I am about to get a laptop soon and i was wondering what company should i go with. When i asked people around me they said go with dell toshiba and gateway. I will spend about 1000 for a laptop and i want it to be use for MMO not those really high end ones. I want a laptop that is wireless with a decent battery life and wont break that easily. So which laptop company is the best. Please help me.

Knowing the company is not going to help you much. All companies have high-end and low-end products with very different life expectancies. You have to think brands like ThinkPad, Latitude, Satellite, etc.

To tell you straight, you are not going to get a "good" laptop for $1000 (I assume that you live in the center of the world and think is USD) unless you get some special bargain.

I always recommend ThinkPads, but $1000 is probably going to get you a R(ubbish) series machine that may be inferior to something from a cheaper brand.

Thinkpads are very nice. We use them at work with little troubles. In the past I have had HP, Compaq and Toshiba's. Had the best luck with Compaq over the years. I would not buy a Toshiba or a Dell. That's just me. I did recently buy a new Gateway with Vista Home Premium. So far so good. I think you need to figure out what you want and go from there. Its all a matter of preference.

I would disagree. I have a 3 year old toshiba that I bought for around 1K and it's been very good. The only complaint I had was that it's battery life sucks. But I rarely run on batteries. I have since added 512mb of ram to max it at 1GB and a 7200 rpm HD. The wifi is excellent on it. I use it mostly for surfing, productivity, and non-graphics intensive games. As a matter of fact, it's what I use here on my combat tour in Iraq.

Buying a laptop is really about what you intend to use it for. The big issue with low-end laptops is that you're usually chinced out of sufficient RAM and the hard drives are dinky. Rarely are you going to get super-fast processor either. But if all you're going to do is surf and write papers then you don't need a fast CPU.

The first thing anyone who buys a laptop should do is ensure it is maxed out on RAM and the hard disk is fast. Too many laptops have hard disks that are excruciatingly slow and insufficient RAM.

As I said, its a matter of preference and for me past experience, of which I had bad service out of Toshiba. Mainly overheating and keyboard problems. I would say it was a fluke if it only happened on one. But on 3 different Toshiba's? THat is why I said I would not buy another one. So far I am happy with my Gateway. 120gb HD and 2 gig of ram is plenty for all my needs. :D

As Nodsu rightly mentioned, the best differs from company to company. Dell's Inspiron line is not that good, while their XPS line of laptops is of very good build quality. Similarly, Acer's TravelNote series is not as good as their Ferrari series.

I guess, what we see here is that all brands are good, the best thing i guess is to have very clear what do you want the laptop to? simple tasks? gaming? designing? traveling? and then with this in mind, go and check.
I had myself at work a Dell Latitude D800, and never had a problem, very fast one, wide screen, very good looking, but VERY HEAVY, not good for traveling.
Now i have a IBM T43 Thinkpad, it´s lighter, and works well for what i use it to, but they are uglier than ever!!!! i wonder why IBM makes horrible laptops, they look old.

And of course, always check for good guarantee terms.

Cheers

i'm quite new to all this but have never had any problem from dell.

It doesnt really matter what manufacturer you buy a laptop from, they all pretty much use the same parts. I would recommend a 3 year warranty but that adds cost and lowers the hardware you could buy. As long as it is not an emachines laptop, which I dont think they make them anymore.

I dont know what to say about Dell anymore, I had mixed results with them some terrible, some wonderful, even if you have the same model of system they often put different bands of parts such as cd-drives, lcd screens, etc. But there customer service is for the most part terrible. I just got a E1505 and its really nice and they start out $699 after $200 instant savings, with up to a core 2 duo and 2 gb of ram.

I doubt that helped much, but atleast I got my 2 cents in.

I have a dell inspiron and I've had nothing but trouble with it. Dells tech support isn't really much help either. They serviced my laptop and sent it back with the exact same problems it had when I sent it in, and it turned out that the main problem was just some stupid setting in the bios and the charger was bad. Those are problems that were solved here on this forum, dell couldn't even tell me my charger was bad when they had it and supposedly tested it. But, I will give them this, they are quick with replacing parts if you tell them straight out what you need. After the guys here helped me figure out the problem I hopped onto the dell support chat and told the tech that my charger was bad and needed a new one, and I had it the next day. I was actually quite impressed with that.

