Which laptop maker makes the best laptops?

Cromulent

Cromulent

Cromulent

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I'm looking to get a cheap gaming laptop but I'm confused about all the available choices. I don't mind paying a premium for a well regarded brand.

Can someone recommend a brand to go with? I'd like to be able to run Linux on it as well.
 
One advantage of buying from Lenovo is that you can spec the laptop without Windows and save (usually) £90.
But you need to define 'cheap', especially when you initially ask for 'best'.
 
Snapshot said:
One advantage of buying from Lenovo is that you can spec the laptop without Windows and save (usually) £90.
But you need to define 'cheap', especially when you initially ask for 'best'.
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Thank you. Yes I saw that when I was playing around with the configurator.

I'd ideally like to be around the £1k to £1.5k mark in terms of budget. Nearer to £1k would be best.
 
Snapshot said:
In that case I'd go with the Legion Slim 5 Gen 9 16" AMD. Would be in the middle of your budget unless you insist on an RTX 4070.
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Another vote for Lenovo here. Build quality seems decent and not been destroyed by the 10y/o yet - which is normally a good indicator.
 
+1 for Lenovo. Seems like they've really got a grip on the market at the moment, but there's no denying how great their laptops are. In fact, there's a few sales at the moment:

Legion Pro 5i with 4070 - £1400

Legion Pro 5 with 4070 - £1500

Legion Slim 5 with 4070 - £1321

If you're after something cheaper, they have the LOQ range, which is more budget focused. There's an RTX 4060 model going for £780 for example.
 
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Lenovo are probably still the best option. Get an AMD spec Legion, which will usually have a decent screen and upgradability.

I do like ASUS laptops but they have a history of terrible customer support.
 
I just bought my wife a ASUS TUF A16 Advantage Edition.
Comes with a AMD 7735 and a 7600S GPU, with 16GB RAM.

I was lucky, and bought it from CEX in my town. Spotted it for £605, which as it is basically brand new, was a great price.
I then found out why it was sold to CEX, when it was only 4 months old. Turns out the MediaTek WIFI card was defective. Kept vanishing from the hardware list.
CEX simply offered a refund. However, for £15 on Amazon, an AX210 Wifi card fixed it.

What I'm getting at, is have a look at shops like CEX, see if they have any decent bargains. After all, new this laptop I got is still just shy of £1000. You might find a bargain :)
 
Diagro said:
I just bought my wife a ASUS TUF A16 Advantage Edition.
Comes with a AMD 7735 and a 7600S GPU, with 16GB RAM.

I was lucky, and bought it from CEX in my town. Spotted it for £605, which as it is basically brand new, was a great price.
I then found out why it was sold to CEX, when it was only 4 months old. Turns out the MediaTek WIFI card was defective. Kept vanishing from the hardware list.
CEX simply offered a refund. However, for £15 on Amazon, an AX210 Wifi card fixed it.

What I'm getting at, is have a look at shops like CEX, see if they have any decent bargains. After all, new this laptop I got is still just shy of £1000. You might find a bargain :)
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Thank you. I'm still umming and arrring about getting a PC laptop as I'm not a major gamer but it would help with certain specialist software.
 
Another vote for Lenovo.

We have recently just helped my father in law by a laptop to play his train and truck sims via Steam.
Ordered him a Lenovo Loq 15 (Gen 9). AMD processor, 4060 gfx, 16GB ram and 1TB HD. 1080p Screen £825.00
Was not expecting much, but when I went to set it up for him, I was very, very impressed for the money.
 
Cromulent said:
I'm looking to get a cheap gaming laptop but I'm confused about all the available choices. I don't mind paying a premium for a well regarded brand.

Can someone recommend a brand to go with? I'd like to be able to run Linux on it as well.
Click to expand...

As others have said, Lenovo make good stuff.

I've got the previous gen Legion 5 Pro with a 5800H and 3070 and it's a great system.

As for Linux, do you know what distro you want already?

I put Nobara on my Legion 5 Pro as it came pre-installed with Nvidia drivers and I was already familiar with Fedora. I run Fedora KDE on my desktop (AMD GPU) and as you'd expect given Nobara is a fork of Fedora they're basically identical once setup. Pop_OS! is another popular one for out of the box compatibility with Nvidia GPUs if you can stomach Gnome. If you get a laptop with an AMD GPU, run a few from a USB stick and then install whichever distro takes your fancy.

Any questions on the Linux front just @ me.
 
Tediore said:
As others have said, Lenovo make good stuff.

I've got the previous gen Legion 5 Pro with a 5800H and 3070 and it's a great system.

As for Linux, do you know what distro you want already?

I put Nobara on my Legion 5 Pro as it came pre-installed with Nvidia drivers and I was already familiar with Fedora. I run Fedora KDE on my desktop (AMD GPU) and as you'd expect given Nobara is a fork of Fedora they're basically identical once setup. Pop_OS! is another popular one for out of the box compatibility with Nvidia GPUs if you can stomach Gnome. If you get a laptop with an AMD GPU, run a few from a USB stick and then install whichever distro takes your fancy.

Any questions on the Linux front just @ me.
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I normally use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed as my distro of choice.

I'm still undecided about whether I should go for it or not as I don't game as much these days as I used to.
 
I've had decent experience with Dell and HP. -Mrs had a HP Pavillion that lasted her 7 years.
She recently bought a Pavillion Aero 13 - fair specs for the money, if a little flimsy feeling, but great battery life, good processor and good screen.

- I have a Dell XPS 15 for work which is built like a tank.
- Had HP probooks for work previously which have been good.
- The only reason I didn't go for a Lenovo was a) by default they don't come with bright/colour accurate screens, and b) the reviews of their UK seller (digital river) don't inspire confidence.

You can spec an Dell XPS 13 with ubuntu for a hefty chunk off the RRP.
If I had confidence in Lenovo's UK arm, I would go for a Thinkpad T14/T14s .
 
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Question, how many laptop vendors and models are these days using soldered on to the motherboard RAM instead of upgradable RAM slots?

I was going to pick up a refurbed dell laptop yesterday but backed out as i didnt realise that the RAM was soldered on to the board,

is this the norm these days?

My work latitude 7430 is a soldered on to the motherboard type


Really wish they wouldn't do this...
 
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