Reliable laptop brand

Thomas_Holding

I need to buy a laptop for a family member and I would like recommendations regarding reliability.
I have had bad experiences recently
Lenovo the webcam stopped worked after 10 months and they said to fix it I would have to be without my laptop for a month (in the end I got an external webcam)
Asus my daughter's laptop wifi stopped working one week after the guarantee ran out (thanks to people here I bought a dongle and fixed it).
Dell I have a work Dell laptop and it crashes every now again - although in some ways better than the other problems.
 

MikeJXE

Apple for sure 

Rodders53

All brands will have problem samples.  Apple included.

Google, Bing and other search engines will find you league tables - whether scientifically accurate or not or just a writers' opinion is another matter.  (I doubt the makers divulge commercially sensitive data like that).

All your trouble brands fare pretty well on the first link I looked at.

Personally I'm tryping on a HP laptop that is just over 7 years old with no faults {touching wood}.  Swapped the HDD for a SSD a while back to improve performance not due to any issue with it (now in a caddy for backup/storage use).  Can't be upgraded to Win11 (due to lack of HP driver support I think, as hardware is pretty much there from what I've read).

SWMBO had a one year older Samsung which needed a new battery, otherwise faultless and it also benefitted from a SSD drive.  Only replaced that recently due to her gaming needs for a faster processor/graphics.

Norman_Castle

Thomas_Holding said:

Lenovo the webcam stopped worked after 10 months and they said to fix it I would have to be without my laptop for a month (in the end I got an external webcam)
Asus my daughter's laptop wifi stopped working one week after the guarantee ran out (thanks to people here I bought a dongle and fixed it).
Dell I have a work Dell laptop and it crashes every now again - although in some ways better than the other problems.
 

All of these can be either software or hardware faults. If they're software faults the laptop brand is unlikely to make a difference.

DullGreyGuy

Thomas_Holding said:

I need to buy a laptop for a family member and I would like recommendations regarding reliability.
I have had bad experiences recently

There is always an element of luck with these things but it also somewhat depends on what you are going to be paying for it. 

I'd agree with others that Apple devices for me have always been very reliable, our iMac's internal DVD drive died after 8 years and its PSU after 13 at which point we decided to replace it. Our 10 year old MacBook Pro is still working perfectly (as are our newer models). However Apple only sell premium products and therefore its a little unfair to compare their premium offering with Dell's budget models.

Many of the large brands like Dell/HP etc offer both budget and premium options but you are unlikely to find reliability statistics split between the lines for a fair comparison to Apple and their premium products are often at very similar prices to Apple (slightly more difficult to compare now that Apple have their M1/M2 processors). 

I cannot really discuss non-Apple brands for longevity in comparison as they are almost always client machines which are often brand new when I get them and under a year old when I give them back. Occasionally I get a recycled machine but the worst of those was only 2 years old when I got it. 

As someone often working on trains/planes etc the one thing thats really annoyed me with my current client laptop (a Windows Surface Laptop) is how poor the battery is. Both it and my Macbook Pro claim almost the same battery life but my apple machine can do a full days work and still have 30%+ battery left whereas the Surface will turn off in under 5 hours of the identical work. 

lr1277

Dell used to sell along with the laptop, a next day onsite repair service, valid for 3 or 4 years. I think they sell something similar now but not sure how good it is.
Back in 2002, my laptop screen stopped working, or it might have been some part of my laptop screen. Anyway the engineer came out the next day to my house and replaced the screen. Outstanding service, but I paid for that particular package when I bought the laptop.
I am sure there are other support packages available from 3rd parties. The advantage with the Dell service was that it was Dell kit fitted by a Dell (badged) engineer.

cymruchris

What will the family member use the laptop for?

Different brands have strengths and weaknesses depending on what they're going to do with it.

diystarter7

Hi
We have HP laptops, eltie books for years ago and the one i am using is over 12 years old upgraded twice, falled on the floor a few times, grandkis used i - not a single problem with this and others - it is heavy as they are roubust

Thanks

Thomas_Holding

cymruchris said:

What will the family member use the laptop for?

Different brands have strengths and weaknesses depending on what they're going to do with it.

Just word processing, video calling and maybe photo editing

Thomas_Holding

Norman_Castle said:

Thomas_Holding said:

Lenovo the webcam stopped worked after 10 months and they said to fix it I would have to be without my laptop for a month (in the end I got an external webcam)
Asus my daughter's laptop wifi stopped working one week after the guarantee ran out (thanks to people here I bought a dongle and fixed it).
Dell I have a work Dell laptop and it crashes every now again - although in some ways better than the other problems.
 

All of these can be either software or hardware faults. If they're software faults the laptop brand is unlikely to make a difference.

Good point I don't know that the Asus one was a hardware fault.
The Lenovo it was an upgrade that killed the driver - I am not sure who to blame for that but the support was so poor that I couldn't get it fixed.