So, honestly I would say from my own personal experience, stay away from dell. But, there has been a lot of people I've talked to that never had any problems with their dell. Just thought I'd throw in my experiences with dell.

Yeah Dell is probably another laptop I would not buy. My roommate got so frustrated with his last summer that he ran it over with his truck in the driveway. Then mailed it back to Dell including a letter with a few "choice" words about his thoughts of their company and products. However I do have a Dell Axim PDA that has performed flawlessly for a few years now. Just doesnt like SD cards over 256mb for some reason.

Hi i am looking for a laptop aswell, is Sony any good.

Please reply back i want to know.

I dont not own a sony laptop, but I have heard about how they use cheap parts and over rpice the computers. Basicly they put very cheap parts in the laptops and desktops then sell them for way more than there really worth. Also I heard they fail a good bit but I dont own own so if anyone else has anything to say about sony please include it, but thats what I always heard.

No Sony laptops are not that good, built mainly for the "cool" factor than for reliability. HP and Toshiba sell pretty good laptops for daily use and school/university use.

Thanks for telling me.

As someone else said, it's all about personal preference. As far as quality goes though, I would have to say that Toshiba and ASUS are at the top, with ASUS being your best bang for buck. As far as price vs quality / features / reliability goes I don't think you can go wrong with an ASUS Laptop, you probably won't get a decent one as cheap as something like an ACER but it'll be much better while still not paying as much as you would have to pay to get a good Toshiba.
In my opinion the cheaper Toshiba's aren't that much chop and while the expensive ones are good, you can get something just as good with an ASUS without spending nearly as much.

Do Sony laptop have good battery life and quality

An important aspect of laptop selection is reliability over time. We repair laptops and have seen an average of 10 a month since 1992... Inexpensive laptops are frequently more trouble because the manufacturer has to compromise somewhere... usually the screen, and cooling fans.
Avoid units that are designed to be too pretty. Look for those that offer a long warranty as an option.
We have seen the best laptops are IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads, Toshiba Techra (but support is bad and parts are hard to get), HP in the upper price range, Dell or Gateway in the upper half of their price range.
Sony is among the worst because of the inability to get parts when they fail, and the early failure rates. Compaq, though getting better, has been more trouble than Compaq, eMachines fail way too often, as do Alienware units. We like Gateway, Dell Latitude, higher priced Dell Inspirons.
If you intend to use the laptop as a gamer, you are asking for trouble.
The less expensive laptops have high failure rates of the LCD screens or the screen inverters.
No-Name or off-brand or unknown makes are a bad choice at any price because you cannot get parts when they fail.
I would avoid low priced Compaqs, Sony VAIO, Alienware, eMachines, and Toshiba because of parts and service. Do not buy online unless you have seen the machine to assure it has plenty of cooling fans and air vents...
A lightweight laptop is a bad choice unless it is an expensive Dell, IBM Thinkpad or the like... as it is more costly to build a lightweight unit.
Good luck.

I would definately agree, excellent advice from raybay.
Hope your laptop selection goes a bit more smoothly, now that you have a few opinions and are armed with a bit more knowledge.

Good Luck jujainlapet.

Can't say some are good than others, if you have one you got for $699, $799 or higher and is working without problems then your luckly. I seen a lot of DELL go bad right out of the box (mobo, cpu, ram, video (lcd panel) an etc. IBM last model for business T43 was one of the worst they had made before the China company took them over. T41 was excellent model. HP/Compaq are very rock soild. The ones sold at Wal-Mart are very good, but the Toshiba once known for good laptops have had a lot of issues lately.

ShopNBC sells the Dura laptop suppose to be the same one the US Army uses because you can stand ontop of it and it will still work. I never heard of the company before but those laptops are not cheap either.

Best advise is to shop around know what you want before you buy. Make sure it comes with good protection. You might not even need it, but you never know what's going to give our or not.

Remember if you buy a laptop make sure you get a notebook (laptop) cooler lap for it. They range from $29 to $39 bucks in most retail stores. Keep the heat off your lap and also keeps the laptop cooler.

ShopNBC sells the Dura laptop suppose to be the same one the US Army uses because you can stand ontop of it and it will still work.
Yeah I've seen a pic somewhere of one of them that took a bullet, supposedly from a sniper rifle (although the hole suggests it was of a far lower caliber) and saved some soldier's life in Afghanistan. It was on The Enquirer, if I remember correctly.

