What brand of laptop is the best? Now that’s a question that I get asked all of the time… My initial response is usually “what do you mean by best?” Now it’s generally not appropriate to answer a question with another question, but in general when people use the word “best” with regards to laptops, it usually means that they are interested in learning about the quality and reliability of a laptop more than anything else. In order to answer this question as fairly and as accurately as possible, I have decided to take a “proof is in the pudding approach” by  accessing my laptop repair records and then comparing hardware related laptop failures on a brand by brand basis. I am not going to use software related issues as a valid factor for comparison of laptop brands since most of the software repairs that I have had to perform throughout my career were necessary because of misuse by the end user.

Based upon my laptop repair records, I have had to replace hardware in Toshiba laptop computers more frequently than in any other brand by far. Gateway, Lenovo (formerly IBM), and Sony have also generated a significant amount of hardware repairs for me as well. I have had to perform relatively few hardware repairs on Dell, HP, Acer, and Apple laptops. It is true that some of the repairs that I have had to perform on laptops were related to issues caused by wear and tear parts such as hard drives and optical drives. Again however, I have had to repair more Toshiba laptops than any other brand which is surprising because Toshiba has a relatively small share of the laptop market.

OK, so it’s pretty clear that you wouldn’t buy a Toshiba laptop… So which brand of laptop would you buy?

The intent of this post is not to beat up on Toshiba so to be fair, I also would not buy a Gateway, Lenovo, or Sony laptop either. Again, my conclusions are based upon my hardware repair records, nothing less, nothing more. I personally would buy an Apple laptop (which I did by the way), but I am not about to start another Mac VS PC battle on CompuNoodle. So based upon the three remaining PC based laptop brands that I have discussed, Dell, HP, and Acer, I would by an Acer laptop.

I have had excellent luck with Dell and HP laptops. Dell and HP make an excellent product, and you really couldn’t go wrong with purchasing a laptop manufactured by either of these companies. But you asked, “what brand of laptop is the best?” I feel that Acer currently makes the best laptop available on the market. It would appear that others in fact would agree with me because as of the 4th quarter in 2009, Acer is now the #2 PC manufacturer in the world. Acer now only trails behind HP by a relatively small margin. Even though laptops are very similar nowadays Acer manages to stand out from the crowd due in part to their CrystalBrite displays and integrated webcams. A CrystalBrite display is capable of displaying colors more brilliantly and also helps to reduce eyestrain. Acer laptops also tend to offer more “bang for your buck” and typically come shipped with little or no trial-ware.

Although there isn’t a lot of hard science behind this post (other than my laptop hardware repair records), I feel as if I have provided a good enough answer to the question asked; What brand of laptop is the best? If you were shopping for a new car you might consider asking a mechanic about which brand of automobile they have to repair most frequently. Although the mechanic could probably generate a detailed report from the shop computer, a word of mouth recommendation (or word of caution for that matter) from the mechanic would probably suffice. So for the purposes of this post, you can refer to me as “your PC mechanic.”

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Written by | Mike Steben

Mike enjoys computers and technology, playing the piano, selling stuff on eBay, playing video games, cooking, and eating at Teddy's Pizza. He started CompuNoodle in 2009 and loves to hear from his readers.