Who makes the best laptop? Why?

Drenlin

Active Member
I did say I disliked mac as a company, not macbooks. I'm fine with those for the most part, however expensive they may be...but I just don't like the way Apple does business, so I'll probably stay away. i mean come on...have you looked at the prices of iPod's lately? Here's a regular mp3 player, compared to a similarly prices iPod....and they're pretty much all like that, from what I can see.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10980527
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10980527

And don't even get me started on their software...
 
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tlarkin

VIP Member
If you think that crappy MP3 player can compete toe to toe with an iPod you are smoking crack. I have owned an iRiver, a Zune , a Diamond Rio, and three iPods, oh and a creative zen. The iPod whoops all of them in functionality, quality and now that they are ipod touches, you can forget about anything else.
 

Drenlin

Active Member
Oh crap, I messed up the links :( The second one was supposed to be a shuffle. I think the "crap" one wins hands down. Double the memory, a video player, a screen...

You can't seriously be trying to deny that apple stuff is a bit overpriced. :confused:
 
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Hsv_Man

New Member
Yeah Hey a while back we bought an Asus laptop with high end specs no problems to this date the best thing about Asus is you get a 24 month worldwide warranty so you can be anywhere in the world and if some hardware breaks down or whatever they will replace it free of charge can't get much better than that.
 

tlarkin

VIP Member
Yeah Hey a while back we bought an Asus laptop with high end specs no problems to this date the best thing about Asus is you get a 24 month worldwide warranty so you can be anywhere in the world and if some hardware breaks down or whatever they will replace it free of charge can't get much better than that.

That is one reason why I keep buying Asus products. Their product is of good quality and their company takes care of their customers.
 

tlarkin

VIP Member
Oh crap, I messed up the links :( The second one was supposed to be a shuffle. I think the "crap" one wins hands down. Double the memory, a video player, a screen...

You can't seriously be trying to deny that apple stuff is a bit overpriced. :confused:

Not really, after owning several hand held MP3 players and now an iPod touch and 2 iPods before that, they are the best that is out there. I liked my zen for about a month or two, then I got my first iPod and it blew the zen out of the water.

I do admit iTunes is not my favorite media player, but hey Apple is smart to make it work with iTunes so any level of computer user can use it.
 

speedyink

VIP Member
If you think that crappy MP3 player can compete toe to toe with an iPod you are smoking crack. I have owned an iRiver, a Zune , a Diamond Rio, and three iPods, oh and a creative zen. The iPod whoops all of them in functionality, quality and now that they are ipod touches, you can forget about anything else.

Huh, what? Do you base any of that on sound quality? You know, the thing that pretty much defines how good a MUSIC player is. The ipods have terrible sound, especially when you use better headphones. And you can't even compensate for that because, NO custom EQ whatsoever. Ever. On any ipod. While my shiny ipod nano 16gb is nice looking and has a nice interface, and works great for my alarm clock, it's my crappy little 2gb creative zen that's the one that gets used everywhere, because it has a 5 band equalizer, and it's not tuned to blast out the higher frequencies causing headache inducing music sessions. Not to mention that crazy battery life on the ipod*. While you can charge it and right away listen to it for hours and hours, try charging it and leaving it for 3 or 4 days and then try getting hours out of it. The Zen battery life wins hands down, for 100-0% runtime and long term residual drain.


*Not on all ipods, the newer ipod Nano's have the AWESOME feature of not being able to turn off, only the ability to sleep.




To be on topic, I like Acer's I guess. Excellent price and the nicer ones are built really well. Love mine, even though it went through hell and back before I got it. Doesn't show it at all (after a new keyboard and a cleanup)
 
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tlarkin

VIP Member
I hook my ipod up to a stereo receiver and blasted it through some nicer speakers and it was pretty good quality. My Zen was no way better, maybe on par as far as sound goes, but the iPod UI is just better.
 

bomberboysk

Active Member
That is one reason why I keep buying Asus products. Their product is of good quality and their company takes care of their customers.
Yeah, asus laptops are great. However as much as i like asus, id have to say that the sager/clevo notebooks and the aluminum macbooks are built better, the sager/clevo notebooks are solid as a rock and the macbooks are also really great as far as build quality.



And for the record, Xeon's and the Core i7 are the same exact cpu(physically speaking), just the xeon is binned to run at lower voltages, and the ECC memory controller is enabled on the Xeon vs laser cut on the core i7's.
 
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tlarkin

VIP Member
Yeah, asus laptops are great. However as much as i like asus, id have to say that the sager/clevo notebooks and the aluminum macbooks are built better, the sager/clevo notebooks are solid as a rock and the macbooks are also really great as far as build quality.



And for the record, Xeon's and the Core i7 are the same exact cpu(physically speaking), just the xeon is binned to run at lower voltages, and the ECC memory controller is enabled on the Xeon vs laser cut on the core i7's.

There are a few other features it offers, otherwise it would not make sense for Intel to keep selling them, and not make the i7 the exact same thing. It would save Intel money if they could make and sell one processor for everything.
 