Also the Dell ATG is very similar to the Twinhead durabook as well as the Panasonic Toughbook, there mainly made for the business user/ frequent traveler, incase they drop the notebook its more less still in good workly condition and you most likely wont loose any data since they have anti-shock HHDs, also if you get water on the keyboard the system still should work. But normal laptops made by Dell lately have gotten more durable thats to there Road-Ready design. Which makes it better for traveling, making a sturdier laptop. Also it has shock absorbing material surronding the HHD to pervent data loss.

you know windows vista is it better than windows xp professional or not?

I don't want to make the mistake of getting a laptop with vista if vista's no good because then i'll have to install windows xp and sometimes windows doesn't work when you install it.it could wreck your laptop up.

There is nothing wrong with Vista. Some here will disagree, but so far I really like it. I have had a few issues with software incompatibilities, but nothing really that bad. If you do buy a laptop running Vista. I would highly recommend getting at least 1 preferably 2 gigs of memory though! If you buy one of the cheaper models that Best Buys is selling with 512mb ram, I think you will be somewhat dissaponted! Don't get home basic edition either!

Thinkpads are very nice.

Yes they are, and my personal choice.

They might be a little more expensive, but you get what you pay for, and the build quality is simple superb.

They are not multimedia centric, through - they will play games just fine and have DVD-RW, etc - but if you are looking for a machine that will plug into all sorts of other multimedia equipment quickly and easily then there are other options.

www.notebookreview.com is a good site to get reviews of laptops and get a good idea about what you are buying.

I always look for upgrade potential in the RAM and HDD - the two parts of a laptop that one can pretty much most times upgrade - so that I can get a good 160GB drive and at least 2GB of RAM in there. These upgrades aren't hard, and I've often found its best to go for a cheaper machine that doesn't have the big RAM and disk and then upgrade it, so long as the CPU and graphics were up to spec.

Also, are you going to be lugging this laptop around? If so, how big is it? How much does it weight? Have you thought about a bag for it? How long does the battery last, etc, etc...

Its a different mindset than shopping (or building) a desktop or server PC, but its basically the same kind of idea.

Dell! why would you want to buy a laptop from a company who cant even give you a decent warranty in the price, in my opinion you should buy a laptop that alreday has a 2 or 3 year warranty as standard it doesnt cost any more then most laptops and is less problems then a dell.

i use an ASUS A6 Series and have sold around about 80 of them and touchwood only 1 ever had a problem and that was a customer spilt coffee in the keyboard and they still replaced the keyboard free of charge.

I'm into laptops now much more than fixed equipment. I always look for upgrade potential, preferring to go for a cheaper machine that can have the RAM and HDD upgraded, as opposed to something too flash or too expensive.

My own personal choice is a Thinkpad, they have superior build quality, compatibility and are highly portable. However, one may have many, differing requirements in a laptop, so I suggest checking out not just build quality but battery life, weight, size, screen quality, etc.

www.notebookreview.com is a good site.

Some of my fav laptops:

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/21342.jpg
Anthing Alienware.

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/21781.jpg
The mighty Thinkpad.

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/20227.jpg
Some of Samsung's designs are totally funky!

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/1941.jpg
Or something a bit more experimental?

Phant, what is that in your last picture? I am into gadget a lot! lol.... I have a few PDA's laying about the house. And was curious about that thing you got there! :D

Well, its not mine.. but that's an OQO. Its somewhere between a PDA and a laptop, but its closer to a laptop.

http://www.laptopmag.com/Review/OQO-model-02.htm

1.5 GHz VIA C7M ULV

Operating Systems
Windows Vista Capable
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

Chipset VIA VX700

30 GB / 60 GB hard drive 4200 rpm

Memory 1 GB DDR2, 533 MHz

Display Size 5-inches

Resolution

800 x 480

Zoom: 1000 x 600, 1200 x 720

Wireless & Networking

EV-DO Integrated

802.11 abg WiFi

Bluetooth Technology with EDR

Integrated antennas

Ports

Audio: 3.5mm line out/line in

Video out: HDMI port

1 USB 2.0

Battery Lithium-ion polymer 3 hours

Size 5.6-inches x 3.3-inches x 1.0-inch

Weight Under 1.0 pound

Warranty 1 year

Oh, and out of all of those, I actually ONLY recommend you buy the Thinkpad, but the rest are quite fun.

sheeeeit......I looked at the price! Nevermind, don't think I will be picking one of those up!! lol...

