I am not under any circumstances going to be getting a Dell. In my experience (and my friends who have had dell laptops), they are cheap flimsy laptops made with plastic that break easily and stop working after a year or less. They're cheaper for a good reason. The last Dell I had literally fell apart (the casing broke open and snapped, and the monitor came unhinged; laptop lasted for less than a year). My friend Unicode's last dell also fell apart on him (made of cheap flimsy plastic). Bluescreens, hard drive failures, and motherboard problems have plagued me on all dell computers i've had before.
The last two laptops i've had have both been ASUS laptops and they are tough and reliable and lasted for many years. My previous ASUS, which I had for 5 years, survived numerous 3-foot drops from tables, falls from countertops in RVs swerving around corners on tight roads (lots of stories there), and slips and falls in the rain (laptop was in its case and hit the ground hard and i fell on top of it), and it kept on working hard and refused to give up or break down. I eventually gave it to my brother after 5 years of use since its hardware was too outdated for decent gaming.
The main reasons I need a new laptop now are, again, hardware/performance issues. The laptop itself is fine, but my GPU and CPU are considerably outdated and i get pretty bad FPS on most modern games.
Oh that, and my A key and escape key constantly stop working for no reason last month (which is incredibly frustrating for gaming), and my disc drive isn't reading the discs half the time anymore.
I would much rather pay a little more for a decent ASUS that will last me 3 years minimum vs a flimsy Dell with the same specs that'll break itself apart in less than a year.
