I was going to look online for a new laptop.

Who does "planned" maintenance at 8:25pm EST?  

Hackers, that's who. (just speculation)

Put your big boy pants on and get a Lenovo think pad.

Will I be able to keep it for more than a year?  I'd like to get something with a 17" montior, it doesn't look like they have one.  But I'd overlook it if the Lenovo was the most awesome computer ever made.

I don't know anything about them.

A bit more money than your standard off the shelf piece but I have had mine for roughly 20 months with no need to even look at new machines. Works very well and is super fast still.


Look at their mobile work stations. W520 or whatever they are now.

Ughhh.  it doesn't have the number keys on the right side.  That's a must for me.

It looks like only their low end models have the right side number keys.

Yeah they had a 17" piece a while ago. Oh well. That was a big debate for me as well but I just dock it when needed.

Had my Toshiba laptop now for a year and a half. Paid $289.00 at Microcenter. Win 7 with 4 gigs ram. Works fine for me.

I killed a Toshiba Satellite in less than a year.  I'm using an Asus right now, the battery died within 6 months (meaning, I have to stay plugged in all the time).  No I won't buy a battery.  The Letter A is completely rubbed off the keyboard, and the letter S looks like a fish hook.  I can barely watch a video without the entire thing locking up.  If I have it on my lap for more than 5 minutes it heats my knees up so bad that I can't sleep at night (arthritis)

I don't play games on it, I don't surf porn, I work.  That's it.   I can't manage to find a computer that doesn't turn into a terd within 8 months.

I couldn't either until I got a Macbook Pro. Not only that, when I am ready to upgrade, the resale value is off the charts.

Lenovo are usually long lasting to satisfy their enterprise clients leasing thousands and thousands of laptops.

Another vote for Lenovo.  My choice would be Thinkpad T series.

Lenovo or Mac would be my choices.

I bought a 5 year old Macbook on eBay, added $40 worth of RAM to max it out. Works great. I have an issue with Parallels using up a TON of memory, but other than that, it works great, doesn't crash, and for a 5 year old computer, is pretty fast.

I bought a Dell Vostro in early '08 and I'm using it now. The battery life is still excellent and, except for the fact that it fell from the sofa while it was on (I had some HD issues but it's working fine, now), I haven't had problems. The keys are shiny but the letters are still intact. It cost less than $500, but it has a 15" screen, not 17". Very happy with it.

I bought a xmas sale four years ago, Acer. While I figured it was junk at 398 its lasted that long (after you take all the crap off of that comes these days, ack!). Ready for a new one though as its just maxed out and too slow now. Looking at Lenova.

Another vote for Lenovo. I'm a tech at a large school district and we've been using Lenovo for the past 6 or 7 years. We've yet to see one fail. And they get used by both staff and students every day all day long.