Dell vs. Lenovo

[StarWarsGirl]

As some of you may know, my laptop's hard drive went kaput yesterday. As the machine is two years old, I'm looking into getting a new laptop rather than getting a new hard drive.

I'm looking into getting either a Dell or a Lenovo. I'm leaning towards Lenovo. Both have excellent reviews, so I'm looking for opinions. Anyone had any experience with either brand? Any reason that I should get one over the other?

Thanks in advance!

 

[wdwmagic]

Not really a lot to choose between them. Both make huge numbers of PCs, and both are fairly generic. I would personally go with Dell.

 

[Voxel]

Not really a lot to choose between them. Both make huge numbers of PCs, and both are fairly generic. I would personally go with Dell.

I would go with either to be honest, it depends on what you want and what has the best deal. Dell Laptops are decent I hear more horror stories out of Dell then Lenovo but that is because the popularity of Dell (statistically I would see more) It depends on which model your are looking at, every brand of models that are just failures and models that stand out above the rest.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

This is the one that I'm looking at. It's a Levono 2 in 1 laptop. The reason I'm leaning toward this one is because it has an optical drive, a touch screen, and it's within my price range.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-...lack/7017091.p?id=1219247540740&skuId=7017091

An optical drive is an important feature for me. I watch a lot of movies, and I play a lot of games via disc, and I also put music from CDs on my computer and burn CDs. So it's not optional, and the Dells pretty much don't have them, so I'd have to purchase an external drive.

PC Magazine also rated this laptop with 4/5 stars.

 

[Voxel]

This is the one that I'm looking at. It's a Levono 2 in 1 laptop. The reason I'm leaning toward this one is because it has an optical drive, a touch screen, and it's within my price range.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-...lack/7017091.p?id=1219247540740&skuId=7017091

An optical drive is an important feature for me. I watch a lot of movies, and I play a lot of games via disc, and I also put music from CDs on my computer and burn CDs. So it's not optional, and the Dells pretty much don't have them, so I'd have to purchase an external drive.

PC Magazine also rated this laptop with 4/5 stars.

If you want I can message some old friends at Best Buy to give me their take on the model if they have seen any issues with returns and want not. I haven't worked their in years so I don't know the trends as well as I use to

 

[StarWarsGirl]

If you want I can message some old friends at Best Buy to give me their take on the model if they have seen any issues with returns and want not. I haven't worked their in years so I don't know the trends as well as I use to

That'd be great, thanks

 

[Californian Elitist]

I've previously had a Dell and now I currently own and use a Lenovo. I prefer my Lenovo. Lenovos are rated pretty high, too, second to Macs.

 

[Voxel]

I've previously had a Dell and now I currently own and use a Lenovo. I prefer my Lenovo. Lenovos are rated pretty high, too, second to Macs.

This is true and last I checked their customer support was ranked second. Also they have begun moving some manufacturing to the states

 

[StarWarsGirl]

This is true and last I checked their customer support was ranked second. Also they have begun moving some manufacturing to the states

Just out of curiosity, what is HP's customer service ranked?

 

[StarWarsGirl]

I've previously had a Dell and now I currently own and use a Lenovo. I prefer my Lenovo. Lenovos are rated pretty high, too, second to Macs.

That's good to hear since I'm leaning toward the Lenovo. I did check Consumer Reports and yes, Lenovo (and Dell actually) are ranked second basically to Macs. Other sources also ranked Lenovo pretty high.

My school has Lenovo desktops and Lenovo laptops. I've used both and they are both nice, especially the newest 2 in 1 laptops that we have. I was just using one of the desktops today and thinking how nice it was.

My high school had Dells. They were fine, but every now and then I'd have an issue with them (and since I was on the newspaper staff, I used them A LOT) and someone would have to come in (though the funny thing was one time it wouldn't boot properly and I got it booting before the person even came down there.) Kind of why I'm leaning toward Lenovo too: never had an issue at school with the Lenovos.

