Which Laptop Should You Purchase, 2016 New Year's Edition

I'm going to make this short and to the point.  Well, maybe not short.

• Laptops are a commodity.  Their sales are being squeezed by sales of tablets and smartphones.  This means you can get bargains at places like Amazon, Newegg, Costco, and Walmart.  
• The best bargains are near the end of each quarter.
• Because laptops are a commodity, quality is "shaved" as close as it can be- cheaper components made with "dirty" elements, with little extended testing after assembly.  Many will fail soon after the warranty is up.  But, then, like inkjet printers, it is usually cheaper to buy a new one than repair the old one... with some exceptions if you are a power user. 

Consumer Reports came out with their quality/repair reviews.  The data were obtained from CR subscribers.  Does the CR subscriber population statistically represent the overall population.  I haven't researched this.  This is what they say.  Based on my experience, this survey is skewed because the respondents are just CR subscribers and I suspect the computers they buy and use are not typical.  With that observation, CR says the quality is ranked in this order, from best to worst:

1. Apple, 10% after 3 yrs
2. Samsung, Gateway, 16% "
3. Acer, Lenovo, 18% "
4. Toshiba, HP, Dell, Asus, 19%

The first year failure rate, typically when the device is under warranty, is Apple by itself, then everyone else about the same, around 9 or 10%.

Other than Apple, there is only 3 % difference after 3 years.

One comment in the article raised my suspicion about the knowledge of the people doing the survey:  "It stands to reason that the more you use your laptop, the more likely it will break down."  I spent 25 years in computer/semiconductor component test.  My experience:

• As long as your device has good power management and heat dissipation, leaving your computer on is better than turning it off and on.  It is the off and on cycles that stress the electronic components.  It is heat that causes them to fail prematurely. 
• Typically to almost always, Chinese made components are way more likely to fail than Taiwanese, US, etc components.  Chinese components are made of "dirty," less pure, materials.  That, and less testing, mandated by the intense price competition of the commodity market, make all laptops, including Apple products, more sensitive to failure due to on and off cycles.   

My experience, based on computers I repair, is, quality from lowest to highest quality

• HP, Acer, Toshiba (Toshiba getting better)
• Samsung, Gateway
• Dell, Asus
• Lenovo, Apple

Apple is the mystery- why it is rated so high in the survey but why I see many more problems with Apple, especially the iMac (that's the desktop, not a laptop).  The root cause problem with Apple is that heat management, aka fans, heat sinks, is not best of breed.

Two more points:

1. Hard drives are failing earlier than they used to.  IMO, that is due both to the high density = high reliability risk of the new generation of the hard drives and inadequate heat management. 
2. The feel of the keyboard and mouse is an important consideration.  Many people have trouble with the big single pad for a mouse.  Touch typists have trouble with the chicklet keys.  Of course, you have the option of getting a separate keyboard and mouse.  

Another key issue with new laptops is the amount of "junk" software on the computer, usually supported by a piece of software called Wildtangent, which some security analysts, including me, consider spyware. (See this article on junkware removal.  I use both tools discussed in the article.

Don't overbuy.   Buy a computer that can do what you want to do but don't buy a computer that does more than you will ever need.  Assume you will need to replace it due to failure in about 3 years.

Back up your important data.  Don't back the data up on your computer.  Use an external drive, or best choice, use a cloud backup solution, from Google Drive (free) to Carbonite or equivalent (fee).

Often, an Intel i3 processor laptop is all you need if you aren't a power user.    Get 8gig of memory.  If you do a lot a financial stuff or do video streaming, then you need a better graphics processor (eg NVIDIA graphics) and an i5 processor.  If you are a gamer and do a lot of photo stuff, then get an i7 processor.  (AMD makes competing processors and graphics processors.  Go with Intel unless the AMD is significantly cheaper.)  Go to 16 Gig of memory for an i5 or i7, though 8 gig might be OK if you have a great sale... It is a cost/performance tradeoff.  In general, the constraint in my use is memory.  I usually have a lot of stuff going at once, so 16 gig is attractive to me.

Oh, on touch screens, I find they aren't used unless the laptop can be converted into a tablet, eg, a "flip."

Questions:  use the comment section below to ask.