Most people usually claim what they use is the best. Except you visit a pc forum, you'l neva know what the best is. That said, how do you know what you use is the best when you haven't even tried more 3 model of 3 makes. Sony makes fancy laptops, fine. Sony makes best laptops? How do you come about that?

I mean compare things technical like how sony products work with intel processors, athlon processors and NVIDIA cards, the BIOS stability, durability of the physical ports, interconnectivity with other brands, battery life, ease of driver download, ease of setup, all sorts of stuff I can't go into now. After all these analysis, with all models of every make, can you come to a conclusion about which is best.

For now, I have 3 Dells (2 inspirons and 1 latitude) and 1 HP pavilion for some months and recently bought a phillips (cos it was cheap for an Intel quad-core processor). I have supported Sonys, Acers, compaqs, many many. I still can't say which is the best but if I have to recommend one because of ease of spare parts and driver downloads and durability, it's DELL man!

One more thing, Sony sells too expensively for what most Lappies can do on the fly. Flipping overpriced boxes.

where to get good laptop

Wetin dey worry una, the name of my laptop is not there, GATEWAY

whats that?

Gateway na name of laptop?

Personally, i think Sony makes the best of laptops. They may be slightly more expensive, but when it comes to quality, durability, composition & aesthetics; give it to Sony. What more am i looking for in a Laptop?!?!

top_kin:

Personally, i think Sony makes the best of laptops. They may be slightly more expensive, but when it comes to quality, durability, composition & aesthetics; give it to Sony. What more am i looking for in a  Laptop?!?!   

wrong! on those specs, Apple beats Sony and everyone else.

every Wintel laptop has severe limitations in that all innovations most revolve around Windows. PC manufacturers in the windows world can only add one or two "features" or colors or artwork to entice people into buying. therefore, your HPs and Dells and Toshibas and Emachines (fomerly Gateway), Lenovos (fomerly IBM) can only build the hardware, incorporate standard buses and peripherals (USB etc) and then wait for Microsoft to provide the innovation. this means that all these wintel OEMs are at the mercy of Bill Gates and co.

therefore the issue of "best laptop" among these machines is questionable: mostly the arguments FOR and AGAINST revolve around manufacturer support, build durability, battery life (mind you, third parties build the batteries as well as much else in these machines), color, and artwork on the casing.

all the above are hardly "performance innovations" and subject the yardsticks to very flexible interpretations; to A, engraving and a choice of case colors make a certain product the best; to B, number of USB ports and screen real estate translates as best.

see the limitations on the wintel laptops?

now lets come to what i generally consider the "best" laptops: Apple Macbook series.

its no secret i favor Apple, but the reasons arent farfethced. consider this: while the rest of the Wintel OEMs are shackled to the whims of Microsoft and Windows and have to tailor their products in accordance with the dictates of Windows, Apple is free from this restraint because Apple makes both machine and the softare that goes into it. therefore Apple can afford to innovate the hardware and software (the OS and most of the apps).

Apple, because it builds and owns its operating system, is able to tweak the OS such that it fits the hardware like a glove, and what you get is a near seamless, enjoyable and productive computing.

lately the Macbook and the Pro have had the following innovations/features:

1. Precision Unibody enclosures, which means the machine is built from a solid aluminum block and cut by lasers. this makes it durable, sleek, and attractive.

2. Magsafe powercord. pull heavily on the cord and the sensor detects the force and quickly snaps the cord free, meaning you can't trip over the cord and smash the laptop.

3. two nvidia GPUs. TWO! (Nvidia 9400M and 9600M GT)

4. LED-backlit displays.

5. ultrathin glossy screens.

6. backlit keyboards.

7. Mini DisplayPort connector for the best possible High Def output

8. glass button-less multitouch trackpad.

now there has always been disputes here in Nairaland regarding the superiority or otherwise of OS X over Windows Vista. Thankfully this dispute rages only here, as much of the informed world knows the better OS.

granted OS X has its share of bugs, but its still much more stable, easy, faster than Windows. and you get daily updates by Apple. Also, software packages for graphics work (like Quark), Photos (Aperture), Office work (PAges, Numbers, Keynote), music (garageband), video editing/effects (Final Cut)  and even Microsoft Office 2008 (including Microsoft Entourage which isnt on Windows) are far better and easier on the Mac than on Winodws.

and it only gets better: snow leopard set to be released january 2009 is to have the following features:

1. Microsoft Exchange Support

Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 built into Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Mac OS X uses the Exchange Web Services protocol to provide access to Exchange Server 2007. Because Exchange is supported on your Mac and iPhone, you’ll be able to use them anywhere with full access to your email, contacts, and calendar.

