Best PC computer brand?

[Aviela]

I realize this is a very very general question considering each computer has varying specs but I'm interested in knowing people's opinions regarding PC brand name computers. What PC brand name computers do you think are the best? Do you like HP, Dell, Asus... Which company do you think is sticking with good technology and also good customer service?

 

[Unix]

From past experience HP with AMD CPU, Samsung laptops. But I'm not sure what the latest development has been. Lenovo has been said to be good but I haven't tried them out myself.
One thing to remember, is that many regular "'office-use"' PC:s have inadequate cooling, especially when it comes to disk intensive tasks/softwares.

 

[Aviela]

From past experience HP with AMD CPU, Samsung laptops. But I'm not sure what the latest development has been. Lenovo has been said to be good but I haven't tried them out myself.
One thing to remember, is that many regular "'office-use"' PC:s have inadequate cooling, especially when it comes to disk intensive tasks/softwares.

Interesting… So you prefer HP with AMD CPU over Intel? I'm just curious because I had AMD and HP needed to send me a replacement computer under warranty. However, the computer with the closest specs to my old one is one with an Intel processor. So, I'm interested to see how it performs in comparison.

Been wondering about Lenovo computers too….

Yes, a good Cooling system is a great thing to have! I look for specific specs in a computer and that's one of the things that's important. On the replacement computer hp is sending me the additional cooling system is better than my last one so I'm happy about that. I'm also happy this new computer has USB 3. There are one or two other things I really like about this new computer HP is sending me. However, HP has stopped making computers with tuners and extensive remotes and It doesn't have a Blu-ray player but I got HP to up my warranty in replace of these things. I'll just buy a separate Blu-ray player which I think is better anyway but the problem is I don't have a digital TV. I do have my HD monitor so I can hook that up to a Blu-ray player and use that in the meantime. I'm just not happy at the thought of constantly plugging and unplugging in equipment because I'm afraid it might weaken the ports quicker.

 

[Qyöt27]

Since AMD has been faltering lately on their CPU development fronts, I'd go with Intel (aside from the fact that I'd go with Intel anyway, situations like these just reinforce that tendency). I don't have a preference for brand names*, since I'd just as soon build my own custom setup so that I can finely control what goes into it.

*the only HP I've dealt with is a laptop; the brand name desktops we've had were an NEC (good, but I don't even know if NEC still markets desktops to consumers; that computer is from 1995), Compaq (terrible), and a few eMachines (generally decent). I'm excluding the Macs, because they don't have a bearing on this discussion.

Regarding Blu-ray, there's several things you can do.

The easiest would be to buy a Blu-ray drive (internal, or a USB external), and Blu-ray playback software. This shouldn't be too expensive at all; I think you can pick up plain [internal] BD-ROM drives for about $30 now, if you can find them. BD-RE drives run anywhere from ~$50 to over $100 depending on make and model and what features they support (like whether they support writing BDXL discs or M-Discs) or whether they're internal or external. I'm not sure how much the playback software costs, although chances are the software that comes bundled with the drives won't be very good and you'd need to buy PowerDVD or something like that. Personally I'd view having a Blu-ray drive available to the computer an asset not to be passed up, even though for the same price you could buy a standalone player.

The other way is that most HD monitors have more than one input port. Make sure it has an HDMI port on it to hook up a regular Blu-ray player like you mentioned, and then hook the computer to the D-SUB or DVI port. Any decent monitor will let you switch inputs - after all, there's little to no difference at all between HDTVs and computer monitors these days; it's just as easy to hook a laptop to an HDTV and use it as a gigantic monitor. At least this way you don't have to worry about port wear because you can just leave it hooked up all the time, no need to constantly be plugging things in and out (also, I'd usually only worry about port wear with the D-SUB or DVI ports, since their connectors have all those little pins to account for; I wouldn't worry about it for USB and HDMI ports).

 

[Aviela]

Yes, including Macs would just complicate this discussion.

The AMD system I had in my old computer was made by ATI and it was rated fairly high. It did well but I think there was some short in my computer system that fried my computer. I don't think it was the system itself… it was a great computer when it was working but I'm sure there was a short in it the techs couldn't find and fix so long story short my computer is fried.

Yes, I like a good optical drive. Already have software. I like Power DVD… Don't like the constant upgrades though. But I do think it's the best software. I'm planning on getting a digital TV anyway so I just think it's time to get a separate Blu-ray player and I'm finding I would like that part of the entertainment section to be separate from the computer so I don't have to buy constant software upgrades etc. although I do make sure everything I get has great connectivity.

Yes that's what I'm thinking too… That I would hook up one using HDMI and they use other using DVI – I.

Hear what you are saying about wear on ports but one of the 2 problems I encountered with my last computer I believe was a bad port.

 

[Unix]

Yes, and also other brands with AMD:

Interesting… So you prefer HP with AMD CPU over Intel?

 

[Aviela]

Dp

 

[Aviela]

Yes, and also other brands with AMD:

Ok thanks
... Can I ask why?

This replacement computer will have an Intel i7 processor so we'll see…

 

[Unix]

AMD's strategy is to be cheaper than Intel, and they succeed with that, so You can afford a better computer hardware-wise (even other parts than just the CPU):

... Can I ask why?

