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How to get a durable laptop
I see so many people on Facebook buying awful laptops, or asking for help with choosing a new laptop.
Laptop makers produce two very different kinds of laptops. They have lines of laptops intended for consumers, which are made to look pretty and cost as little as possible. Consumer laptops are *not durable* - they're made to outlive a one year warranty, and no longer. They have tons of promotional crapware preloaded on them - software that the manufacturer is paid to put on the computer (not the other way round), which is poor quality and makes money for the developer through ads, popups demanding that you upgrade, or actual user tracking and spying. And they are *not* designed to be easy to repair or upgrade.
And then there are lines of laptops intended for businesses and corporations. Which are usually not loaded with crapware (or not as much), which are designed to outlive a three or four year corporate replacement schedule, and which are often quite durable. And they can be easily repaired, because the corporate buyer gets them with a multi-year maintenance contract on them. They cost more, often significantly more. But they are worth it - a good corporate-grade laptop will last until it becomes obsolete, and will be more likely to survive accidents.
Understandably, most people are reluctant to pay over a thousand dollars for a laptop when they can get one for less than five hundred. But the best part about corporate laptops is that the companies that buy them replace them long before they cease to be useful, so there are tons of "off lease" laptops available for about the same or only a little more than a new consumer laptop from Best Buy. And despite not having a manufactuerer's warranty, those used business class laptops are a far better value.
And now, because I had to hunt this information down: For the top five manufacturers, the lines of laptop that are business class instead of consumer class are:
Lenovo Thinkpad, especially the T (general) and X (ultralight) series.
HP Probook (general business) or Elitebook (high end workstations)
Dell Latitude (general) or Precision (high end)
Acer Travelmate
AsusPro.
I prefer Thinkpads, but Dell and HP also make good notebooks. I've no experience with Acer or Asus.
Laptop makers produce two very different kinds of laptops. They have lines of laptops intended for consumers, which are made to look pretty and cost as little as possible. Consumer laptops are *not durable* - they're made to outlive a one year warranty, and no longer. They have tons of promotional crapware preloaded on them - software that the manufacturer is paid to put on the computer (not the other way round), which is poor quality and makes money for the developer through ads, popups demanding that you upgrade, or actual user tracking and spying. And they are *not* designed to be easy to repair or upgrade.
And then there are lines of laptops intended for businesses and corporations. Which are usually not loaded with crapware (or not as much), which are designed to outlive a three or four year corporate replacement schedule, and which are often quite durable. And they can be easily repaired, because the corporate buyer gets them with a multi-year maintenance contract on them. They cost more, often significantly more. But they are worth it - a good corporate-grade laptop will last until it becomes obsolete, and will be more likely to survive accidents.
Understandably, most people are reluctant to pay over a thousand dollars for a laptop when they can get one for less than five hundred. But the best part about corporate laptops is that the companies that buy them replace them long before they cease to be useful, so there are tons of "off lease" laptops available for about the same or only a little more than a new consumer laptop from Best Buy. And despite not having a manufactuerer's warranty, those used business class laptops are a far better value.
And now, because I had to hunt this information down: For the top five manufacturers, the lines of laptop that are business class instead of consumer class are:
Lenovo Thinkpad, especially the T (general) and X (ultralight) series.
HP Probook (general business) or Elitebook (high end workstations)
Dell Latitude (general) or Precision (high end)
Acer Travelmate
AsusPro.
I prefer Thinkpads, but Dell and HP also make good notebooks. I've no experience with Acer or Asus.
no subject
The Dell XPS is another business notebook worth consideration, and you can easily install Ubuntu on it.
no subject
I'm a big fan of desktops because they're very upgradeable, too, and have been using my current one since 2011.