My current laptop got cancer and I am running it now at 640x480 until it dies. In the meantime I started looking for a replacement and I actually already found something suitable. The problem is that there are two of them and I can't decide.
The first one's a Dell.
http://www.nabava.net/prijenosna-racunala__30/dell-prijenosno-racunalo-inspiron-n5520-156-intel-core-i7-3632qm-750gb-hdd__3965091
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-3632QM+%40+2.20GHz&id=1480
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+7670M&id=320
The second is an Asus.
http://www.nabava.net/prijenosna-racunala__30/asus-prijenosno-racunalo-n56vb-s4073d-156-intel-core-i5-3230-3230m-260-ghz__3988061
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-3230M+%40+2.60GHz&id=1849
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GT+740M&id=2461
I am currently using an Asus and it lasted just over 3 years (except the battery died off a few months back). So I trust in that brand. Dell is one the opposite side of that story. I've never had a Dell before and a few years back Dell laptops were expensive and unreliable here, similarly to HP laptops. So IDK if things have changed.
My main concerns are the differences in CPU/GPU. While the GeForce 740M is somewhat better than the Radeon HD 7670M, the i7 outperforms the i5 by far (especially since it has 4 cores rather than 2). Since I am mostly doing some useful stuff rather than gaming, I don't mind taking the Radeon with the i7 over the GeForce with the i5, but the problem is that I'm not too familiar with how Dell's laptops are standing right now.
So basically, what are your experiences with Dell laptops in the recent years or do you know someone who has some?
EDIT: I found two more models. This one looks good for less money: http://www.nabava.net/prijenosna-racunala__30/toshiba-prijenosno-racunalo-satellite-l855-149-pskfwe-00k00ny4__2663461
But this Dell here is a beast and my current favorite: http://www.nabava.net/prijenosna-racunala__30/dell-prijenosno-racunalo-inspiron-5521-156-intel-core-i7-3537u-20-ghz__4001311
MY experience, I've owned a DELL XPS 1530 laptop for almost 6 years now. and for the first 3 it was great. then I had to have the replaced for failure, and the mother board replaced twice, once for CMOS failure and once because the GPU went bad and it;s part of the mother board.
In general my experience with Dell is... they try. you pay a bit more, you get a slightly better product in terms of failure % and what does fail is usually fixable.
Toshiba is infallible as far as my experience goes.
My suggestion is to look at the reviews on several different sites for that modal. figure out what the failure % in those revises is and divide it by 10. that's your chance something will go wrong. you might also want to look into how many years they had owned it before it failed. they usually say.
I checked the reviews for that Dell and things look good. Apparently the display isn't so high quality and the interface is a bit subpar (only 100 Mb LAN instead of 1 Gb, no VGA, etc.), but generally a good laptop. I decided to go with it.