 

[Aviela]

AMD's strategy is to be cheaper than Intel, and they succeed with that, so You can afford a better computer hardware-wise (even other parts than just the CPU):

Ok cool

When I was catching up on technology before I bought this other computer, I talked to AMD company and they said their goal was to make more powerful graphics cards etc. that required less power. That impressed me because for so long you needed an incredible power supply to run decent graphics. One of their goals seem to be energy efficiency but to maintain great graphics. My talk with this fellow was so very interesting.

 

[Sketcher]

Ok cool

When I was catching up on technology before I bought this other computer, I talked to AMD company and they said their goal was to make more powerful graphics cards etc. that required less power. That impressed me because for so long you needed an incredible power supply to run decent graphics. One of their goals seem to be energy efficiency but to maintain great graphics. My talk with this fellow was so very interesting.

AMD acquired ATI, which was a major graphics chipset developer and manufacturer. ATI and NVIDIA were the computer graphics equivalents of Coke and Pepsi. Now that AMD has ATI's resources and experience, it's AMD and NVIDIA for high-end graphics. AMD has since the merger, been using these graphics resources to try and bolster their CPU and chipset design, to make more powerful graphics available without buying a separate graphics card. Intel has been working on developing more powerful graphics on their own, to achieve the same goal. Intel however, still makes better CPUs.

 

[ForJesusChrist]

I haven't really had experience with much, but I had an acer, which was a lemon, it was buggy right out of the box and broke eventually, but it was not the acer brand itself, just the computer. My grandma has the exact same model and it still works.

But personally, I love my computer. Its a toshiba satellite, and I have had it for a few years now. Really fast, easy to clean up if there is a virus/bug, not really much issues other than the function key sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I haven't had any issues to call customer support with, so I have no experience there.

God Bless

 

[Sketcher]

But personally, I love my computer. Its a toshiba satellite, and I have had it for a few years now. Really fast, easy to clean up if there is a virus/bug, not really much issues other than the function key sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I haven't had any issues to call customer support with, so I have no experience there.

Some Toshibas are really reliable, others are horrible. Back when I was working at a retailer that sold Toshibas, they broke quickly and frequently. Their keyboards broke more quickly than any other show models we had, and I saw my share of them in the tech shop where I worked.

 

[ForJesusChrist]

Some Toshibas are really reliable, others are horrible. Back when I was working at a retailer that sold Toshibas, they broke quickly and frequently. Their keyboards broke more quickly than any other show models we had, and I saw my share of them in the tech shop where I worked.

Interesting. I have had mine for about 3 years and you would think its new. All I really do is take and process photos, homework, minecraft here and there, and use the internet. But I am very impressed at how well it has held in.

 

[Aviela]

AMD acquired ATI, which was a major graphics chipset developer and manufacturer. ATI and NVIDIA were the computer graphics equivalents of Coke and Pepsi. Now that AMD has ATI's resources and experience, it's AMD and NVIDIA for high-end graphics. AMD has since the merger, been using these graphics resources to try and bolster their CPU and chipset design, to make more powerful graphics available without buying a separate graphics card. Intel has been working on developing more powerful graphics on their own, to achieve the same goal. Intel however, still makes better CPUs.

I Agree with what you say.

Also, graphic cards is a whole other issue because it can depend on the individual card and not just the company. Also, the type of graphics system is also important... Whether it's integrated graphics or not etc.

 

[Aviela]

I haven't really had experience with much, but I had an acer, which was a lemon, it was buggy right out of the box and broke eventually, but it was not the acer brand itself, just the computer. My grandma has the exact same model and it still works.

But personally, I love my computer. Its a toshiba satellite, and I have had it for a few years now. Really fast, easy to clean up if there is a virus/bug, not really much issues other than the function key sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I haven't had any issues to call customer support with, so I have no experience there.

God Bless

Neat thanks.

Good point. Sometimes it's not necessarily the specific computer type but the particular way the computer is made...a dud in the batch.

 

[Sketcher]

I Agree with what you say.

Also, graphic cards is a whole other issue because it can depend on the individual card and not just the company. Also, the type of graphics system is also important... Whether it's integrated graphics or not etc.

That's a big can of worms, and it all depends on what software you want to run, how many monitors at once, which operating system you run, etc.

 

[Aviela]

Some Toshibas are really reliable, others are horrible. Back when I was working at a retailer that sold Toshibas, they broke quickly and frequently. Their keyboards broke more quickly than any other show models we had, and I saw my share of them in the tech shop where I worked.

That's the other thing, some companies can be better at making some computer components than other computer components. E.G. Some can be not bad at making computers but their monitors aren't the best etc. etc.

 

[Aviela]

Interesting. I have had mine for about 3 years and you would think its new. All I really do is take and process photos, homework, minecraft here and there, and use the internet. But I am very impressed at how well it has held in.

Very blessed. nice

I use my computer for all sorts of things. I have some programs that take a lot of memory so I need high performance and memory and great connectivity and then in look for various others specs like graphics and various other things. ... Power supply, optical disk, Wi-Fi...etc. etc.

 

[ForJesusChrist]

Very blessed. nice

I use my computer for all sorts of things. I have some programs that take a lot of memory so I need high performance and memory and great connectivity and then in look for various others specs like graphics and various other things. ... Power supply, optical disk, Wi-Fi...etc. etc.

Just wondering, how much RAM do you have?