Laptop Buying Suggestion?

Over the years there were attempts to offer build it yourself laptops and as we look around not a single company that did that survived. The answer must be no.

There is no one brand to avoid except the no-names in your country. Look at the sad stories over Hyper this or that and other lesser names that don't have spare parts.

Also, laptops are 5 or less year designs and now I'm writing TWO YEAR DESIGNS since the consumer had mandated low prices. If you go too low you see the shortest life spans but paying a high price won't guarantee quality or life span either.

And then we have Windows. I've lost count of the machines I "saved" because I reinstalled Windows for the owner. There's something sadly wrong in this industry and product.

Use your friends as a test ground. See what they have and if you like it, ask for more info. Then buy that one.
Bob

IF you have all of the specs the same, then the difference in price is most likely the quality of the products. I have a gateway and its fine, it feels a bit cheaper than any Dell I have tried but works fine. I have not had any problems with it and in fact I have ended up liking mine just fine. As far as HP goes, I have heard negative things about them, but nothing major. I think it is just a company preference thing. Anyway, if you have the specs the same and the only difference is companies, I would go with Gateway seeing as its the cheapest. At this point it is more likely an aesthetics thing than function.

same cost. The things that make the differece at the screen type which is defined by resolution(example and 1600 x 900 screen is cheaper then a 19230 x 1080). The other thing is the graphics cards mahy be different and Nvidia or an ATI cost more then an Intel. The last thing is the hard drive speed (5400 versus 7200 rpm).