It doesn't work like that. Most PC "manufacturers" (including Apple) don't make PCs, and they all use the same Taiwanese OEMs/ODMs and Chinese factories. The main ones are Quanta, Compal, Pegatron (spun out of Asus), Foxconn (Hon Hai), Wistron (spun out of Acer), Inventec etc.
Quanta is probably the biggest notebook manufacturer, followed by Compal and Pegatron. Compal and Pegatron probably have the best quality overall.
Most PC suppliers use several manufacturers, sometimes as many as five (Dell, I think). Asus currently uses Pegatron, Compal and Wistron, so it's average quality should be pretty good.
It's a tough business because the number of viable contract manufacturers is growing while the number of viable PC OEMs is shrinking. (No more Gateway, Compaq, TI, IBM etc, except as brands.)
In addition, companies with large volume sales can afford to offer several product ranges aimed at different markets. Dell, for example, has different ranges for consumers (Inspiron is low end, XPS is high end) and for businesses (Latitude, Optiplex, Precision), plus Vostro for the SO/HO market.
So, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to compare, for example, Dell with HP with Lenovo. They all have multiple ranges made in different factories -- and they could all be using the same factories!
You'd really need to compare the same types of laptop (low-end, mid-range, high-end / consumer, business, enterprise) across different PC manufacturers.
If you don't do this, the "worst" brand is likely to be whichever company makes the biggest volumes of really cheap consumer laptops, especially if they don't support them particularly well. This used to be Acer. Today, it's probably Lenovo.
Conversely, the "best" brand is likely to be whichever company makes the smallest volumes of really expensive laptops ;-)
I don't think it's so simple. Sure, Apple makes laptops at the same places as Dell or Lenovo. But I can't imagine Apple releasing, as Dell as, multiple product lines with a glaring quality defect (coil whine). Or consistently using cheaper IPS displays with backlight bleed and PWM like Lenovo. Apple's laptops aren't defect free by any means (e.g. anti glare coating rubbing off, paint rubbing off on the black polycarbonate MacBooks), but they are sporadic and don't seem to be the result of conscious decisions to cut corners.
In fairness, there's also a market for "80-90% of the quality for 40-50% of the cost". Apple's strategy is to stick to high end and that's worked out well for them but for someone like me who uses a laptop only occasionally as a secondary computer or for mobile media stuff (dj, vj, projection art, etc) they just don't offer something I can justify buying.
Last laptop I bought was maybe 3 years ago. I was comparing everything at the local Microcenter and wanted something fairly powerful but not to the point that I was paying a hefty premium for that last "tier" of polish and quality. By sorting the options to include only i7, at least 16GB RAM, dedicated GPU, and at least 1920x1080 display, I was left with some silly Asus that looked like a Michael Bay Transformer, another Asus with a tasteful aluminum chassis, and a Macbook Pro.
The black thing with red LED lighting was out because I guess I am still a bit shallow and superficial. The other Asus had a better GPU, lower quality TN display, and spinning HDD in comparison to the lower-end GPU, nicer IPS display and SSD on the MBP. But the aluminum Asus cost $999 and the MBP was $2399.
I wouldn't have minded buying an Apple notebook if there had been a more affordable option with similar tradeoffs but as you say, they don't make ones like that. And I'd certainly like a nicer screen but not for more than double the price. A SSD was easy enough to swap into the Asus and when I upgraded the one in my desktop, I passed that older SSD down to the laptop.
I guess the main point is that these other OEMs like Asus still do decent sales and produce options with less-than-top-tier parts because there's a real market for those who are fine buying an Accord instead of a Mercedes even if the Mercedes has some superior features or build. Not sure how much of it is artificial (as far as intentionally targeting different price brackets with parts that may only cost the OEM $100-200 less to include).
Either way, as my current budget stands, I'll continue to gravitate toward whatever company can sell me "not quite the best" for half the cost of the top tier.
You'd really need to compare the same types of laptop (low-end, mid-range, high-end / consumer, business, enterprise) across different PC manufacturers.
Lenovo ideapad (cheap ones, superfish, avoid) and Lenovo Thinkpad (no superfish, mostly good) should be thought separate manufacturers. They're not comparable.
For quality and reliability. This is astonishingly subjective and quite probably wrong :p
1. Thinkpad. Not as good as they were, but appear to be trying to improve again. Usually a fairly safe bet for BSD & Linux drivers. Support (UK) have been excellent.
