Looking for opinions on new more reliable laptops. MSI maybe?

[OCMerrill]

I have 3 Dells bought in 2018 and I will be upgrading soon. All have had failed spinning D: drives but the main drives are SSD which have been upgraded to 1TB from 256 a couple years back.
They are 17" dells with a full keyboard which I would like to keep this type of style in play. This way one of the dual monitors could just be the computer as they are now.

My issue with these is when they sleep it's always a wild card weather they will wake or need to be rebooted. Windows 11 games along with just no wake. Its a random problem.
Dells take on this was send them in for repair but they will not tell me the issue.

If I move to gaming type laptops would they be robust enough to just leave on every evening? Im in the office until 10 or so and back in @ 4am
I need to keep the laptop stuff in play because were at the River a Week a month starting in October through April. All this comes along so I can work.

 

[17 10 Flat]

I had gone though about 6 Microsoft machines. Some pricy some not. All shit the bed.
Finally took the Apple leap in 2013. Lower end unit paid $630.00 military Black Friday deal.
Not one issue, no slowing down, no viruses, just works.
Will say it's a tad different. Still learning...lol

 

[fat rat]

Apple gets my vote.

 

[DarkJuJu]

If you want more resilient laptops and willing to pay more go for the enterprise lines from Dell or Lenovo not the consumer level stuff, they are built different.

 

[poncho]

I'm on my 3rd Lenova and so far pretty bullet proof, they take a beating on the fishing boat.

I absolutely hate windows 10 and 11 and the first thing I do is load Classic Shell.

I have a nice MS Surface tablet that is friendlier to newer OS, I want my laptop to act like a computer.

 

[evantwheeler]

I just went through this. Paid over $3k for a Lenovo w/ docking station. My suggestion is to pay a nerd to select, buy, setup and maintain the computer, someone that takes ownership of its functionality.

Lennovo can suck a nut, Microsoft can fly a kite. I have had support and product issues with both the hardware and the software. No help. If I could go back 2 months in time, I would buy a Macbook.

 

[OCMerrill]

I just went through this. Paid over $3k for a Lenovo w/ docking station. My suggestion is to pay a nerd to select, buy, setup and maintain the computer, someone that takes ownership of its functionality.

Lennovo can suck a nut, Microsoft can fly a kite. I have had support and product issues with both the hardware and the software. No help. If I could go back 2 months in time, I would buy a Macbook.

I have a bunch of PC based software that I use. Converting to Apple (my college kids use Apple everything) would be an even bigger learning curve.
Likely a bit spendy also.

 

[lakemadness]

Macbook and be done with it. Period.

 

[Bigbore500r]

I'm on my 3rd Lenova and so far pretty bullet proof, they take a beating on the fishing boat.

I absolutely hate windows 10 and 11 and the first thing I do is load Classic Shell.

I have a nice MS Surface tablet that is friendlier to newer OS, I want my laptop to act like a computer.

X2 on Lenovo

Look for a laptop with a rugged commercial use build quality.

The HP / Dell stuff they sell at Bestbuy is built like shit and always seems to have issue, plus full of bloatware to the gills!

My current laptop is a Surface 7 but has maxxed out memory and the fastest chipset available at the time, it works fantastic for a compact machine.
I thought it would be underpowered but I do everything on it, it drives 3 monitors when at my desk and it doesn't bog down or complain.

 

[rivermobster]

Lenovo for sure.

 

[17 10 Flat]

Not even sure they exist anymore. Ford issued us Panasonic Tough Books for our work requirements. These worked pretty darn good. Kinda $$$ even back early 2000's

 

[C-2]

I just went through this. Paid over $3k for a Lenovo w/ docking station. My suggestion is to pay a nerd to select, buy, setup and maintain the computer, someone that takes ownership of its functionality.

Lennovo can suck a nut, Microsoft can fly a kite. I have had support and product issues with both the hardware and the software. No help. If I could go back 2 months in time, I would buy a Macbook.

Holy hell, what happened?

 

[C-2]

I just bought an off-lease Lenovo 14" laptop for $200 for the kid and it was plug and play.

 

[C-2]

As of late, Dell workstations seem to do a lot of BIOS updates and one o fthem blue screened my work laptop, an i7 workstation. It actually bricked it, it wouldn't even load BIOS.

 

[evantwheeler]

Holy hell, what happened?

