Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I'm not really sure what the alternatives are these days, without looking it up. 

15-20 years ago I could name a handful of major laptop brands, but they've either all gone out of business, folded into something else, or I just don't see them anymore.  Literally everything I see is Dell or Macs.  Is HP still making laptops?

No gateway.  No IBM (Lenovo has the thinkpad brand).  Acer is pretty good, my son has one lasted him all through college.  Asus was pretty good, haven't used them in awhile.  Dell seems to be the gold standard these days however.  

Windows Surface is a good computing laptop until the screen goes to shit (in about 3 years).

We went back to Dell.

Not counting Apple, Dell's chief competitors in the US are HP and Lenovo.  Other brands are Samsung, Acer, Asus.

They're all made on the same assembly lines in the same countries with pretty much the same internal components.  If you value reliability and durability then you shouldn't buy the entry-level products from ANY of them.  You get what you pay for.

Oh, except with Lenovo. Then you also get a lot of sneaky Chinese bullshit malware too.  They provide that free of charge.

I just got my laptop refreshed at work. We did just switch brands. But the previous laptop lasted 5 years. It was definitely showing its age, but it was running.

While working with the IT guy on the refresh I overheard another employee asking the IT guy they were working with, and he said the exact same thing as utee. If you want a laptop, spend up for the good one, because it really WILL make a difference long term. 

He also talked about a cool laptop company I hadn't heard of called Framework. Apparently they're modular / heavily customizable laptops, built for upgradeability with the ability for a tech geek to actually get into the laptop and install everything. I thought it was a cool concept. 

I remember Alien Ware.  They were high-end boutique laptops reputed to be very powerful and cutting edge, but I only ever knew one guy who had one and I didn't trust his opinion as far as how true it was.  He was a guy with money who wanted to be different, not a guy who really knew computers. 

They're still around--as a subsidiary of utee's employer. 

IMHO they basically were/are a "spare no expense" brand for gamers. Components are components, but it was akin to basically upgrading everything. Sorta the difference between a Ford Mustang GT and a Saleen Mustang Black Label. 

That's my take on it anyway...

When I retire I'll keep my same computer.

It seems like back in the 90's and early 2000's you wouldn't dream of a computer lasting 5 years.  1-2 years, those things were toast.  But also back then the difference in processors was huge after a couple of years.  I'm sure the processors are faster all the time even now (Moore's law and whatnot) but maybe the existing chips are just so powerful that it doesn't make that much of a difference.  You only need so much computing power for excel, chrome, and word.  

It seems like back in the 90's and early 2000's you wouldn't dream of a computer lasting 5 years.  1-2 years, those things were toast.  But also back then the difference in processors was huge after a couple of years.  I'm sure the processors are faster all the time even now (Moore's law and whatnot) but maybe the existing chips are just so powerful that it doesn't make that much of a difference.  You only need so much computing power for excel, chrome, and word. 

This is definitely true.  The majority of users are fine with limited processing power and memory.  It's the CPU/GPU intensive applications like gaming, graphical rendering, and these days AI, that demand higher levels of hardware capability.