Looking for a Good Laptop Manufacturer

[Railrunner130]

For nearly ten years I have purchased Dell laptops. After several issues with my latest XPS M1730, I have decided that I need to go with a different manufacturer next time around. I am about six months from replacing this computer.

I have the following prerequesites-
1. Quality customer support in the United States.
2. They must put out a quality product. I'm sick of having a "new" motherboard installed every six months.
3. The laptop I purchase must be a gaming laptop, sometimes called a desktop replacement.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a high quality manufacturer?

[Gdavis101]

I like Toshiba and from personal experience I would avoid Acer and most HP's. The best thing about desktops is that you can upgrade them, with a laptop you are stuck with what you have so what might be a great gaming laptop now might not be worth a cr*p in two years. I would never buy a "gaming" laptop.. But, that is just me.

[Willy]

Not sure how they would be for gaming, but both Mrs Willy and my daughter have Sonys. They've been very reliable with no problems.

I've always liked Toshiba, but have no experience with their laptops.

[TeaSea]

Personally Railrunner, I've bought about 5 Dell laptops in the past few years and like them. My daughter fell down some stairs with hers, sending it crashing to the concrete ground, and breaking the screen hinges leaving it dangling by the ribbon cables, and it continued to work fine (of course we had to buy a new one, but I got an extra drive and some ram out of the deal). Probably not what you want to hear but my recommendation would be stick with Dell. I would get a higher end machine (notice that after you check out all the "deals" and get them configured for the basics, you will have spent as much for a high end anyway).

I also have a Toshiba, and it also just keeps on ticking.....Won't run any of my software anymore but physically it's still solid--even if all the lettering on the keys has rubbed off.

[Dangerousdave26]

I have had an ASUS G72G for about two years

I bought a ASUS G74SX for my wife a few months ago.

They are both quality pieces of equipment**

http://usa.asus.com/Notebooks/Gaming_Powerhouse/G74SX/

**Let qualify that statement. Both of these models came from Best Buy and do not have all of the ram that the official ASUS model has. The G72G I purchased had a Seagate Mometus 500 GB hard drive in it when I bought it. That hard drive failed in 9 days. My only choice was to replace the whole laptop at Best Buy (well I could have let them send it to ASUS to get fixed but I was not about to do that). The second one I got had a hard drive failure in 28 days. This time I contacted ASUS and had them ship me a new hard drive. Again it was another Seagate Mometus (that's all the longer they last very good name). I immediately purchased a brand new Western digital 750 GB 7500 RPM hard drive and installed it in the laptop. No more seagate for me. It has been running fine since. When I bought my wife's laptop I ordered a Western digital hard drive and replaced it before the laptop was a week old.

I do not believe the official ASUS laptop comes with a Seagate Drive.

[Kiwikat]

I would suggest a Lenovo Thinkpad or an HP business-class laptop.

Business class laptops are built MUCH better than consumer ones. I don't think I'll ever buy anything but a thinkpad again because of its quality. I've never seen, touched, or used a laptop that is this nice.

You said it had to be a gaming laptop- you can get thinkpads with decent (not the greatest) graphics cards. Though they're made more for workstations than gaming. I've got a friend that uses his thinkpad for FSX and it runs it pretty well.

[Railrunner130]

Does anyone have a Falcon Northwest? I found their website the other day and their product line looks pretty sharp.

[java2srv]

I bought 4 Sager Notebooks in the past 4-5 years, 2 for my folks and 2 for me. They're all outstanding systems, all gaming laptops, 17" and they run FS9 very well. The newer Sagers ought to do nicely with FS10 and most of the other recent top-end games.

I bought my NP5792 and NP5793 about a year apart when Dell and Toshiba stopped making Win XP available on new systems. This was back in the early days of Vista. My Sagers also run Linux flawlessly -- which means well standardized hardware configurations and drivers. The NP5793 uses Nvidia 9800M GTS, the NP5792 uses 8700M GT -- both of which I maxed out on video memory when I bought the systems.

Sager rebrands Clevo in the U.S. Sager support is U.S. based right out of City of Industry, CA -- so you talk to Sager techs when you call for support. Every Sager comes with lifetime technical support.

I've had my Sagers opened up for upgrades, hard drives and memory, and they are nicely built -- well laid out, easy to clean those fans (2 of them), and not cramped or weird internal layouts. By comparison cleaning the fans on my 2 Dell XPS lappys (XPS Gen 2 and an M1710) I have to just about take the whole Dell apart including removing the display from the base.

The Sager web site is excellent for technical specifications and for comparison shopping. If you call their sales they are super knowledgeble about the systems and will listen to you and answer your questions rather than just try to sell you something and blow smoke on you. Some of the sales staff are also the tech support engineers.

For a desktop replacement laptop you ought to consider one of these too -- ZALMAN Notebook Cooler Model ZM-NC2000 -- they keep my systems running nice and cool, especially for gaming. I've tried cheaper laptop coolers but the Zalmans are quiet, cool and built to last.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834998686

Sager Notebooks
http://www.sagernotebook.com/

[Lionheart]

If you want something that can run FSX, then you probably want Alienware. They arent as good as their earlier units. I purchased one used and love it; dual hard drives, dual graphics cards. Incredible gaming laptop. The new one has a metal casing. I have heard that since it became Dell, it went down a bit in quality, but it is still ranked among the best in gaming computers, and that is what it is designed for.

Asus would be my second choice for a 'windows' gaming computer.

I myself personally want to move to an Apple MacBookPro with quadcore i7 and 8 to 12 gigs of Ram. Best customer service on Planet Earth and it usually has no issues to begin with. Well made units and you can load Win7 on them as Bootcamp, alternate OS system, booting up in either Windows or OSX, your choice.

[Kiwikat]

I myself personally want to move to an Apple MacBookPro with quadcore i7 and 8 to 12 gigs of Ram. Best customer service on Planet Earth and it usually has no issues to begin with.

LOL tell that to our helpdesk...