I've always found past job experience + #2 for confirmation to be best. Better, even, than #1 + #2, for anything other than entry level.

The problem is they load them with crapware.

At the Microsoft Store they are bundled with Windows Signature Edition with no crapware at all. Big difference to the user.

HP has been rated worst of the pack.

I worked at a PC shop briefly and almost all our laptops in were Toshiba or HPs. Both are crap.

Samsung seems to be making some good stuff, Asus I normally would recommend but they have had some crappy lemons too thrown in.

Thinkpads are going to junk too as the cost accountants are bossing the engineers like they do in Dell and HP to lower costs and quality. You can't trust them anymore either. Seems Asus and Samsung are the rebels here and breaking away the marketshare HP and Dell had for so long. ... or rather the ones HP and Dell ruined.

Maybe you can be the one who does IT support while I bring in 4 devices that mess up your work and I will help give you a poor performance review in return and make sure you work off the clock to service the legiitimate users while I waste your time trying to get facebook to work on my uber IPAD.

Sounds perfectly fair then. Do not like it then run your own company.

Another thing that is a plus if you buy them from the Microsoft Store is no Crapware. IT comes with Windows Signature edition with high resolution backgrounds from Bing and MSE built inside it.

Even with decrapifier my own Asus from BestBuy is not as fast or responsive than when I put a fresh OEM edition of Windows 7 on it. This is true even after going in the Registry and deleting all the references to trend micro. That crapware damages the Windows installation.

Have you looked at the prices for business grade laptops from HP? They start at like $1400. Mind you this was just an i5, 1366 x 768 screen and a standard mechanical hard drive. Nothing fancy like SSD or a 17 inch screen and a dedicated GPU.

New tablet/laptop hybrids will be out with screen resolutions above 1366 x 768 with great DPI. Perhaps Retina resolution grade?

  Basically the screen part pops out for a 17 in tablet and you can plug it back in. Dell and HP will sell them with Windows 7 as well as Windows 8, assuming it is a repeat of Vista. My father got his PC when Vista came out and Dell had a version with XP still and he jumped on it. Or just wipe them with Windows 7 as SP 1 supports Secure Boot and EFI as well.

With that out of the way the very first thing I do is type "The lazy brown fox jumped over the fence" to test the keyboard and my accuracy. I do typing a lot when I was in school and I assume most people primarily use their computers for that. The keyboard is very important. Then buy them online after trying the models at hte local BestBuy or Fries.

I believe the issue is the beancounters cut down and limit helpdesk and then the policy changes where the amount of calls/tickets doubles, yet they are still supposed to have them all finished by the end of the day. This drives up support costs and puts the burden on the workers. If the employer refuses to pay for more support then those who need to get their email or other more appropriate business oriented task done will have to wait.

Worse, they now need to learn IOS, Andriod, and Blackberry in edition to Windows and Cisco stuff on their dime.

I can only imagine security issues of a single employee bringing in a netbook with a virus and having it spread all over the network. These are legitimate problems that these employers who bring them in are totally insulated from.

BYOD does not belong in the workplace. Maybe if they are important enough an external site can be used or something like OUtlook express so they can view emails on their phones but that is it. No bring your virii laden netbook from home and plug it in to the 3,000 user network and then cry foul at the lowly help desk guy for not foreseeing it.

The lesson there would seem to be: you cannot account for all externalities. And thus, long term planning is generally useless.

I am tired of supporting old versions of IE, Win 7 supports trim for SSDs so they do not die within 90 days, it can handle multi cores, when something fails like a driver win 7 can handle it better, it is MUCH more secure.

Windows 7 is a decent improvement. Its not perfect but it certainly is an upgrade from XP.