My 2 1/2 year old Toshiba Satellite crashed last night. I live in Japan so I going to have to jump through hoops just to get to the Toshiba Tech Support here - probably need a replacement.

Any recommedations since I will not be by a Toshiba again? Mac, Dell, HP, Sony? I mainly just use for internet and music.

My HP Pavillion's served me well over the past couple years.

I have a Mac (MacBook Aluminum). I love Apple products... I won't ever touch a Windows PC ever again to say the least.

Best investment I've ever made.

Never had a big problem with my Sony Vaio and I've had it 5 years so far

well, mac's are always nice, though heavily overpriced. I would probably go with a dell.

Agreed, go Mac. I got 3 Macs in my household and 1 PC that I use strictly for downloading music on Limewire cause I could care less if that thing dies or blows up. Macs are like God's gift to CPU's.

Mac's use Intel CPU's...same as most PCs. Once Mac becomes as mainstream as Windows, hackers and such will migrate and Mac users will encounter the same troubles that makes them buy a Mac in the first place. I wish Microsoft would place stricter regulations on the hardware that can be used with their PCs. Instead the dedicate computers to the crowd who simply needs to surf the web for as cheap as possible.

The compatibility and pricing of Windows machines makes it by far the better computer for most people. Dell has good customer support if that's what you want. Otherwise, all of the brands have their faithful customers and the customers who will never purchase from them again. Just steer clear of Acer.

I use my Mac because I prefer Final Cut to Avid or Adobe Premiere. I also think it is much easier to run Photoshop and Aftereffects on my Mac opposed to people who use those programs on PC's. I also can not run my Final Draft on the PC. Having a Mac in the video industry is pretty much a must!!!

I completely agree. That is what I was saying...Macs make high end computer for this use but that is all they make. Windows dedicate a lot of their sales to the average Joe who just needs to check his emails and surf Youtube and along with that comes not very strict regulations of hardware, which means Windows gets blamed for companies putting crappy hardware in that particular PC. If MS was as strict as Apple as to what hardware works with their software, it would be a parallel universe.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a Mac basher. They make great machines. If I did what you did, I would surely have a Mac because they are the standard when it comes to media editing.

Anyways, to the OP...for what you need, find yourself a model and look up reviews online and compare it to the other models in your price range. My only suggestion is to stay away from Acer.

shouldn't be a suggestion. should be a rule

a friend who was also in Computer Engineering with me, buys nothing but Acer, and he has nothing but trouble with them....

I am constantly being handed Acers telling me to fix them. Constantly! It is the only brand I consistently have sitting on my home desk waiting to be "fixed". And that is just friends of friends and such that get recommended me to fix their stuff on the side. If it was just software troubles, I would blame the users and say that idiots buy Acers, but its almost always hardware with those things. I have a buddy that used to work for Circuit City and he was constantly taking in warranty Acers. He said it got to the point where he could count on a customer bringing back at least one Acer computer daily.

I would have put the over/under at 2 a day and bet on the over.

the next computer i buy is gonna be a macbook pro

premiere blows...final cut is way better from my experience...ive only used those for a few years when i was in college, but i was not a fan of premiere...

photoshop and illustrator dont make a huge difference in pc or mac from my experience...

They do? Maybe I call the wrong number or something but every time I have called Dell for support, I get some person I can barely understand, and then they give me attitude when I ask them to repeat themselves. They also ask a million times if what they asked you to do done yet so they can move to the next step, and I say to them just wait until I tell you it is done...and they still continue to ask.

Then on top of it all, they are very aggressive with selling you something you don't need, like Norton 360. I told the guy like 5 times I already had a virus scanner and was happy with it, and he continued to try to sell me Norton 360.

I will not by a Dell again. I'll probably go with a Sony or a Toshiba. My Dell laptop has blown through a Hard Drive and an LCD Inverter. Not very reliable if you ask me....

Hm...i don't have much experience with customer support at all with these companies. I am just going by what a lot of my friends and stuff say but maybe they are more mystified by the virtual desktop software Dell uses that allows the tech support to control their computer via internet connection. Obviously over the phone, you have not had good experience and I don't doubt it with all of the off-shoring of these types of tech support operations. I didn't comment on Dell hardware because I know they use cheap components but they don't fail nearly as common as Acer.

Yeah they took control of my desktop once, and it they did an okay job there, but overall, I like to do the things myself so I can learn a little. They suck at that.

I will also stay away from Acer as I heard the same problems.

lol. I hear ya but I think anybody will tell you that is in a tech field, it is always just easier to do yourself. I hate trying to explain or show people how to do something, mostly because I am lousy at it.

Well, I ended up going with another Toshiba. My choices were extremely limited and I needed one immediately; Macs were available ($1,200 and ^) by I use my computer for music and surfing the net mostly. Fortunately since I live in Japan, these come from the manufacturer over here and people have told me there have been less problems.

Good luck with it man. Laptops are a crap shoot in all reality. My mom has a Toshiba and it has worked perfect for a couple years straight now. Just luck of the draw I suppose.