How is the build quality of other big name laptops?

[hajime]

Hello, I have used a few Thinkpads 20 years ago. They were great machines but I found the black coating (especially at the corners and along the edges) on the cases got worn off rather quickly. Components worked fine until I sold the machines. As for Apple laptops, build quality is very good and with Apple Care, I do not need to worry about design faults as Apple always (at least when it was under Steve) took responsibility for such issues and easy to issue replacement for latest model if they cannot fix the machines for about five times.

How is the build quality of laptops from Lenovo, Microsoft, HP and Asus? Is it easy to get these manufacturers to replace laptops within warranty? For the MacBook Pro, unless there is a design fault, they last for a long time. (My 2010 MBP 17" is still working.) On average, about how many years of use do laptops from these manufacturers last?

Do the coating of Lenovo laptops still wear off easily?

 

[cruisin]

You might want to avoid Lenovo, as they had a string of models with factory installed malware (lookup Lenovo Superfish). I'm sure they fixed that problem, but it doesn't inspire confidence that they pay attention to detail.

I personally had a cheap HP that eventually overheated and broke the GPU. Might have been my fault, but it always ran very hot with lots of fan noise.

I know people with the Microsoft Surface and they are fairly happy with it aside from the bad battery life.

 

[Tech198]

Asus are good... I'd give Lenovo another try, as maybe they have learn their lesson

 

[960design]

Hello, I have used a few Thinkpads 20 years ago. They were great machines but I found the black coating (especially at the corners and along the edges) on the cases got worn off rather quickly. Components worked fine until I sold the machines. As for Apple laptops, build quality is very good and with Apple Care, I do not need to worry about design faults as Apple always (at least when it was under Steve) took responsibility for such issues and easy to issue replacement for latest model if they cannot fix the machines for about five times.

How is the build quality of laptops from Lenovo, Microsoft, HP and Asus? Is it easy to get these manufacturers to replace laptops within warranty? For the MacBook Pro, unless there is a design fault, they last for a long time. (My 2010 MBP 17" is still working.) On average, about how many years of use do laptops from these manufacturers last?

Do the coating of Lenovo laptops still wear off easily?

We are an all Mac shop: 27" 5k, 15"MBPr, 21.5" 4K, 3 MacMini, tons of iPads & iPhones, Mac Airs, ect... but we do have 1 windows computer that pretty much kicks ass:
Asus Zenbook 15 i7 4k TouchScreen... it looks like they have removed the 15" and replaced it with a 14":
https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ZenBook-Home/

The site is a complete cluster, but scroll down a bit to see the different versions of zenbooks available.

 

[hajime]

I am consider the Asus and LG 15" as they are quit light. If I buy any of these, I will install linux also. Good if I could also turn them into Hackintosh.

 

[Flynnstone]

The best, my opinion, is Apple. No surprise there.
I bought a Dell work laptop earlier this year. One with 4K screen. Not a low end device. "F" key sticks. Runs windows 10, which is ok. But it put McAfee antivirus and turn it into a dog.
Before that, I had Hp zbook at another company. Not too bad. Trackpad sucked. Prone to breakage of the power port.

The best windows experience I've had is running windows 10 under parallels. I can cut windows off from "contacting home". Disk access is plenty fast with a ssd drive.

 

[zhenya]

We have a shop with a large number of Thinkpads. Very few of them have any significant wear issues, and most of them we use for 8-10 years before retiring.

IMO the closest laptop quality-wise to a MBP right now is the Thinkpad X1 Carbon. In some ways it's actually better than a Mac - keyboard, port selection, matte screen, overall build quality, etc.

 

[krause734]

I have tried several Chromebooks and most are crap although I love the idea and simplicity of the OS. I absolutely hate Windows after switching to Mac.

 

[weckart]

I have a ton of older Thinkpads. 20 years ago, the shells were metal and usually had a rubberised coating that could either rub away, perish or become sticky depending upon the model. They were, however, built like tanks and many had spill proof keyboards.

