(OT) Most reliable notebooks and desktops available, last couple of years?

Times change, companies and their products change.

Gimme your top 3 OEM Windows-based notebook and desktop makers. No need to
pontificate beyond a few words if you care to comment at all.

Notebooks:

1) Thinkpads (Corporate; durable, quality build and support)
2) Dell: Corporate/Consumer, best combination of quality/features/value for
the buck
3) ? Toshiba? HP? Sony? Compaq or Gateway? Have no idea.

Desktops:

1) Dell
2) HP
3) Gateway or Sony

Anyone out there who's touched a decent number of recent models by makers
other than Dell? I'm interested to see what opinions are and if any changes
have taken place.

*FYI - my list is based on limited opinion from reading over the years and
from working with different brands. Unfortunately, many of those machines
are older and don't reflect current features and build quality.

Stew

 

Pontificate?

Where'd you find that word?

Have you been hanging around the high schools, again? <g>

(Hope all's well with you and yours!)

Notan

 

Just give me your opinion, azz. (g)

(Which I happen to respect when you aren't sniping me about my rope belt and
4th grade edgucashun.)

 

Notebooks (Business Lines)
1. IBM/Lenovo T & X series
2. Dell Latitude
3. Panasonic Toughbooks
4. HP NC line

Notebooks (Consumer)
1. Dell 6X0m
2. Apple MacBook
3. HP/Compaq dv2000/v3000

Not much opinion on desktops as I usually build my own, but Dell's seem
to be decent (only issues I've seen are bad caps which they replaced).

 

Notebooks (Business Lines)

Similar here.
Notebooks (business class, not home - e.g. latitudes!)
1) IBM T41,42, 43 or X31, 40)
2) Lenovo Thinkpads - jury still out. Early probs with cheap plastics
and dodgy dock fitment seem rectified though. Not sure if they'll keep
up the world-class support and drivers though.
3) HP NC's are good
4) Dell Latitudes are good, although nothing beats the old CPiX's!

For home laptops, the Macbook isn't in there. Terrible quality control
on a lot, and I have one. random shutdowns, discolouring plastics,
appalling thermal paste misuse on some, blocked fan vents etc. When
they're good, they're very very good, but when they're bad they're
horrid...

Corporate Desktops:
1) IBM M51, M2, S1 and S52. Bulletproof, reliable, tool-free and
everything a good corp desktop should be
2) Fujitsu Siemens still make some that are built like the old days
with metal chassis etc...
3) Dell

ric

 

They all suck in different ways. Toshibas suck because the support is
terrible. Sony's have lifespan issues (they die too soon), and sony is
a spyware king (they don't admit to it, but they are). Overall quality
is poor. And I expect their laptops to spy on you somehow.

Hp support has been bad, but i've actually seen an improvement, with
the online chat system in resoving a particularly arcane problem. So
they're apparently working on it. Compaq is owned by HP.

Dell machinery in general just works, few lemons. But if you're unlucky
enough to have something go south, good luck getting them to replace
the part. It took ME 3 phone calls, the last of which was nearly an
hour to get them to send me a replacement HDD on behalf of a client. I
TOLD them it was bad, i told them I ran dell's own diagnostics, which
also told me it was bad, i told them i ran indemant unilities which
also told me it was bad. Then they made me do the diagnostics again,
over the phone. Which also told them it was bad. Then the guy's
supervisor told the tech that the OS had gone bad. And for me to format
and reinstall!!!! Bullshit! I told him no, that it was unprofessional
to install on OS on a drive I knew to be faulty, and every diagnostic i
had thrown at it confirmed it has bad sectors (I counted over 300, not
just 1 or 2)! Eventually he relented and sent me the hard drive. AARGH!

 

I laughed the other day at an MS training opportunity. We were using Sony
laptops, and there was a big sticker on the top of it, that said something
like:

"For your protection and convenience, we recommend only using Sony batteries
and accessories..."

Clint

 

Ric -

Where the hell is all of the most solid consumer end stuff in your opinion?
I'm not looking for a local vendor option, but just wondering if there are
solid options (both laptop and desktop) to Dell.

Any comments?

Stew

 

In terms of support, I found IBM's to be exceptional (this was for my
T21, not sure how Lenovo is now). I had 3 hardware support issues and
all were handled fast and professionally; this was with the 3 year
mail-in warranty. As for Dell, I've had one issue and although it
wasn't as fast as IBM, it was still quite a positive experience. It
took one call to get the part, call took under 20 mins total. This was
on a D610 from Small Business, haven't tried the consumer support yet.