) probably has more pixels than yours does, too...
I've had some people I know buy various models and have various levels of satisfaction. The Dell Latitudes have been OK for most people as have Thinkpad W and T series, but no love for the cheaper/smaller models in the Thinkpad line anymore, it seems. Apples are usually met with great anticipation only to have them break just outside warranty and not be worth repairing. Nobody I know has had any real longer-term luck (>2 years) with anything branded Acer. Asus is ok-at-best if you buy their highest end stuff. However, the plural of anecdote is not evidence, so YMMV.
Asustek also builds laptops for Dell, HP, and Apple, but the models are different, which somebody has mentioned. Doesn't mean that the stuff bearing the Asus name has anything to do with those other models. It's just plain ol' contract/outsource manufacturing.
If the person who this is targeted for is actually tech illiterate, a Chromebook (not Pixel, unless you really want to spend that cash) may be appropriate since they're almost maintenance free. If cost is a concern, just go pick up whatever's cheap on black Friday. It won't be very good, and you'll be lucky to have it really last more than a couple years, but at that point you can just replace it, and you're only out a couple hundred bucks as opposed to buying a real machine (which will, even in this era, generally run you at least $1000) and trying to carry it for 4-5 years through school.
And yes, the Haswells are (apparently) very good power consumption wise. I really doubt some of the numbers being published by the major vendors, though, since the CPU alone doesn't account for enough power consumption to give the kind of improvements they're in some cases claiming over previous models.
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Topic: Laptop recommendations... (Read 3546 times)
