http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/mercha [...] _Code=C90S
Well I mean it is a good laptop if you choose all the good parts, right? I showed it to my parents, and it beats every other laptop they throw at me, but they say that they've NEVER heard of ASUS and only want to go with companies that they've heard of like Sony, Dell, HP, etc.

Is Asus a good company? Are they well known? Is there some fact about them that I can show to my parents that shows that they are almost as good as Dell? It's either this amazing laptop, or some Dell laptop. Are DELL laptops good by the way?

Asus is a well known company in many different computer areas. They make laptops, motherboards and graphics cards. As a laptop company they are fairly decent. Build quality tends to be good.

Dell laptops are consistently better than their desktops. I own two of each from Dell. Avoid Sony like the plague. People say that Dell support is bad, wait till you talk to Sony. Plus they charge you an arm and a leg for not so great laptops.

About that specific laptop. 1) it uses a desktop chip which may cause you problems with heat and power. 2) it uses the 8600m GT which is no better than the current 7900GS and gets beaten by the 7950GTX.

What Dell laptop were your parents showing you?

ASUS has a very good reputation but again Dell laptops are good. I just read somewhere today, unfortunately don't remember where, that you can order a Dell without the crapware but I'd also order the Windows install disk, usually $10 extra. My wife has an Inspirion, which has been very reliable. Did use their "chat" support and they were very responsive. You can now disable the mouse pad if you use a regular mouse, which is nice

I've heard that too and usually if you order from one of the business pages they come with less bloatware than the home versions. The re-install disk is a very good idea.

I am much happier with my asus stuff then with my dell stuff. The reason your parents haven't heard of asus is because there market is to the over clockers and they sell more components then actual computers.
They are better then dell, and they are upgradeable dells are not.

However, you might want to try and get a better processor.

Maximum pc magazine just built a laptop from an asus case if you actually want something for your parents to read. It should still be in the stands.

on a side note. I know a lot of students running acer. Asus is better, but Acer is better and cheaper then dell. Any Compusa has acer.

Smart man!

well, what most people do not know, that Dell, or any of the other brand names are, may just be a Asus, or Clevo, or Compal, or a MSI . Dell buys a lot of the Clevo and Compal, then put their name on it, their software.

DEll does not build their laptops.

I see people all the time talking about this laptop that laptop, when there really are just 4 companies that make them out there.

I am not saying there is nothing wrong with people only thinking that DELL or any of the other companies make the laptops, they just do not know the difference.