What desktop-replacement laptop should I go for?

I am not a computer whiz, but I trust the folks at CNET.com to give thorough reviews of all the latest gadgets and computers. Their ratings of laptops can be found here.

I’m not a computer expert so I don’t know how helpful this will be. I have a Toshiba Qosmio that I am very happy with it. My only peeve is that it is now about 18 mths – 2 years old and I need to replace the battery. Other than that (touching wood) it’s great. I have had a couple of other Toshiba laptops and I prefer them to the IBM I had and there was another brand I had but I can’t remember the name.

I am not a gamer either but I multitask a lot and I use analytical software and usually have Word, Excel, Photoshop and other applications open at the same time.

My work laptop is a DELL and it’s also great. I can’t complain about it and the battery life is phenomenal. I was working for hours on it the other day and then realised it wasn’t plugged in. I have a docking station on my desk and a monitor so I get the best of both worlds. The flexibility of a laptop with the benefits of a big monitor at work. I don’t know how expensive a docking station set up is, but given your web design work, that might be something to consider. Also, I have heard (no idea if it’s true) that an area where the Apple brand really does excel is for those working in the graphics/design area.

I will be interested in hearing from other more expert computer people in the community.

I like Lenovo’s I have been working with them 6+ years now professional and the number of service calls I put in for them in significantly less then I ever had with HP or Dell (for a 700 person company I submitted 1 service ticket a quarter for lenovo tops – for HP I was doing several a month for bad parts and dell.. well yeah nothing good to say about em).

Check out the Lenovo M series desktops they are great.

@Hawaii_Jake Thanks for the link. Reading reviews is definitely part of my to-do list in sussing out which to target.

@Bellatrix At the moment I am working on a seven-year-old Toshiba. I’ve still got the original battery in it. It’s painfully slow now, though. I get lag even typing on Fluther. I’m a heavy-duty multitasker too, but this old laptop can’t handle more than a couple of applications open. Not enough RAM on board.

@mrlaconic Thanks for a professional report. I’ve heard that both Dell and HP have had quality issues of late. I’ll definitely have a look at the Lenevo M series.

I do all of my computer shopping at Newegg.

Nvidia graphics, i5 processor, 4GBRAM, pretty rave reviews for this Lenovo.

@Fred931 Thanks. Check this one out. Looks pretty good, and I am a Costco member.

The thing you want to be careful with on Lenovo laptops that are NOT T series is that if you are not using an external mouse and keyboard make sure you have the ultra nav tools for the mouse enabled. The placement of the track pad is weird you will probably find that your hand slides over it while you type causing your curser to jump.

Otherwise that looks like a good deal to me.

@mrlaconic It doesn’t mention anything about T series. How do I tell?

The one you picked is a G series (Lenovo G6780)

Sorry I meant G570 I clicked the link that @Fred931 posted by mistake. Either way the one you picked is a G. And to be fair I have never worked with G so I could be wrong but I have worked with the E, and T series and the biggest complaints I got (and experienced) about E was the touch pad issue. Never with the T

I can’t see why, with an external keyboard and mouse, I’d ever get near the touch-pad. But it would be an issue when I run around with it outside the office. Thanks for the warning.

I have worked with touch-pads that suffered from poor human engineering. The only way I know of to protect yourself from that is to try one out on display in a store.

Is Newegg the cheapest there is?

I just bought a desktop replacement laptop for my wife – 8GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, BR/DVD, Nvidia GTX555-M, Core i7 32** CPU, 1920×1080 display, etc. from a store here (in Japan) for 54,000 yen – $688.

Surely there’s a better $$$$:performance ratio out there.

@the100thmonkey That’s a lot of computing power for the price. That show hold me for the foreseeable future. I don’t think Newegg is the price leader, but they do provide solid service whereas some of the fly-by-night sites do not.

@the100thmonkey I have a good feeling your geography is the big reason for the price difference. How long and hard did you have to look to find something that cheap?

@Fred931: About 20 minutes.

@olko Maybe for this one’s replacement.