Wally, my day gig is an IT Admin, and I'm responsible for equipment procurement for the entire company. Over the years, I've tried everything from just about every brand. Here's my thoughts:
Apple: Good for photo editing and music production, but very expensive for what you get. Helps if you have bought into the iOS ecosystem (as in, if you have an iPhone, iPad, etc). They definitely have a premium feel and experience, but you're gonna pay for that.
Acer: I've had really bad luck with these. A couple years back, I bought 10 middle of the road machines with i5 processors and 16GB RAM, and all of them died catastrophic deaths within weeks. ALL of them. HD fails, motherboards fried, etc. I also have one that I rebuilt that someone tossed against a wall (long story) and although it's frankensteined, it works ok.
Asus: Their higher end stuff seems decent, but their lower-mid range stuff doesn't last. Bought around 20 i5/8GB RAM VivoBook machines a couple years ago, and they are starting to kick the bucket now. If they had SSD's they would probably have fared better (more on SSD's in a bit).
Dell: Hit or miss. I have a couple Dell machines: a XPS gaming desktop from about 2014 and a G5 15 gaming laptop from last year. Both have completely crashed and have needed repairs, but most of the time they are great. The laptop is my main personal laptop. I've bought a number of Dell machines for employees, and the higher end ones have been decent. Lower end consumer machines have been dying within 2 years of purchase. They are very finicky with updates: make sure you keep all of the drivers updated all the time or else things just stop working. Their web support for driver/BIOS updates is nice, though.
HP: Not a big fan; they come with loads of factory-installed HP bloatware aside from the usual crap you get on a consumer machine. I actually have one that I like: a 2-in-1 13.3" touchscreen model that I use for photo editing that I got cheap. It has a puny 128GB SSD which I plan on upgrading soon. I stripped it bare of most of its bloatware, but it still needs some of the factory ones to even run. The Full HD display rivals a MacBook Pro, and is one of the best laptop screens I've ever seen. It's been ok, but I really only use it for editing in the field and not much else.
Lenovo: I've had the best luck with these and with the lowest failure rate by far. At first, I purchased a lot of the IdeaPad line, mostly i3 stuff with 8GB RAM. They did their thing over the years, with most employees getting 3-4 years of service out of them before they started to get slow (although they still work). When they come out of service, we've refreshed them and given them to employees for personal machines or donated them. The ThinkPad line is my go-to line of laptops for employees now. I usually spec a E15 with a recent i5 and 16GB RAM and a SSD. They are fast and can handle abuse in the field. I've only had one ThinkPad fail since I've been buying them, and that was from a botched update that an intern did (they shut it off in the middle of a hefty Windows update and Windows ate itself).
MSI: These have been fantastic machines. Many of our "power users" get Prestige or Creator-series machines. They have been nothing short of excellent. When my current work machine dies, I'm probably going MSI. They can be pricey though, since they are basically all gaming machines.
Origin: Now we are talking really high-end. These are very expensive, high performance, and high maintenance; kind of like a BMW M-line or Mercedes AMG of PC's. The original creators of Alienware founded this company after they sold to Dell. We ordered 6 of their EON-15S laptops a couple years ago for my team, and they aren't for everyone, but I like mine a lot. They have 32GB RAM and a i9 processor along with crazy graphics hardware and a SSD. They also have mechanical keyboards that have awkward key spacing and I hate that (I use an external wireless keyboard anyway most of the time, so that's ok). They are all custom built and you can get laser etched logos on the case for an additional cost (we totally did that). They also came with a backup USB key with a stock build to boot to if anything happens, which is part of that premium experience and totally awesome. We did have one fail within warranty. I sent it back and they replaced the graphics hardware that failed, benchmarked it, and kept me updated the whole time. Total turnaround was about two weeks.
All that said, the things to keep in mind are the following:
-Get a size you are comfortable with. 15" is the standard size, and that's what most PC's come in with the most variety, but YMMV.
-You'll want at least 8GB RAM, an Intel i3/AMD Ryzen 3 processor, and a SSD (Solid State Hard Drive). The SSD is the most important, as this is what really brings the speed since there are no moving parts inside. If you can swing a i5 or Ryzen 5 or higher and more RAM, do it. I use Cpubenchmark.net to see benchmark performance of processors; the higher the number, the better.
-Get one with a FHD (full 1920x1080p HD) screen. Everything will look better and easier to read with one.
You should be able to get most of those features for right around $500 for a consumer laptop. Don't be afraid of some of the refurbished deals out there. I've purchased refurbs from Micro Center and Lenovo Outlet that have been fantastic deals.