2. To accommodate the enormous amounts of memory being added to advanced hardware, Snow Leopard extends the 64-bit technology in Mac OS X to support breakthrough amounts of RAM — up to a theoretical 16TB, or 500 times more than what is possible today. More RAM makes applications run faster, because more of their data can be kept in the very fast physical RAM instead of on the much slower hard disk.

3. Multicore

“Grand Central,” a new set of technologies built into Snow Leopard, brings unrivaled support for multicore systems to Mac OS X. More cores, not faster clock speeds, drive performance increases in today’s processors. Grand Central takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems.

4. OpenCL

Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations per second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for general-purpose computing.

5. Media and Internet

Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone, Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, a streamlined, next-generation platform that advances modern media and Internet standards. QuickTime X features optimized support for modern codecs and more efficient media playback, making it ideal for any application that needs to play media content.

Because Snow Leopard delivers the fastest implementation of JavaScript to date, web applications are more responsive. Safari runs JavaScript up to 53 percent faster with Snow Leopard.



so while the rest of the pc industry waits on Microsoft to provide compelling new features, Apple is miles ahead.


granted the machines are a bit expensive, but save for the rubbish Macbook Air (which thankfully has been updated) the cost-perfromance ratio is similar to what obtains on most wintel machines. that is to say, any wintel machine with 2 nvidia discrete GPUS, 802.11n, core 2 duo 2.8ghz and 2 gigs of RAM running at 1066mhz (most wintels are in the 600mhz800mhz- range), 1066mhz FSB and upto 6mb of shared L2 cache will no doubt be expensive!


but its good value for money.

sure there are more apps on Windows than on OS X, but thats because there are more Windows machines; besides everything one needs is available on Mac, most times in better form. and you have the added bonus of being able to run Windows natively on Mac machines. you can't run OS X on a non-Apple machine without advanced trickery and hacks

we cannot really blame the Hps and Dells and Sonys: Microsoft owns Windows and licenses it to them, therefore any stagnation in the OS in these machines is the fault of MS.

there are strong indications that Google is working on its own OS, as is HP. hopefully they'll vary the field and force MS to innovate and try to be on a par with OS X.

so in sum, "best laptop" is dependent on a number of factors; in the PC/Wintel world, those factors are few and far between.

@Ex i knew you would finally berth your ship on the os front. linux is good, windows is good, leopard or even lion if apple chooses to call its next operating system that, is good. just stick to the one you find comfortable to use or that  meets your need. and don't tell me apple notebooks are the best because the os comes from the same company. and what gives you the impression microsoft can't go into hardware designing. note ,apple does not manufacture. personally i don't find apple notebook design appealing. windows has been serving the computing needs of  millions of pc users worldwide. and they are getting their JOBS done.

@flyuche


you know what? your endless tirades smack of utter jealousy! if you aint insulting the iphone, its the Mac or Apple as a whole. simply glance at the poll above and see what nairalanders think of Apple.

meanwhile, considering you've never had the privilege of being baptized in Apple waters i can safely ignore your rants.

meanwhile just got delivery of a spanking new Macbook! 2ghz core 2 duo, 2gig 1066mhz RAM, multitouch trackpad.

seeing this machine in real life and using it is an unspeakable experience.

will be offline as I'm fully immersed! 

@ flyuche

U really need to leave apple and Jobs alone

I earlier mentioned that the MAc should be off that list cos it is in a class by itself. There is no matching the apple. I dont own one so dont think i say so based on that. I have used the mac for various projects and it, I must say, is off the chains. Also considering reviews as well.

