New laptop help

[(RIP) Shenzi]

I have talked myself into buying a new laptop. It will be used by various members of the family and most importantly by me to take on the bike when touring.
The problem I have is choosing which make to buy, I have less choice than in UK but it is important that I have a french keyboard so I am stuck with what I can buy here.
I will be buying one with a 12-13 inch screen and my choices are.....

Dell
Sony
Samsung
Asus ??? Never heard of 'em!
Toshiba
HP
Acer

Which is the most robust? Unfortunately the ToughBook is way over my budget and those neat Philips jobs don't appear to be available here.
Dell probably give the best back up here as the rest are from the big stores, no PC World in France, not in my area anyway.
All advice gratefully received

 

[Sergeant Pluck]

Stick IBM on your list as well - they're expensive but worth it. Ugly looking but built like brick outhouses, super-reliable, good quality components used everywhere and actually useful software installed rather than the reams of free crap that clogs up most laptops. And they have the best keyboards in laptop-land I wouldn't buy anything else now and I've just bought me sister one as well. Personally I'd be wary of the 'good deals' you can get on cheaper machines - it's because they're not as good and won't last as long.

Pluck

 

[Fanum]

You can get dual language keyboards......but I'm guessing not in the price range you're talking about

One solution might be a keyboard overlay to change the 'qwerty' to an 'azerty' KB....and a free bit of software to do a toggle-able system change...shouldn't cost more than couple of dozen euros for the sticker

Out of that range, I'd go for Dell on paper , but in reality, I'd go for anything in the price range then isolate it physically for on the bike use.

I got a £499 HP laptop for use in Morocco a few months ago.....it was a good deal with DVD re-writer etc, just an average laptop...I keep it (not too carefully) in an Antler case and it's been to Africa three times, including some fairly serious off road and sustained rocky piste vibration.....

I seriously think the case, the treatment the laptop gets and luck play a more important part in its survivability than the make- they pretty much all use the same core bits anyway

Wait until after Chrimbo, then go for the best deal you can find and spend €40 on a decent case

 

[Deadskin]

My HP over heats and i'm on my 3rd hard drive

 

[Deleted account W]

IBM's are good. Mines had three years of hard use, knocked about in cars, airports and on sites.

The IBM hard drives have an active protection system that senses falls and stops the hard drive if it's running. They also have a hard drive shock absorber to protect the drive against damage.

 

[Bigtwin]

Acer. They are excellent apparently - we have binned all the IBMs at work and now use them, IT Director swears by them for consistency and build quality. Mind you, he's probably had his mortgage paid by them.

 

[Macca2321]

Just an Acer Aspire 9301AWSMi all singing all dancing from here for £476 (Tax Free)

www.laptopsdirect.co.uk

Well pleased with it.

Mac

 

[(RIP) Shenzi]

Just an Acer Aspire 9301AWSMi all singing all dancing from here for £476 (Tax Free)

www.laptopsdirect.co.uk

Well pleased with it.

Mac

Thanks everyone. I called the above and I am buying a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo
SI and paying €44 extra for a French keyboard. I really wanted a IBM/Lenovo 300 V100 but SWMBO wouldn't let me sell the house to buy it
Hope the Fujitsu is as strong as the saleman says, they never tell lies though do they