I am going to use the laptop for a daily use,not really every day but about 5 times a week.
I'm not going to take the laptop around with me unless i have to.

What are the main activities? If its just office stuff, you might as well just go for the cheapest one you can find.

Budget is always the issue with a good laptop. A quality used laptop is better than a new cheap one.
It is wise to get a model that is made in huge numbers, so there will parts availability for a long time. Parts become the greatest difficulty on cheap computers. When you are considering a new laptop, search eBay for parts on the company's other models. Search the manufacturer web site or other sites that sell parts or do repairs to see what prices and availability. Does the company sell parts for its laptop after the warranty expires? Most do not.
Some thoughts that come from our experience repairing laptops and portables since the old "Suitcase Compaq in 1988" and 2000 units since then:
A low priced laptop will fail more frequently and will be more expensive to repair.
Reliability is more important that fast performance.
The screen will fail, sooner or later, and likely sooner, in a low priced laptop
A used Thinkpad is better than most new ones from other sources.
No laptop company makes a good laptop for gaming that will last a long time. Yet. Gaming nearly always shortens the life of a laptop. If you need a gaming laptop, be sure it has plenty of cooling fans (at least 3) and large air channels to move cool air in and hot air out.
127 laptop companies have gone belly-up.
Seven companies make most of the laptops sold in the world. HP, Compaq, Toshiba, Winbook, Gateway, eMachines, and all no-name laptops are all made by the same companies.
Expensive laptops have better parts and better cooling
The least expensive laptops of any manufacturer are compromised in
Some laptops are nearly always good if you buy: IBM/Lenovo, full featured HP, full featured Gateway, most Dell Latitudes, full featured Dell Inspirons, full featured Toshiba's.
Low priced laptops have cheap parts... cheaper plastic, poor screens, bad backlights, unreliable inverters, inadequate cooling, poor heat sinks, inadequate cooling air channels, poor protection from impact or vibration, awful keyboards that wear out early or keys that break, poor on-board mouse or touch screen, weak RJ-45 sockes, weak modem sockets, optical drives that fail early, cheap third-tier memory, some have poor hard drives such as Tri-gem, although not many have bad hard drives, bad power switches that fail early and often, poor components for handling internet and wireless.
For long-term reliability and less-expensive repair, avoid no-name machines. Avoid Acer, Sony Vaio, Toshiba, eMachines, Compaq, low-priced Dells, store brands, low-priced Gateways, low priced Lenovo, Winbook, any super thin laptop, Alienware, Winbook, any laptop that has only one cooling fan, any laptop limited to a one-year warranty that does not sell a warranty extension.
People who take care of their laptops and keep the air channels clean of hair and dust have good luck. People who don't take care of their laptops have bad luck.
Buy the ones that Navy Seals or the US Foreign service buy.
Impact while carrying laptops is the number two failure cause, next to poorly made screens and optical drives. Be sure you have a very well padded carrying case of some kind. Vibration is probably next.
A good cleaning with Dust Off or other difluoroethane gas canned air every four months is a smart move. A disassembly and cleaning every year is also smart. Replace the cpu fan every 18 to 24 months.
If you buy a low priced, cheap-processor laptop, you are almost guaranteed early failure of optical drive, screen, and heat-related problems on other components.
Small laptops fail more frequently than large ones of the same brand.
Everybody knows somebody who has had great luck with a bad brand or a bad model. Just remember, you make your own luck by selecting well.
If your data is valuable, get a valuable computer.

I bought a cheap Acer once. It performed well, but the build quality was terrible. It actually creaked under its own weight. Felt like it was going to fall apart in my hands if I turned it over. On the underside, important circuit board was practically exposed.

Now, comparing that to my current Thinkpad is like night and day. The Thinkpad is a brick - a tank. Man, there's like videos on youtube of people running over Thinkpads in their car, pouring water on them, etc, and they still work!!!! Thinkpads are built to take a kicking. If you are moving around, using your computer all over the place, then you definately want a Thinkpad.

