@supereb Hi E., my choice was the Gateway but alas, it has disappeared (someone bought the name). I also like Acer and ASUS. I have an ASUS Transformer Prime tablet that I (and my parents) love. As for OS, still prefer XP though Win 7 seems okay.

p.s. work laptop is a Dell latitude with Win 7 and an Intel i5 chip

@supereb Yeah, the home group thing has caused us issues too…

Hi @rich-brooks —

Actually I would rather own outright.  Leasing just means that in time, I’ll own an outdated machine. This way I can upgrade and sell whenever needed.  Students especially need a basic computer and I’ve sold quite a few over the years with some fairly decent return. I mean unless you update the RAM (which I did on some) your machine will be outdated by the time you open the box. 

Back in the early and mid 90′s my company previewed some of the first 
“mass market produced” laptop computers.  Of those Toshiba stood out as having the best “wear friendly” hardware.  They sent us models for review as did a couple of other companies and we used them for a prescribed period of time; wrote some copy and sent them back. I’ve been in love with laptops ever since. 

We did not have the opportunity to preview/review Mac’s so I still don’t know squat (except what I read) about Macs or the OS Apple developed for their computers.

The newest laptop on order will have Win7 installed as I know all my software will run on that OS.  I had a guy here last week telling me how great Win8 is but unless I could run some of my software (that I cannot live without) I’ll be working on the Win7 OS until software upgrades come down the pike for my chosen programs.

There are also a few utilities that I cannot live without too and all run on Win7 — TinySpell  and  CopyTo/MoveTo are a must along with a few others.

I hated to buy a new laptop with an older OS but such is way the technology flows – hardware, software and OS are never quite in sync all at the same time.

Eileen 

@supereb  I’m a Dell person. I’ve had issues with Toshiba and HP, but never any issues with Dell. Although I have heard very good things about Asus.

On the Apple front. The lack of ability to recycle, reuse and upgrade Apple’s make them a no-go for me. When a battery dies the computer is obsolete? Talk about consumerism. I also think the quality of their products is dropping off. My Dad has been an Apple guy from the very start. Has owned most of their products. (Buys the newest , best as soon as it comes out.) (He is a techy geek from the beginning of the computer era.) He is starting to cuss Apple quality. And for him this is on the level of him selling his children!  He’ll never go PC, But I was completely shocked at his level of frustration with the quality of the current products.  

@supereb i never  do that part  thank  heavens…

.. i know  with every  new  computer  something   is  really hard  for dh and  things  change for me and  he  doesnt  understand…. we dont speak the same language when it comes to tekk stuff…….. i think  some of my passwords  fell off  last time…. our  networking  is  so  complicated and   causes  all kinds of  router issues…..some  things are  not on  every computer… 

we did the  cloud thing with my  phone pictures  …huge  hassle…now i take the pictures and walk  by the  computer and they  register and i can get to them…so  im happy….they have a big padlock on them  but  it  dissappears   when i post….  he  doesnt want to talk about that….lol

Hi @amyhallbiz —

I got a little crosswise with Dell right from the get go.  Back when (90s again), even the screws on their cases (all parts) were proprietary.  SO, if I was working on a Dell I had pay their ridiculously high prices for any replacement parts. 

My then partner and I had ordered all the right parts for upgrades to a network for a local copy shop.  Once we were inside the server (unfortnatly Dell) there were no brackets on the empty slots and of course universal brackets would not fit. Luckily I had some regular tools in the back of the van.  We bent and hammered universal brackets to make them fit! It was solid and it worked — luckily no one would ever see them.  Dell’s brackets were about 10 times more expensive than universal ones and only a smidgen shorter – ridiculous.

At any rate I hated working on Dells!  And from those early experiences, I have never purchased anything “Dell.”  I know Dell is now a good, reliable brand so don’t take my OH!pinion to heart – just an illustrating story.  We base opinions on what we know and none of us knows every-darn-thing, you know?

Should we be dropping names like this?  Yikes!  Maybe Dell will find this and send me some super slick products to review (and keep!).  Day-dream’n, eh?

Eileen

HI @amyhallbiz —  

Since it’s been some years since I worked on upgrading computer systems myself (a lot anyhowsen) it is quite possible that some of the proprietary has slacked but then again, I wouldn’t count on it.  Heh.

Eileen