So putting that out of the list I would go for a sony for design, IBM for strength and thats it. Though I also use an HP tx 2500

hmmmm Ex don come again oh
Anyhw, how much get dat Macbook^{(am sure ova 300k abi? )}

best laptop out there - a fully load ibm thinkpad w700

that baby comes with an nvidia quadro fx 3700M (1gb dedicated workstation class graphics memory)
8gb maximum ram
up to quad core extreme config 2.4 - 3.2ghz
12mb L2 cache( if i remember correctly()

monitor calibration(i never sabi that one)
integrated wacom tablet
17 inch 1920 x 1200 monitor
raid configurable x 2 hard drive bays - this can be three if you buy an ultrabay (which enables you to hot swap the dvd drive with a hard drive
blu ray drive


during my leave , i played crysis. i've always thot of my current pc as pretty good in the hardware department , though its now old generation, but crysis brought it to its knees. i had to play in low graphics config . the game actually chose medium graphics, but the hanging in some places got to me - so back to medium. if i'd been playing crysis with this beast -

sadly fully loaded is at least $7500; my next laptop wil prolly be the new dell precision, tho that too will come to over $3000 and with junior it may just be a pipe dream, unless of course, we see plenty PP for 2009 (say amen! )

lynxnoon:

hmmmm Ex don come again oh
Anyhw, how much get that Macbook^{(am sure ova 300k abi? )}

$1400 tax inclusive, like 196,000 naira if the naira is still 140 to the dollar.

oyb:

best laptop out there - a fully load ibm thinkpad w700

that baby comes with an nvidia quadro fx 3700M (1gb dedicated workstation class graphics memory)
8gb maximum ram
up to quad core extreme config 2.4 - 3.2ghz
12mb L2 cache( if i remember correctly()

monitor calibration(i never sabi that one)
integrated wacom tablet
17 inch 1920 x 1200 monitor
raid configurable x 2 hard drive bays -  this can be three if you buy an ultrabay (which enables you to hot swap the dvd drive with a hard drive
blu ray drive


during my leave , i played crysis. i've always thot of my current pc as pretty good in the hardware department , though its now old generation, but crysis brought it to its knees. i had to play in low graphics config . the game actually chose medium graphics, but the hanging in some places got to me - so back to medium. if i'd been playing crysis with this beast - 

sadly fully loaded is at least $7500; my next laptop wil prolly be the new dell precision, tho that too will come to over $3000 and with junior it may just be a pipe dream, unless of course, we see plenty PP for 2009 (say amen! )

i have never seen a rig (save a Falcon) that played Crysis at full framerates without puffing! it seems the game is a benchmark now.

if i have to get a Wintel lappy it has to be the Dell XPS.

flyuche:

and don't tell me apple notebooks are the best because the os comes from the same company.

er, any other reason?

flyuche:

and what gives you the impression microsoft can't go into hardware designing.

i didnt say they can't go into designing, i simply said they don't. they know the entire pc market profit margin is slim so they figure selling site licenses and retailing to end users makes much better commercial sense.

besides, almost all microsoft hardware have failed or are failing: the Zune, the original xbox (which didnt turn a profit), the xbox360 (which is STILL not turning a profit in hardware sales), the SideWinder, MS keyboards  and MS mouse etc.

flyuche:

note ,apple does not manufacture.

note: neither does Nvidia which only designs GPUs and Nforce chipsets before contracting a mass manufacturer in Shenzen, neither does HP, Sony, Acer, Asus, etc. what, you think Microsof actually builds the xbox and the Zune? purleeze! almost everyone DESIGNS and contracts the actual building. saves cost!

the difference is. Apple engineers who designed the hardware are actively involved in the actual manufacturing process in china.

flyuche:

personally i don't find apple notebook design appealing.

gasp, NO! how can you? afterall, it doesnt have the gaudy colors or the silly artwork on your garden variety HPs and VAIOs. I'm sure crayola appeals to you.

flyuche:

windows has been serving the computing needs of  millions of pc users worldwide. and they are getting their JOBS done.

uh huh, everyone driving a Toyota from point A to Point B also get the job done, but just cause everyone drives a Toyota doesnt mean its the best car. actually, whatever is considered best is usually exclusive, more expensive and less in circulation.

whatever is mass produced and  everyone else uses usually earns the derogatory moniker "Generic".   

i think the poll result is being rigged

flyuche:

i think the poll result is being rigged

aha! i was sure maurice Iwu was here!

EDIT: there's a slight error in my post on Macbook above. the Nvidia 9600M GT is the discrete GPU, the 9400M is integrated, but you can switch between the 2 depending on your graphics needs.

Apple

flyuche:

i think the poll result is being rigged

Me too.

dell lasts really long
sony looks nice
apple sucks (i really don't know how to use it)

WesleyanA:

apple sucks (i really don't know how to use it)

no apple doesn't suck. you suck.