I have a Thinkpad T42 and a Thinkpad R51e. The battery, hard drive, keyboard are interchangeable between them. You can pick up a single core Thinkpad for quite little, like the 14" Thinkpad T43. If its not for games, but for work, you will find the Thinkpad has it won. Also, my Thinkpad can play some games not too bad, maybe have to turn the resolution down. Gaming is not my key focus these days, and I have a dedicated multimedia machine. But for email, coding, surfing, cracking, etc I'll take a Thinkpad any day.

i use an ASUS A6 Series and have sold around about 80 of them and touchwood only 1 ever had a problem and that was a customer spilt coffee in the keyboard and they still replaced the keyboard free of charge.


I most definitely agree on that point, the ASUS A6 Series (A6R, A6R-P, etc.)
were an extremely good Laptop, reasonably priced without being cheap, everything built in, Bluetooth, Wireless, Webcam & Mic. Depending on the exact Model usually a Gig of DDR2 RAM, if not, extremely easy to upgrade, and ASUS have Local Service Centre's everywhere.
They usually come with a Bag and Laptop Mouse.

I sold heaps of them, and not a single customer complaint.

Pity they are no longer available, unless there is still old stock being sold at some places. I could sell at least 10 more if I could still get my hands on them, including one for myself.

Still, ASUS, :)
The Thinkpad's are good too, though I'd personally still prefer ASUS.

Any other Asus models you recommend?

The ASUS M9V is a particularly good Model with a Variety of features. There are some good Notebooks in the A3 Series aswell eg. A3Ac. The new U5A offers High Speed Bluetooth and excellent colour.
Keep in mind nearly all new Laptop's come with Windows Vista (like it or not), these three have Windows Vista Business, whereas the A6R's and the like came with either Windows XP Home or Professional.
You might even still be able to get an A6R or A6R-P in your area of the world.

All-in-all it comes down to your personal needs in a Notebook Computer.
Check-out this site http://usa.asus.com/search.aspx?searchitem=1&searchkey=Notebooks and you will see that the Range is enormous for purpose specific Notebooks. Whether for the traveller, a multimedia station, graphic artist, gaming, etc.
As other people have said in this thread, it's all about doing your homework so that you pick the laptop that is right for you.

Cheers,

Dean.

Also if it is for a business notebook, I love the S6 Series of Laptops with Wireless-N.

Wow a lot of you are really into this....

I've own:

CTX (maker of monitors go into laptops in 90s and failed)
Toshiba both S-Pro and Tecra Series (both has hold up and still work)
DELL (I've repaired them but found them to be just junk after the 3rd year)
HP/COMPAQ (newer ones with AMD X64 or Mobile are very good)
SONY (like most of their stuff just have to cross your fingers and hope)
GATEWAY (okay)
SABER (okay)
Pansonic (okay)
ACER (okay)
Clone names (just of to know what you're getting into)

Dang, never knew CTX made laptops! Learn something new everyday!

I forgot about the CTX. One of the few "noname" laptops we can recommend... CTX makes a lot of good low-priced stuff.
Who makes Saber. We have not seen any of those in our shop.
What do you mean by "okay".
Toshiba: good unit but repairs take a very long time under warranty, and parts are impossible to get since Toshiba farmed out its repair support.
Sony: Just the worst laptops for reliability that we know, and sadly among the most expensive... parts not available after warranty expires. Poor to very poor cooling, bad screens, bad inverters.
Acer is a good manufacturer, and makes laptops for other companies. There are just be problems getting replacmengt parts.
HP and Compaq are just way too different to lump together. The cheap Compaqs are failure prone but at least parts are available. The upper half of the HP line are superb computers for laptops, with lots of cooling fans and rugged builds. Compaq upper half are getting better.
Panasonic laptops vary so much from model to model that I assume they are not making their own.
Dell is a mystery: We have a LOT of them and use them as loaners while working on their owner's original Dell. Most Latitudes are pretty good. Most of their Inspirons in the top half of their marketing range are excellent. Any Dell in the bottom half of their price range are likely to be junk... and are one of the reasons why Dell is restructuring now. Dell does not make their own laptops... But Dell's are better than Sony, Compaq, and eMachines by a long shot.
Toshiba: I love em. Have several Tecra's and Satellites we use as loaners and renters. But their parts and repair system has fallen apart in the US.
Gateway makes some of the best laptops for the money. Their inexpensive laptops are much better than Dell, HP, and Compaq. Their expensive ones are superb.
None of these match IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad T-series.
My bias is a big one, because we only see failed laptops that have come into our shops for repairs over the past 16 years.
All of these are better than no-name or store brands, however.

raybay, always appreciate your posts. Why is it then that so many people dis Gateway? I am looking for a decent mid-range laptop for my daughter for strickly college work. My budget is $800.