My younger brother has a Dell (which I am currently using). It's a cheap Dell, much cheaper than what I'm looking at, but I think the thing that bugs me the most about it and other Dell laptops is the keyboards, even the ones I played with when I went to Best Buy the other day. They just feel clunky to me. That, and this laptop came with a lot of bloatwear too which I then had to uninstall...but then with all of the bloatwear on there, there was no DVD decoder. Had to download a free one. The Dell also sometimes refuses to charge. I know it was a cheap computer, but still...not impressed.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

So I pulled the trigger and bought a new laptop. The one I was looking at sold out on Bestbuy.com.

I bought this one from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...tailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1#productDetails

It was on sale, $655. Got good customer reviews, on sale for $90 cheaper than usual, and has a 1 tb hard drive. Basically, the only difference between this one and the other one is the hard drive. And this one is 1000 GB instead of 500 gb +8 gb, plus it has everything I was lookign for (backlit keyboard, touchscreen, and optical drive.)
Now I just have to be patient for it to arrive...

 

[Jahona]

Looks like a good pick. Lenovo has been bringing out good products for the consumer for a few years now. I've had Dell laptops and desktops and while they have been functional I've never been extremely happy with them. My last dell workstation had all of the capacitors blow up. Dell fixed the issue later on.

 

[heychadwick]

It's probably too late, but I can throw my weight in. I've worked IT for almost 20 years and used a lot of tech. I used to not think much difference between the companies, but then worked at Lenovo right after they left IBM. Thinkpads are rock solid. I was highly impressed with how well they were put together. They are nicely built. They have some bells and whistles that are also cool. I will say that I can't speak to the non-thinkpad laptops.

Dells were always a bit on the cheap side. If you squeezed them a bit, they had some give and always felt more like a plastic toy. Thinkpads never did this. I will say that Dell is my current work laptop and they have gotten better. It is a solid machine. I don't mind Dell. I still have always found the reliability and superior engineered ThinkPads better.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

It's probably too late, but I can throw my weight in. I've worked IT for almost 20 years and used a lot of tech. I used to not think much difference between the companies, but then worked at Lenovo right after they left IBM. Thinkpads are rock solid. I was highly impressed with how well they were put together. They are nicely built. They have some bells and whistles that are also cool. I will say that I can't speak to the non-thinkpad laptops.

Dells were always a bit on the cheap side. If you squeezed them a bit, they had some give and always felt more like a plastic toy. Thinkpads never did this. I will say that Dell is my current work laptop and they have gotten better. It is a solid machine. I don't mind Dell. I still have always found the reliability and superior engineered ThinkPads better.

Yes you are too late, but I did end up going with Lenovo. I thought about it, read reviews, and just between experiences here and the fact that my school uses Lenovo, I just started leaning towards them, and then as I started researching, I found that they made the laptop with all the features that I want/need. My brother has a Dell, and though it is a cheap Dell, it always feels very flimsy when I use it, so I was worried about that, though I will say that that thing has gotten a lot of abuse and after more than two years still works. I just felt like Lenovo was probably a better option for me.

Did not go with a Thinkpad because the ones that were within my price range did not have an optical drive, and I use mine like crazy. I ended up going with this one because it was within my price range and basically had everything I was looking for: touchscreen, backlit keyboard, optical drive, intel core i5 processor, 6 GB ram...everything. It does feel very solid. I love the 2-in-1. I watch a lot of movies and Netflix on this thing, so I love that it flips backwards and basically becomes a TV. I use it in "stand" mode a lot more than I initially thought I would. The display is also really good, much better than my old laptop. Keyboard is extremely comfortable for typing, which is good since I'll use this thing to type long papers. I did not realize what a lemon my HP was before getting this one

My only real complaints are the battery life and that it feels a little heavy and bulky. Not nearly as heavy and bulky as my first laptop, but a little more bulky and heavy than I would have liked. And the battery life is not 6 hours as advertised. More like 3. Max. But I have a Surface RT for portable use. This will mostly stay at home and other than that will go on vacation and maybe to school once in a while. Maybe. But overall, so far so good...