2. Dell
2. HP
(Like with Lenovo separate the cheap consumer crap, and the well made professional ranges)
3. The rest
4. Apple. Well made, hopeless for upgrade, now very overpriced. New keyboard seems to be disliked on reviews so far.
99. Acer - Pet hate brand that always seems to have far more than fair share of issues, and support (UK) terrible.
No experience of clevo or system76. Not sure MS have been around long enough with Surface to judge well yet. Personally I would be wary of Razer, though I've not owned a laptop of theirs, which might be superb. None of their mice and keyboards seem to last 5 minutes. Santa will bring the kids no more Razer Nagas.
How can thinkpads reasonably be trusted after superfish though? Some security agencies don't even allow Lenovo hardware onsite, sort of implies something...
"Lenovo ideapad (cheap ones, superfish, avoid) and Lenovo Thinkpad (no superfish, mostly good) should be thought separate manufacturers. They're not comparable."
Why would you use preinstalled OS anyway? Every manufacturer installs ton of unneeded crapware. Just download pristine Windows iso and install it from scratch.
A clean windows install wouldn't make any difference. Lenovo installed their malware in the BIOS and set it to automatically make sure it was present, and reinstall itself if necessary, on every reboot.
Because I shouldn't have to do work just so the machine is usable. If I bought a PC, I would buy it from Microsoft, as they don't sell them with all the crap.
...other than first-party Microsoft crap. But you would get that anyway in any other OEM version of Windows, along with additional third-party crap.
As long as you're willing to put in a tiny bit of effort, you can know that all the software on your machine is coming from known people and companies, that you chose to trust.
Apple is the only company I would trust [at this time] to put only Apple software on retail Apple hardware. But that is because even if anybody was willing to comply with the inevitable list of strict requirements, Apple would almost certainly try to charge the third-parties so much to bundle their software, that no one would reasonably be able to justify the cost.
Microsoft, I could see making a deal with some third-party to put into certain models of the Surface. It might just be something like hardware drivers with a Windows GUI to change some settings, but they would do it.
I knew throwing personal experience out was going to open a can of worms! :)
They seem to act like they're separate. Hardware build and installed software is entirely different. I was under the impression they still operated as separate divisions. UK Support was even on separate numbers until fairly recently - now it separates at top level.
If Lenovo get a strike, Sony probably should for the rootkit.
If you're not comfortable ignore my "probably wrong" suggestions! :)
First thing I do with any Win machine is remove the crap and demos or clean install and add drivers. Or occasionally start immediately with !Windows.
Dell and HP have separate business and consumer laptop lines and they're not comparable in terms of quality. A Dell Latitude (historically good) is nothing like an Inspiron or XPS (inferior).
Also one mustn't discount post sale service in evaluating options. The value of a particular laptop is more than the box itself. What happens if you have problems? How easy is it to get it fixed? How long will you be without it for in the meantime?
I've had three Thinkpads in two years (T440, two T450s). Their build quality is okay by PC standards, not great. The keyboard deck is warped on my work T450s. The screen was shit on my T440. The screen is shit with bad backlight bleed and low maximum brightness on both T450s.
EDIT: Oh I forgot about the absolute ton of crapware on the machine out of box.
A surprise. I always felt screens have been one of their best features, with great consistency and brightness so far. I'm looking to replace at the moment, and t460 t560 are shortlisted along with dell and HP. So now I'm clueless again. :p
Don't like the 6 row chiclet keyboard, sound is garbage on recent machines I've had, don't seem as resilient, and not the same attention to detail.
Crapware? Access Connections (Adobe Air made it slow junk), warranty/help/update thing. No Norton any more. They started adding other junk?
As for crapware: my T450s came with a bunch of Lenovo-branded garbage, like a settings app, a power management app, and an update app. That leaves you with, e.g. two different ways to configure your power management settings, and three different ways to configure things like mouse settings (the Windows modern app, the lenovo app, and the Windows app). For $1,000, a machine should just come with Microsoft software.
I recently got an HP Spectre, I would not recommend it (due to unresolved driver/hardware issues) but the build quality is pretty good! Keyboard is very nice with excellent travel.
Not sure if this is anecdotal or not, but the Dell business-laptop lines (Lattitude et al) have been having hard-drive corruption problems at the company where I work for ages.
As for Razer, I hear their products are excellent (laptop wise).
As for their peripherals, please guys, there's Roccat just down the road and it's cheaper and better.
With Clevo resellers, you get excellent components for the money, but the chassis is usuallt not the 'sexiest'. I'de go with a clevo reseller purely because you can get a rediculous spec for little money (1TB SSD, i7, 8-16GB RAM in clevo world is like 256GB SSD, i5, 8GB RAM in the 'branded' world)
As for Samsung, I've owned one for 5 years and it's still going strong. Flexy chassis though.
HP...sticky keyboard I've heard from friends and wider.