Also, I've been looking at Lenovo 3000 N100 series but people seem to dis those as well, i.e., cheaply made.

Thoughts?

The Lenovo 3000 is not one of their best machines. If your daughter will accept a refurbished machine, the IBM Lenovo T-41, T-42, and T43 are wonderful machines in that price range from about $475 to $800.
Nothing wrong with a Dell, Gateway, or HP in their upper half of their model range either, as refurbs.
I don't sell them but can better advise you if you email me at canyonlands@gmail.com... this is probably not appropriate on this forum.

ThinkPads are a good choice right now. 400.00 dollars off T-60 series. As far as black being ugly, black will always be the new black. If you are in a coffee shop doing homework and you are using your ThinkPad people do notice what you have and it is a quaility notebook to say the least.:cool:

raybay, always appreciate your posts. Why is it then that so many people dis Gateway? I am looking for a decent mid-range laptop for my daughter for strickly college work. My budget is $800.

Also, I've been looking at Lenovo 3000 N100 series but people seem to dis those as well, i.e., cheaply made.

Thoughts?

Buy the Lenovo Thinkpad as opposed to the Lenovo range. The Thinkpad has a better construction. If possible, go for a T series if your budget allows it, as the R series is the budget one and the build quality, although good, is not as good as the T series, which is pretty robust. There is also the Z series which includes a Titanium covered Thinkpad which is also very nice.

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12901.jpg

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12923.jpg

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12925.jpg

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12899.jpg

That machine has fantastic upgrade potential.... you can get some pretty nice SATA drives for it - Seagate does a 160GB one - and the RAM is upgradable to 4GB I believe.

Which Acer Was It. My Dad Has An Acer Travelmate 2428awxmi.he Might Buy Another One So I Could Keep The Acer

I'm not sure why people think Thinkpads are so awesome, the ones I've used (T60's) aren't the greatest IMO. I didn't think the build quality was very good for their reputation. Several panels were kinda loose and could rattle, and I didn't like the way it hinged(exposed video cable, too much pressure required to open). I also don't like the fact that they won't put a decent graphics card in any of the Thinkpads. They also are overpriced. I will say the X60 seemed pretty cool, but I didn't get to actually use it, so I can't comment too much. I also dislike that Thinkpads are manufactured by a communist company.

If I was getting a laptop, I'd get a macbook pro (http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html) and dual boot os x and vista. I'm much more impressed with the macbook pro's I've used than with any thinkpad. They are overpriced, but then again, so are thinkpads, and at least the macbook pro has a x1600pro, instead of gma or x1300's. The MBP keys light up(not just a led lamp shining down like the Thinkpads), and it has the nice magnetic power connector, so no more broken dc in jacks.

I also dislike that Thinkpads are manufactured by a communist company.
I take it you mean China? Most of the hardware we use today,including the iPod, are made there.

Mexico, Hungary, Korea, Singapore, China, Philippines, India... anywhere the labor is cheap

I also dislike that Thinkpads are manufactured by a communist company.

To be a technologist (and dare I say it, hacker) you have to try to move above these kinds of things. Forget about politics - unless its standing in the way of technological progress, or its stopping someone from getting their basic human technological rights. Now, actually you could in fact say that China comes under this heading, as they have massive firewalls that stop people in China from seeing things that the government does not want them to see on the Net. And that's bad. But its not a reason to not buy their machines, unless they start to implant them with listening devices or something.... just my opinion.

I take it you mean China? Most of the hardware we use today,including the iPod, are made there.

I know it's not a big deal, since I buy stuff that's made in China all the time, but I prefer to support American compaines if I can. I laugh when people say they "don't buy anything from China," since it's almost impossible not to. At least Apple is an American company(unlike Lenovo), even though Apple (and many others) outsource production to China. When IBM outsourced to China before Lenovo, took over, at least IBM was an American company.