G25r8cer

Active Member
If you think that crappy MP3 player can compete toe to toe with an iPod you are smoking crack. I have owned an iRiver, a Zune , a Diamond Rio, and three iPods, oh and a creative zen. The iPod whoops all of them in functionality, quality and now that they are ipod touches, you can forget about anything else.

Yeah there is def no competition with the crappy mp3 players and an ipod

Ipod's are great but, the Zune HD dominates the Ipod touch

Esp once the app's are up
 

bomberboysk

Active Member
Yeah there is def no competition with the crappy mp3 players and an ipod

Ipod's are great but, the Zune HD dominates the Ipod touch

Esp once the app's are up
Yeah, the tegra chip in that thing is great, and the OLED display is amazing.

There are a few other features it offers, otherwise it would not make sense for Intel to keep selling them, and not make the i7 the exact same thing. It would save Intel money if they could make and sell one processor for everything.
The physical processor is the exact same, just features are enabled on one and disabled on the other.
 

tlarkin

VIP Member
Yeah, the tegra chip in that thing is great, and the OLED display is amazing.


The physical processor is the exact same, just features are enabled on one and disabled on the other.

Then that hardly makes them the same. There are other differences, go to Intel's web page and read up on them. They aren't night and day differences but Intel needs to keep the Xeon processor in a certain market and the i7 in another, otherwise they would be wasting their money making both processors.

Xeons can also access multiple memory controllers on a board, where I believe an i7 can not. Does this matter to anyone on this forum? Nope, not an end user technology really.

Ipod's are great but, the Zune HD dominates the Ipod touch

Microsoft's best product is the Xbox, the Zune is crap in my opinion, and apps, you want to talk about apps? A jailbroken iPhone can runs 10s of thousands of apps.
 

speedyink

VIP Member
I hook my ipod up to a stereo receiver and blasted it through some nicer speakers and it was pretty good quality. My Zen was no way better, maybe on par as far as sound goes, but the iPod UI is just better.

I still stand by it. Ok, maybe terrible was a bit too harsh, except for the high frequencies the sound on the ipods is very even, bringing out nice lows and mids. But try listening to a song near full volume, every "s" they pronounce rings in my head and causes headaches. This is definitely not as noticeable when you have it hooked up to a stereo, as the speakers aren't right in your ears. I use my ipod in my car sometimes and it's definitely not near as bad. But damn, when I slap in the earbuds it's unbearable.

As you said, the User interface is great. User input however (on the touch wheels) leaves a lot to be desired. It seems to be hit or miss whether or not it works properly. Also a customizable shortcut button would be nice. It's annoying to go rifling through menus to get to shuffle, especially while driving. And no, the shake to shuffle is annoying as hell.

I've had this on 2 ipod touch's (1st and 2nd gen) and my ipod nano (5th gen). I don't get this from any other branded mp3 player with those headphones, be it the zen or my sony cell phone.

On Topic:
I forgot to mention Asus..they usually make good laptops, with the odd ones being crap. My friend's has serious heat issues. His idles about 30 degrees higher than my Acer, which has the same GPU and a better processor. My Asus EEE and some other ones I've seen are top notch though.

Macbooks are great build quality and have some nice features built in. However, I wouldn't want to use one while on my lap. The Macbook Pro I set up for my friend was too hot to touch on the bottom after some use. She's told me she's scared she'll burn herself on it, lol.
 
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tlarkin

VIP Member
Speedy,

In all honesty though, what do you expect from a hand held digital output device with only stereo as an output? I mean it is not like it has RCA or optical out? I am sure if you wanted audiophile quality there is a hand held out there that trumps all the consumer ones.

Though, to be fair, I haven't owned a zen since the first Zen micro (their nano) came out. So, I can't say much about it. I don't like Zunes subscription services, and if I want a song I want to pay 99 cents for it and be done with it. Apple also makes it pretty easy to strip DRM off of it, and they offer DRM free songs. That is something that I support more than anything.
 

speedyink

VIP Member
Speedy,

In all honesty though, what do you expect from a hand held digital output device with only stereo as an output? I mean it is not like it has RCA or optical out? I am sure if you wanted audiophile quality there is a hand held out there that trumps all the consumer ones.

Though, to be fair, I haven't owned a zen since the first Zen micro (their nano) came out. So, I can't say much about it. I don't like Zunes subscription services, and if I want a song I want to pay 99 cents for it and be done with it. Apple also makes it pretty easy to strip DRM off of it, and they offer DRM free songs. That is something that I support more than anything.

I'm not expecting optical out like sound quality, i'm expecting it to not urge me to take the headphones out because it makes my ears literally feel like they want to bleed. Sad thing is it's a total 100% honest statement. Good thing is it doesn't happen with the regular ipod earbuds and lots of other headphones, as they have a lower frequency range and different types of speakers.

A custom EQ would completely fix it...
 
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ganzey

banned
umm, this is a "who makes the best laptop" thread, not why the zune beats the crap out of an ipod touch.:D
 

speedyink

VIP Member
umm, this is a "who makes the best laptop" thread, not why the zune beats the crap out of an ipod touch.:D

Lol, I know, I apologize.

I've also had good experiences with Dell laptops. That is, if you don't have to deal with their customer service, which is very poor. Otherwise, most of the time you get a solid laptop that lasts.
 
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