I only buy macs for my own and family use. I know they aren't cheap, but the lack of hassle makes them worthwhile for me. I have 13 year old twin boys. I got them a second laptop, a nice dell laptop last year, they destroyed it within 2 months. They share the macbook ever since(2 plus years). I had to take their macbook in for repairs when they dropped it down the stairs. The drive was squealing loudly.. I took it in, they ran tests and i didn't pay a dime. It is still running fine. My mac has 16gb of ram and I run all kinds of different os's in virtualbox. I do have several x64 laptops, but i use them as test systems. I recently bought a toshiba laptop for less than $300. I am a big proponent of buying last years model. They always come down in price. linda On 5/12/14, 8:27 AM, Marc Thomas wrote: > Harlan, > > There are tons of really good options to even more bad one. My > recommendation to everyone is not to be cheap. It may seem like a deal > now, but you will pay for it in a few years, either buy having to > replace it early, or spend money and time on repairs. > > The Lenova Thinkpad line of laptops are generally of a higher quality > than most mainstream laptops and range in price from reasonable to > expensive. They are not my preferred laptop, but I know a lot of > people that swear by them. If your will to shell out a little extra > money for some of the sharpest looking, and most reliable laptops on > the market, I would look at the macbook air (11' and 13') and macbook > pro (13', 15') laptops. Macbooks are proven to have better hardware > reliably than most any other laptop manufacturer and their support > (apple care) is by far the best in the industry. Meaning if something > goes wrong, they will often offer to just give you a new/refurbished > one if they can't fix it for you at your local Apple store. > > Another good brand to look at is System 76. Their laptops are solid > and pretty easy on the eyes. They come pre-loaded with Ubuntu Linux > though they can run Windows and Mac if you really want to go that > route (hackintosh). They give you some of the best performance bang > for the buck at mid range prices with high end specs. Their support > team has a good track record as far as actually helping with you > call/email. > > > Hope that helps! > > > On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 7:48 AM, Max Shinn > <max at bernsteinforpresident.com <mailto:max at bernsteinforpresident.com>> > wrote: > > > In my experience... a computer that is used daily costs about > $300-$400 > > per year of service. > > $300-$400/year of service?! I'm currently running a 4+ year old > Dell that cost $500 new, and haven't put in a dime to repair it. It > gets at least 4-5 hours of use per day. I usually keep computers > around 5-6 years, and the only repairs I've ever had to do were > replacing a keyboard (on a ThinkPad) and a backlight (on an older > Dell). > > > For the PC-compatible laptops, who makes the most reliable > > consumer-class systems? Which of their product lines are more > > reliable? > > I think I'm going to have to suggest ThinkPads just because the > repairs > are so easy to do. It's also one of the few laptops on the market > available without a glossy screen (if that is important to her). It > also seems much better put together than the Dells I've had. > > > Mostly she uses her computer for web browsing, email, word > processing > > and spreadsheets. She would like something faster than she has > right > > now, or at least better response times. Her current computer has an > > AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 2.0 GHz cpu, 3GB RAM. > > Thanks for reminding me how much I love Bodhi/E17. ;) > > -Max > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org <mailto:tclug-list at mn-linux.org> > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > > > > -- > Website <http://mathomaste.ch> : Google+ > <https://plus.google.com/u/0/103260909450809151378/about> : Twitter > <https://twitter.com/mathomastech> : GitHub > <https://github.com/mathomastech> > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20140512/19327062/attachment-0001.html>