Suggestions for a business laptop?

[Mallory Black]

I struggle with this.....
Mrs B needs a new computer for work and I'm looking for sugestions in what's a good brand and spec laptop
Basically...
prefer a popular established brand, eg Toshiba/HP
Windows 7
good speed/capacity (number crunching)
able to power 2 separate monitors as an extended display
ability to clip into a docking station for security would be good
long battery life not a big issue

[Bunyip]

MB,

New or ex-lease?

I just got an ex-lease Toshiba M780 for $270. Has 128GB Solid state hard drive, 4GB RAM and is a convertable tablet.

Love the tablet functionality as I go to lots of meetings (Both professional when I am working, and Scouts/Cricket/Netball clubs). I use Microsoft OneNote to take notes by hand. OneNote converts my handwriting (I should have been a doctor) to text in the background. I can then search all my notes etc..

Bunyip

[fridayman]

Lenovo T and X series are very good.

[Marschy]

IBM Lenovo. I use one at work with docking station and 2 x 23 inch monitors. I have the T500 model, some of the others in the office have later models, but pretty much the same. They are bullet proof

[noel_w]

We (work) had a batch of 350 Lenovo R400's and had quite a few failures with them especially keyboards and failing screens. Next batch were HP 6530b's and were much better as far as reliability goes but still not perfect.


We now will only deal with Dell (Latitude series). Service second to none, Others mentioned, well just say service none.


We have a fleet of 500 or so laptops and are now Dell only. We also have 1500 or so desktops that are Dell 990 & 980's


Personally I like Asus laptops but docking stations are the problem there.

[Bunyip]

We now will only deal with Dell (Latitude series). Service second to none

Agree Dell service is good, they have so much practice at it 

I used to work for a Dell only company, 400 staff in the Sydney office and the Dell guy was out most weeks for at least one if not two or three repairs.

I have never had an issue with HP support, once you get the number for the Australian guys, rather than go through the main call centre.

Toshiba support was great but I managed to get to know some fairly senior guys in Toshiba Australia.

Have not dealt with Lenovo support for too long to comment.

Bunyip

[Swannie]

IBM Lenovo. I use one at work with docking station and 2 x 23 inch monitors. I have the T500 model, some of the others in the office have later models, but pretty much the same. They are bullet proof

X2 we use over a 100 of the T 500

Swannie

[Bird]

We now will only deal with Dell (Latitude series). Service second to none, Others mentioned, well just say service none.
We have a fleet of 500 or so laptops and are now Dell only. We also have 1500 or so desktops that are Dell 990 & 980's

Yea same.. We were with Toshy (A8/A9s), then Dull, then went to HP as they were $1.00 cheaper, then found out their service was Shit, so now back with Dell.
Have had zero problems with Dells in over 12 months. Working off a E6500 at moment.

I' not a fan of tiny laptops, I like a large screen. It isn't for everyone.

It depends what day of the week it is as to whats good and whats not. They all seem to take it in turns of being great, and being rubbish.
It also depends what your running on it, and what your doing.. Just Office, or full on hard core graphics etc.

[MDSimpson]

I work in IT for a large company in the mining industry. We are Global, therefore have global standards.
I had previously used HP, but due to very poor support ethics and service, I gave them the flick.
The global beast has been using Dell for a number of years, and yes, they do have issues, but we have the Premier support, so we get them fixed NBD, the tech will either send out the parts, or a tech to do the installs.
Just stay away from their Alienware products.... any of the Latitude Laptops will give you good service, we currently run two different models, the E6430 and the M4700 which is a high performance machine, definitely not a lightweight machine for travellers.

Personally, I run, and highly recommend, a Macbook Air (with our corporate Windows environment virtualised) and a 27" iMac at home.
Depends what you want to run on the machine, standard Microsoft Office etc all runs on a Mac, but when you need something like AutoCAD or most of the business bookkeeping software, they don't usually do Mac versions..

[jtraf]

I also put a vote in there for Dell.  We use Dell Latitude Laptops at work and have used them at other places I have worked because they are a robust bit of kit.  Buying them with 3yr Next Business Day support will see any issue logged before 5pm today dealt with promptly tomorrow. 

Have dealt with HP on a large deployment of 5000 desktops and PC's and there after sales support is poor to say the least.

I will be going Dell again when we are due for a refresh in 12mths time.

[Bird]

We are Global, therefore have global standards.

We are the same..
Isn't it annoying as our French overlords got God level service from HP, the rest of the world including us got blocked sewer level. Thus they had to change back to Dell - thankfully.

