Dell XPS 14 - Porsche of laptops. Thanks for asking.

Dell and Porsche used in the same breath?
There's a first.

I like the Dell business model, but I don't think you should be comparing the hardware with Porsche. Really?

laptops are quite a different animal from their desktops.

If you had one you'd know.

<checks label>
Yup. Its a Dell.

I find screen resolution rather than physical screen size to be the biggest factor in choosing a laptop. Go for at least 1900x1024.

Oh and get one with lots of USB ports. My Toshiba only has 2 and its not enough.

I need one for my lad and have a budget of about £350, probably load it with Windows 7

The yoga has great resolution (3200 x 1800). I don't mind watching video at crisp resolutions on a smaller screen, my major issue is with gaming. I'm wondering if a 13.3 inch screen will be big enough to enjoy the strategy games I enjoy.

a Lenovo, that's probably about 5 years old now
it has an Intel Centrino sticker
it has worked well for me & I have no complaints other than being in that game that Draugnar won. perhaps if I'd had better USB ports I wouldn't have to bear the disgrace

Hey NigeeBaby
is Lord Sugar still knocking out those AMSTRAD boxes ???
350 quid, crikey that's probably several thousand $US & several million Drachma\
maaaaate, get down the East End to Lord Sugar's Barrow & Boot Sale
& for a lazy 10 quid pick up some surplus AMSTRAD stuff

Deciding b/w Lenovo laptops, heard lenovo is really good (mostly from agbe last year)

ideabook U530 touch
flex 15
Yoga 2 pro

I had an Amstrad back in the day ...... 1986, we had an 8256 and a 8512. I had a floppy disc in those days, thanks to technological advances I now have a hard drive.

https://www.system76.com/

And yes, Windows 7 works *fine* on their equipment. Probably Windows 8 as well.

I'm using a Zoostorm atm, but I'm not sure how big they are outside of the UK.

Macbook Air 2013.

Lenovo makes amazing products, just make sure you're happy with Windows 8. 13" screen is plenty; it's all about the resolution.

After many years of denial, I just bought my first Apple product: a Macbook Pro 15" with Retina. I'm generally pleased, although still getting used to some differences.

Switching to Mac was one of the best tech decisions I've made in a long time. I'm greatly enjoying mine after using Windows for ~20 years.

I had a Mac, I just don't think that I'm knowledgeable enough to appreciate the benifits. The way I see it, I couldn't play most games, I didn't like the minimalist controls despite however streamlined they are supposed to be, and I'm not a multimedia creating consumer that it seems like benifits from apple's brilliance.

That being said I heard the machine you have is a very good one and considering that I have an iPhone having a Mac might be beneficial.

I'm a fairly avid PC gamer and I've found that about 75% of the games I want to play are available for Mac. That's good enough for me, plus it's growing.

Sony Vaio T13 series Ultrabook: Core i7 ULP (dual core with hyper threading so competes with full-power quad core i7), touch screen, windows 8.1 pro, 8 gigs ram, 500 Meg SSD drive. I have an external terabyte HD and Blu-ray plus DVD/CD rewriter, and two external monitors plus the laptops touchscreen, external keyboard, two external trackballs (one thumb with full mouse buttons and scroll wheel for gaming and one fingertip for web graphics design work). In the laptop bag, I keep a third trackball and folding keyboard plus extra power supply for when I have to travel.

The 8.1 upgrade that was released last month free to all Windows 8 users is a big improvement (not that Windows 8 was bad, especially with a touch screen). But the real key, to me, is the solid state drive, shit loads of memory, and the pseudo quad core processor - that and the video chip set Sony uses in their latest plays most every game I've found.

Windows 8 is quite enjoyable with a touchscreen, but I've personally found it miserable without one. I haven't had much time to to play with 8.1, but it doesn't seem to address my main concern: Win8 is not optimized for a keyboard/mouse.

Asus K55A

Windows 8 is wretched. I thought Windows couldn't get any worse, but they always manage. I don't buy Apple because repairing Apple products is damned pricey.

Advent, don't know which model...

Ubuntu 12.04 (long term support) cause i can't be bothered upgrading, and newer versions (13.10 is out, but i don't have the graphics card to support some newer features, so i'm not really pushed)

Dell XPS 15-L501

I've got him for about three years now, and I'm very happy with it. It's not a porsche, but definitely a BMW.