For quite a while now, most Lenovos sport plastic housing and are reasonably robust albeit with nothing of the wonderful keyboards of yore. Quality is dipping year on year and there are some uglies to have to contend with - bios whitelisting, for example, which means trying to upgrade a wifi card is an exercise in frustration if you cannot find or want something better than the exact cards on the very short approved list.

 

[hajime]

We have a shop with a large number of Thinkpads. Very few of them have any significant wear issues, and most of them we use for 8-10 years before retiring.

IMO the closest laptop quality-wise to a MBP right now is the Thinkpad X1 Carbon. In some ways it's actually better than a Mac - keyboard, port selection, matte screen, overall build quality, etc.

So, the coating on the Thinkpad Xi Carbon won't wear off over time?
[doublepost=1503807842][/doublepost]

I have a ton of older Thinkpads. 20 years ago, the shells were metal and usually had a rubberised coating that could either rub away, perish or become sticky depending upon the model. They were, however, built like tanks and many had spill proof keyboards.

For quite a while now, most Lenovos sport plastic housing and are reasonably robust albeit with nothing of the wonderful keyboards of yore. Quality is dipping year on year and there are some uglies to have to contend with - bios whitelisting, for example, which means trying to upgrade a wifi card is an exercise in frustration if you cannot find or want something better than the exact cards on the very short approved list.

So, under Lenovo, the quality of Thinkpad keeps going down? The latest Thinkpad was the T-21.

 

[zhenya]

So, the coating on the Thinkpad Xi Carbon won't wear off over time?
[doublepost=1503807842][/doublepost]

So, under Lenovo, the quality of Thinkpad keeps going down? The latest Thinkpad was the T-21.

I can't guarantee that there is nothing on the new Carbon that won't wear, but it is a seriously robust machine. I have many models of the last 10-12 years of Thinkpads rotating through my desk, and while many of them were great machines as well, the improvements are clear. Despite what is said above, very few were previously made out of metal. Some had a metal cover on the top (which also had coating issues) but otherwise the basic design of an internal roll cage with some kind of plastic shell has been the design for a very long time. The new models are much more rigid, much better fit and finish, and frankly, while the old keyboards were very nice as well, the new keyboard on the X1C is better than any of those (with exceptions for preference in key layout). The key activation is much crisper, the keycaps are much more rigidly mounted to the spring mechanism, and as a result, they feel much more solid. There may be things that people prefer about the old models, but IMO the idea that the old ones were built better is largely a myth.

 

[hajime]

I can't guarantee that there is nothing on the new Carbon that won't wear, but it is a seriously robust machine. I have many models of the last 10-12 years of Thinkpads rotating through my desk, and while many of them were great machines as well, the improvements are clear. Despite what is said above, very few were previously made out of metal. Some had a metal cover on the top (which also had coating issues) but otherwise the basic design of an internal roll cage with some kind of plastic shell has been the design for a very long time. The new models are much more rigid, much better fit and finish, and frankly, while the old keyboards were very nice as well, the new keyboard on the X1C is better than any of those (with exceptions for preference in key layout). The key activation is much crisper, the keycaps are much more rigidly mounted to the spring mechanism, and as a result, they feel much more solid. There may be things that people prefer about the old models, but IMO the idea that the old ones were built better is largely a myth.

I have never used and heard of Thinkpad with metal case. I guess I have been away since Lenovo took over. Around 18 years ago, higher end models all used carbon fiber while cheapest ones used something felt like a plastic. I saw Yoga in MS store. It seemed nice but the case seemed to be made of plastic. When I rotated the screen by 180 degrees to turn it into tablet model, my fingers kept touching the keyboard while holding the machine as if it were a tablet.

If the X1C could me made to run Mac OS, I am interested.

 

[ZapNZs]

Some of the products offered by makers like Lenovo, Microsoft, Asus, and Acer are awesome. IIRC the most recent studies of two year breakage rates indicate that products from most Windows PCs are, on the whole, about twice that of Apple. (With that said, the value of such studies may not be all that useful given there is much more variability among the products other Makers offer, and it is not unusual for a PC maker of 25+ different products to have concurrent models that develop very different reputations for reliability/longevity.)