[MDSimpson]

We are the same..
Isn't it annoying as our French overlords got God level service from HP, the rest of the world including us got blocked sewer level. Thus they had to change back to Dell - thankfully.

Could be worse, could be American Overlords.

[stepheng]

I have been checking them out for business, and there are some great deals out there...I would stick to Toshiba, Sony maybe Dell (I have one and had no issues some minor annoying things) but I really like ASUS. In the end one of the these brands will stand by their product so would look for the highest, Hard drive, fastest processer and then the things you want, ie Wifi, external hard drive. Compare the prices and decide on this basis. You can get a ripper Laptop for way under $1,000 these days and unless you are some full on gamer, you will never use its ability.

They are all similar and JB and Harvey Norman all have sales on and if it is for your wife, go the red one.

[Bird]

Could be worse, could be American Overlords.

... you have never worked with the French I take it.. I'd take Americans 5000:1 on French. I've had both.

[aanda69]

Last year for work we purchased Fujitsu Lifebook T910. Without doubt the best laptop/Tablet I have ever used. Core I7 3gig ram 500Gig Hard drive, VGA & HDMI outputs so you can setup dual external monitors. And the tablet function is fantastic.

[MDSimpson]

... you have never worked with the French I take it.. I'd take Americans 5000:1 on French. I've had both.

Bugger, sucks to be you then.  5000:1, thats serious...

[Bird]

Bugger, sucks to be you then.  5000:1, thats serious...

In their wisdom, they run Capex ONCE a month now... It has to be in 8 days before the meeting. Meeting goes for 2 hours - that's to approve global requests. over 700 offices.

if your PC/Laptop dies in that time - bad luck. they have no answer for me on that.
Head frog is on way out in a few weeks, might stage a pretend thing with 10 people sitting at desks with no monitors and when he asks...

[chisel]

Another vote for Dell, especially the latitude range.

[Mallory Black]

thanks everyone for the help, really appreciate it especially the feedback on after sales support

[D4D]

If you want light and mobile, I am loving my Samsung Series 9 http://www.samsung.com/au/business/business-products/notebook-pc/biz-premium-notebook/NP900X4C-A04AU?subsubtype=series-9

About to upgrade to the Samsung ATIV Pro http://www.samsung.com/au/business/business-products/notebook-pc/smart-pc/XE700T1C-A02AU?subsubtype=series-7

[jtraf]

I know that Dell is not the greatest product on the market......but if you buy the support when you buy the product new they are excellent at getting you back up and running.

A good example of this was a few years ago one of the regional managers where I worked wanted a new laptop.....but he was not getting one due to his current machine not being due for replacement....Anyway the laptop fell into a wall......A call to Dell support and the tech was out there next day......he replaced almost the entire machine and handed it back to the user............even though I asked them to charge us as the damage was malicious we did not get a bill and he got his old new laptop back

[MDSimpson]

I had a similar story with a Dell server, out of warranty, that died. Basically, I paid $1200 for an extra 3 years warranty and logged the fault. (Replacement at that time was about $9000). When the technician arrived to replaced 'some' of the suspect parts, Dell were not quite sure where the problem was, so they sent the tech a new motherboard, full 32GB RAM (matched), two new CPU's (matched) and one of the two power supply units. He just installed them all, so apart from the drives, I got a new server for $1200, including another 3 year warranty.

Sometimes, it is not the hardware you buy, it is the after sales service and support, and in this area, IMHO, Dell exceed most others.

[Nay-DMAX]

Sorry didnt read all the posts we have toshiba and last few have been toshiba just upgraded over the years been very happy with them have not had to deal with their after sales or anything so cannot comment on that which is probably a good thing.

[Ynot]

The last two companies i have worked for have use the IBM Lenovo for quite a few years now and i have benn issued with about four laptops over a 8 year period which isnt bad running in the mining game. None have failed, just reached the replacement date. I think they have been T series units.

The it guys told me one of the plsses for these units are the heavy duty cooling fans that they run.

Down side is they are a rather heavy unit to carry around.

Sent from my Vox using Tapatalk 2

[Dragonfly]

I just got one of these and am ecstatic with it! Fast, portable, great battery life and touch. http://www.harveynorman.com.au/promos/sony-vaio-event/sony-vaio-13-svt13127-touch-t-series-ultrabook-laptop.html

I think we paid about $1,300. There is a Core i3, i5 and i7 version of the PC, with each being more expensive... Rock solid