?Which laptop? Dell or Lenovo...

[wonderfultykes]

About to get a new laptop for home and work. I've narrowed it down to two options:

Dell Inspiron 15R

or

Lenovo Thinkpad E520.

Any experience/advice/wildcards? Thanks!

lenovo over dell every time for quality/reliability. disclaimer: I haven't researched these specific models.

I have a Dell, it's shit.

Thanks Chocoholic and Cake. So far looks like a no-brainer then, or is anyone going to champion the Dell (kidding myself it's not in the running just because you can get a coloured cover for it...)

Even the bloke from PC world doesn't like Dell. My battery keeps failing, as does the charger. I'm going to replace it as soon as I can. It's also very slow.

I have just got a Lenovo and so far I am very pleased with it.

I have got this one: www.ebuyer.com/282300-lenovo-ideapad-g770-laptop-m533ruk

Hula - very sleek! Lenovo one is really light too - easy to cart round. Cake sorry about yours, what a pain. Guess it's reliability over coloured cover then...

I work from home so it's a real PITA when it's not working.

In general I'd say Inspiron are Dell's general laptops, aimed at small business & home users.

Thinkpad's are aimed at business/corporate users so are in general better built.

That said nowadays the difference is arguably negligable. Depends on price and what spec you get.

The professional computer 'geek' who advises me said Lenovo. So, am now the proud owner of one and so far, we are very happy with it.

I have a lenovo and the hinge has broken after 6 months, it was a very cheap one though, still useable.

Nice guy, great overview thanks, puts things in the picture.

Early bird, another notch for Lenovo then!

Living, thanks i'll try to be really careful with the catch.

I wish there was a brand as reliable as Lenovo with more interesting covers though!

Glad it helps.

To be clear though. Lenovo do build laptops but 'Thinkpad' is the line they aim for businesses. I have a Lenovo netbook and the lid has cracked near the hinges which is annoying.

My work Thinkpad's though are pretty bulletproof. But I do know what you mean about them being boring. But corporates don't select laptops based on prettiness. If they did, we'd all get Macbooks!

Any opinions on HP laptops? They come in nice bright shiny colours. Are they any good?

Niceguy, hmmm Macbook, now there's a thought. Only joking wouldn't know how to turn it on.

Cuppa, Ooh do they? But I had an HP last and it kept misbehaving, though I was possibly just unlucky. Anyone happy experiences with an HP?

We have had 3 hp,s,all Pavillion range,fantastic laptops and contrary to what I have read when we had a problem,fantastic customere service.Ds had a mini hp for Christmas,now dh is mithering for one.

The laptop I have just replaced was a HP, a Pavillion I think. Can't remember full details as it has been disposed of now. It was fine for a few months but quickly started crashing and got worse and worse. It was reset to default settings several times, had more virus checkers and other test stuff run through it that you can imagine - but nothing solved it. It was becoming unusable as I got the blue screen of death several times a day, so it has been replaced. Didn't have it that long either - less than two years. A colleague of DH has the same HP and is starting to have similar problems.

We have 32 Lenovo laptops at school and they are still nearly all fine after over three and a half years of hard use by 7- 11 year olds. Several have been dropped but are fine, we've only had one out of the 32 fail completely, one has had its hard drive replaced and the spring on the lid catch has failed on another, though you can still latch it by sliding it across. The batteries are still pretty good, though don't have quite the capacity they used to, but will still last for most of the school day.

For the teachers we have had Acers (either very good or total crap, stopped getting those after four had bad overheating problems and because of very bad customer service) then HP (power supply and battery problems on all of them, plus DVD drive failure on two) and then Toshibas, which are proving more reliable so far, but I'm thinking we will probably try Lenovo next time we need a replacement.

Shake, Hula & Rusty thanks for your all your info, this has been so useful. Decision made: with my bad experience of an HP and DH singing praises of his old Lenovo, and all freedback from you fabulous lot we're going to plump for the Lenovo. THank you all and Happy New Year!