New laptop

[Bahumat]

I've not looked at laptops in ages so I hoped you guys could help me on a couple of questions.

1) All the new laptops seem to have Windows 8 which I don't like, nor will the person buying it. Do you know of websites which will provide you with a Windows 7 build including recovery (like how Dell's recovery works).

2) Who are the good brands. I used to love Dell but the past few have been so poorly made. I was thinking Sony.

3) What good sites do you use to purchase these? I remember laptopsdirect but that's about it

 

[TdC]

Dudezor, a mate just bought a lenovo Y 510P and it is, tbh, sweet as fuck ! I have a prev-gen maxed out Vaio Pro and the lenovo is just seems better in use. Much quicker. It runs windows 8 with I declared to be "meh" within about 5 minutes of use although I can see the benefits for people who do like 80 things at once on their computers. Me, I'm old school and just tend to have a minimal set of programs running. The imo GREAT thing about that lenovo is that it *doesn't* have a touch screen but a fantastic mouse surface which pleases me: I have NO IDEA why people want to touch screens of devices that are not dedicated to that purpose (like tablets).

So, normally I would pull a Bodhi and say "get a Vaio Pro" but after having used the Lenovo I would say it's an acceptable alternative. The guy bought it from a real-world shop, and he got them to put the currently top-performing consumer SSD in there at 256GB, and they moved the OS over from the mechanical disk and everything for him at no additional cost (bar the price of the SSD ofc). OSwise I don't know if they'll give you 7 over 8. Mickysoft is a bit strange when it comes to that, offering manufacturers discounts to plug the latest and greatest etc etc.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y510p/

 

[Hawkwind]

My latest MSi GT70 beast for gaming on long biz trips.

Very nicely built as was my last Asus RoG. Both manufacturers seem to have excellent laptop build quality.

 

[Bahumat]

Oh sorry this is for a non gamer friend.

 

[SawTooTH]

Lenovo's are very good. I use a Lenovo at work with a base station so I can plug into a monitor keyboard & mouse set up.

 

[soze]

Some Business spec Lenovo and HP machines come pre downgraded to Windows 7. Your other choice is to get hold of some OEM media and install Windows 7 yourself. This can actually be a blessing. Every laptop now comes with so much shit preloaded a fresh install is the cleanest option. It is the first thing I do on both my work and home laptops. When you have a Windows license on a Laptop or PC you are entitled to downgrade two versions. You do this by installing from OEM media then during activation you select the option to call MS and explain it is for a downgrade and they should activate for you. So depending on the version that is installed you can either downgrade to 7 Professional, Vista Business for Windows 8 Pro or 7 Home Premium, Vista Home Premium for Windows 8.

I personally would recommend Dell I have had no issues with my Alienware and just got a cracking deal on extending the warranty. I have just had a look at our return numbers in work and if it was not for a bad batch (1000 machines delivered and over 100 had to come back) of recently delivered custom built ones Lenovo would win by a mile. Lenovo have under a 5% failure rate with our supported customers but Acer have nearer 30%. The numbers are not black and white as one school has had a batched of 30 odd Acers repaired multiple times with physical damage.

We seem to get a hell of a lot of complaints about Sony only because you seem to need a firs bit of the bloatware installed to make things work. So if you do go down the downgrade route make sure and check the manufactures website to make sure Windows 7 drivers are available.

 

[Bahumat]

Thanks Soze.
I would not touch Dell with a barge pole.
Ex's laptop arrived with a faulty screen. Hard drive died just outside warranty and the model had a very nasty habit of overheating due to one poorly placed fan. I think this is what also caused the battery to lose its charge.

Sisters is ok but has a dead pixel. They did not exchange this, but really we should have returned it via the cool off period. She went to uni a few days after getting the laptop so decided to just live with it.

Brothers over heats and they keyboards are horrid. Buttons have fallen off all 3 laptops.