Paid for MS Office through the Lenovo laptop purchase. MS won't allow me to create an account to access my product key that I bought using my work email address because they wont allow MS accounts setup using work or school email accounts. Lenovo wont refund the $250. Hours and hours back and forth with overseas folks with both companies and just gave up and paid for a subscription to office.

Blue screen and BitLocker encryption lockout on a 1 month old laptop Tuesday AM when I came into work. WTF?

I've had fantastic success with computers over my life because I just don't ask much of them. Internet browsing and microsoft office, thats it! Never paid much for them and really had low expectations which they all generally met or exceeded. This is the reason I didn't want to spend this much on a computer, because I expect the fker to work without flaw for years.

 

[JDKRXW]

I just bought an off-lease Lenovo 14" laptop for $200 for the kid and it was plug and play.

This is what I'd do.
Older T series or newer X series.
You can actually still get OEM batteries and a few parts for them too.

 

[C-2]

The Blue screen of death (BSOD or BSD) is when your operating system won't load and Windows needs to be reinstalled.

Are you talking about the blue Bitlocker screen? Unless you have personal identifying information (PII) on your computer you probably don't need to use Bitlocker encryption. YouTube how to disable it.

That sucks on the licensing issue. Office 365 and MS Exchange - the shiat can get confusing, mainly because they are always changing it up. But in reality, it's the most popular business platform, there's not too many workarounds other than keeping your personal account separate from an MS Exchange account/machine.

 

[Dog]

enterprise level Lenovo... Look at the ThinkPad T490. You can buy a couple of them "renewed" on Amazon for less that $500.

 

[C-2]

OCMerrill - look for a WORKSTATION, that's what everybody is talking about at the enterprise level. And make sure it has USB-C ports.

 

[poncho]

Not even sure they exist anymore. Ford issued us Panasonic Tough Books for our work requirements. These worked pretty darn good. Kinda $$$ even back early 2000's

Cat and Cummins mechanics had those too, took a beating.

 

[DarkHorseRacing]

There is another company selling ruggedised laptops, called GETAC.

Just realize the ruggedised laptops rarely have the latest tech. As they are designed and qualified for Mil-spec tests, they are usually a couple to several generations behind. And they pretty much come as configured with none to few user selectable options.

 

[17 10 Flat]

Cat and Cummins mechanics had those too, took a beating.

Our IT support person before they approved them threw one out of a 2 story window, put in a freezer overnight and in a oven for several hours at 400 f. Took a licking kept on tickin.

 

[wings_of_eagles]

I have 3 Dells bought in 2018 and I will be upgrading soon. All have had failed spinning D: drives but the main drives are SSD which have been upgraded to 1TB from 256 a couple years back.
They are 17" dells with a full keyboard which I would like to keep this type of style in play. This way one of the dual monitors could just be the computer as they are now.

My issue with these is when they sleep it's always a wild card weather they will wake or need to be rebooted. Windows 11 games along with just no wake. Its a random problem.
Dells take on this was send them in for repair but they will not tell me the issue.

If I move to gaming type laptops would they be robust enough to just leave on every evening? Im in the office until 10 or so and back in @ 4am
I need to keep the laptop stuff in play because were at the River a Week a month starting in October through April. All this comes along so I can work.

@OCMerrill , I go into the windows 11 home System settings/ Power & battery/ power/ screen and sleep then turn all options to never - on battery power and When plugged in. I have a LG Gram 17" i7 32GB ram, 1 TB SSD I bought in Jan 2021 from Costco ( not aa high end machine) that's been running pretty much all the time plugged in and on, It connected to a Accell usb-c docking station pushing 2 27" monitors and the laptop is pushing a 32" HDMI monitor for a total of 4 screens. I hope I don't jinks myself. The only time it's turned off is if I travel.
Good luck

 

[OCMerrill]

As of late, Dell workstations seem to do a lot of BIOS updates and one o fthem blue screened my work laptop, an i7 workstation. It actually bricked it, it wouldn't even load BIOS.

Im not sold on Dell even though the three office Inspiron's have failed all their hard drives, the customer service / trouble shooting is greedy.

I have had to put many Bios updates in however no blue screen of death at least not yet. Also these three puters said clearly on the paperwork the memory is upgradable to 32 Gigs. They do not have a Bios update that will allow the upgrade. That alone has me looking to other brands. Dell has a double minded problem.