I have been a technician part time at Staples for over 2 years now and you wouldn't believe the amount of issues that laptops come in with... if you ask me, laptops suck
. But if one is looking at a laptop, I would recommend them to either go for an HP (they pack a lot of useful features into it), a dell XPS or a macbook.
Just make sure they run intel chips because AMD chips run really hot and completely whore the battery... they are so bad that HP started including 12 Cell batteries along with some of their AMD models.
Note that I said HP not Compaq since essentially Compaq is their sub average notebook line... and therefore you are getting a cheaper laptop in all matters concerned, thus sacrificing usability. Compaq was awesome before they merged with HP
.
I am also going to go on a limb and ask you to stay away from acer machines... Most acer machines bought in North American retail stores seem to have a lot of issues...
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