Lenovo...still not forgotten SilverFish crap. As for hardware though, I've heard their business line up is tough and rugged as fck. Suits the frequent traveller I suppose.
Don't talk to me about Apple...planned obselence, bribing developers to not developer for Linux and only MacOS (even though they are 99% the same fcking thing), rip off, etc. Battery is good and heard the frame is rugged enough though. MacOS is obviously stable as hell, depending on release (lol Sierra tho).
> As for their peripherals, please guys, there's Roccat just down the road
Ahhhh, Roccat, the makers of the least reliable keyboard I have ever owned in 30+ years. Email support is terrible. Amazon refunded after the 4th broke.
The Kone mouse I bought at the same time has been lovely and is still going.
> Not sure if this is anecdotal or not, but the Dell business-laptop lines (Lattitude et al) have been having hard-drive corruption problems at the company where I work for ages.
I just got a Dell XPS 13 (with Ubuntu pre-installed). It's a fairly well built machine and works without any major issues that I could find. I mostly bought it because of the infinity edge screen (very small bevel), which you won't find with most other vendors. So if you are looking for an ultra-portable it's a decent choice. (not affiliated with Dell in any way and this is my first machine I bought from them).
The one issue I've heard about in several reviews of the XPS 13 is "coil whine" -- a small electrical buzzing sound coming from under the keyboard. Has that been an issue for you?
Consumer HP is practically two brands at this point, HP people know and hate, and "premium-HP" which made the Spectre, easily one of the best laptops I ever owned.
And the same probably goes for a lot of other brands (IdeaPad vs Thinkpad for example)
I also have a Thinkpad Edge, the cheap Thinkpad line. The build and the quality feel very cheap, but just as you, I've had it for 3 years, I've abused it as my work laptop for 2 years and had no problems with it.
Exactly my thought, the build quality (plastic, stain resistance, etc) and screen resolution are on the cheap side, however if you're like me and you don't care about that sort of things (in favor of something affordable and "just works") I really suggest some ideapads.
I know it will entirely depend on models. But still if we stick to their flagship laptop or desktop or server. Which is most reliable company to trust and feel assured of having best value for my money.
MS actually did Surface RT once. But I understand it was a test phase.
You don't want flagships either. That puts the premium on features instead of reliability. Sort of like old Cadillacs or Corvettes: lots of fancy features that broke down constantly.
You want the enterprise lines: focus on reliability and backwards compatibility rather than price or whiz-bang features. Just a year or two ago one of the best signs that you were getting one of those would have been the presence of a VGA port.
"Lenovo" could mean "IdeaPad" or it could mean "ThinkPad T series", which occupy very different positions. The same could be done for pretty much every manufacturer on your list.
I've had a Fujitsu that lasted for seven years. Lenovos are also great but personally I don't trust them after what happened last year and I've heard good things for Dell and Toshiba. On the contrary I've heard horror stories regarding Acer, they're either hit or miss, mostly miss.
The thing is that most manufacturers have significantly raised the quality of their products especially in the high end range. We probably have to thank Apple for that which showed that is a huge market for high end laptops. Even HP builds quality machines these days.
I am a touch typist and rely on keyboard shortcuts for most of the tasks I do. I also carry a mouse when I carry Windows machine. I find mouse more accurate and reliable in comparison to touch pad.
As I own a mac I have some bitter experience with it when it comes to keyboard shortcuts. For example:
If you cmd+M to minimize an app, how would you bring it back.
Navigating in application windows in Mission control using arrow keys.
I do all of what you describe and I also need a mouse with windows laptops - but not because touchpads are bad in general, it's just that windows laptops have absolutely rubbish ones compared to Macbooks. A precision pointer device right below my thumb is still the most productive way to make the cursor go to a specific point on the screen - it's the only way to reduce that particular action down to one gesture in the general case. Hotkeys and macros only help in special cases. Doing computing today basically results in a series of little 1D problems and 2D problems. Sometimes the keyboard, which creates a 1D stream of input sequences, maps well to a 2D problem, but very often using an actual 2D device is the most efficient way of dealing with that.
Anecdote is not data but I have had good experiences with mid-range Toshiba laptops (me or my family have had 3) and now lately I bought my kids a couple of mid range Lenovas (2) and they seem fine. I just got an MSI and it seems good and a good value.
I use MacBook Pros at work a lot and they are fine, but they seem very overpriced.
1. Razer 2. Asus 3. Microsoft 4. Dell 5. Lenovo 6. HP 7. Acer 8. Sony (?) 9. Samsung Apple (?) Clevo (?) Toshiba (?) system76 (?) alienware (?)