Its impossible to have the best laptop for all purposes. for enterprise use IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads are iconic. for gaming its Alienwares and Voodoo . for Arts and Graphic Design Mac and HP is considered good for home use. Overall when it comes to hardware i think and the there is a clear winner here and that is Mac computers. u just cant take it from them. there always set the pace for other hardware makers to follow. we have 5 mac minis at work and i can attest to the awesome piece of technology those computers are.but what puts me off apple generally is the OS / hardware lock down. I love to have absolute control of my PC both software and hardware. and in as much as i feel apple innovations its the only thing that keep me off anything Mac. if i pay for a machine, be it a car or a laptop i want to have full control and flexibility to do exactly what i want. i cant get this with Mac computers. sure it possible to install another OS beside X on a Mac but AFAIK anything outside windows is not supported and would be hack job even then the machine till feels locked down. hence i settled for a dell xps m1330 that came preinstalled with ubuntu. xps m1330 is one of the best laptop of 2008/2007. and so far am pretty happy with it.

one laptop maker that people seem to give lot of praise is sony. its the only hardware maker that relies on pure hype. i have used 3 sonys laptops and there all crap. sure there look cool , but that is where it ends sony makes crapware. most of their parts dont last their cdroms and keyboards , their touchpad sucks and their webcam is the worst i have every seen in a laptop , acer make better hardware than sony.

sony laptops r very very durable.the only issue is price.sony is for the people that wants to combine perfomance with style,

my thinkpad just survived a 2 minute immersion in water!. try that with a macbook

flyuche:

my thinkpad just survived a 2 minute immersion in water!. try that with a macbook

Mac? Nah! too expensive and sophisticated a machine to dunk in water, thank you very much. perhaps if i had a Sony VAIO. . . . .

im not really sure, but common sense tells me no one builds a laptop with consideration for immersing in water. it'll take an utter dolt to try that.

@Bigbrovar

i concur. Dell XPS is it.

Ex Inferis:

Mac? Nah! too expensive and sophisticated a machine to dunk in water, thank you very much. perhaps if i had a Sony VAIO. . .

na that cheap thing you call expensive.

Sony vaio is actually one of great design but still doesnt come close to the mac.

cabali:

Sony vaio is actually one of great design but still doesnt come close to the mac.

they tend to ape Apple's design philosophy.

flyuche:


na that cheap thing you call expensive.

please try and be consistent in your jibes, you can afford that much if nothing else; one minute you say Apple products are overpriced "toys", next you call them cheap. you flip-flop worse than john mccain.

gbenga_tk:

sony laptops r very very durable.the only issue is price.sony is for the people that wants to combine perfomance with style,

I feel u

cabali:

Sony vaio is actually one of great design but still doesnt come close to the mac.

Apple make great pcs but the marketing hype and not performance makes them ahead of the others

Ex Inferis:

they tend to ape Apple's design philosophy.



please try and be consistent in your jibes, you can afford that much if nothing else; one minute you say Apple products are overpriced "toys", next you call them cheap. you flip-flop worse than john mccain.

YES APPLE IS GETTING MISERABLY CHEAP THESE DAYS, $99 IPHONE, UNDERSTAND YOU GET ONE FOR FREE AT WALMART NOW, JUST BUY HAMBURGER. APPLE IS BEGINNING TO REALISE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE [b]JOB[/b]LESS SOON, NO THANKS TO THE ECONOMIC RECESSION

flyuche:

YES APPLE IS GETTING MISERABLY CHEAP THESE DAYS, $99 IPHONE, UNDERSTAND YOU GET ONE FOR FREE AT WALMART NOW, JUST BUY HAMBURGER. APPLE IS BEGINNING TO REALISE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE [b]JOB[/b]LESS SOON, NO THANKS TO THE ECONOMIC RECESSION

when they make expensive products, you whine, when they make affordable products, you whine.

what a whiner.

rumors are strong apple is working on announcing affordable netbooks possibly with multitouch. its expected that the concept of the iphone appstore will be applied to the probable notebook in that apps will be downloaded and installed just like in the iphone. also, a rumored $99 iphone nano is said to be brewing, the same $99 phone flyuche is calling "hamburger refurbs". Fly, they dont even exist yet.

you can also try selling you products on www.boostsale.com

@Ex. your new macbook, is it the aluminium uniboby casing? is the casing scratch resistant? is the aluminium reinforced? the metal dents easily