Sandy Bridge processor worth it?

[larryinlc]

I've owned just about every major brand made over the past ten years, and they've all been very good. Because they're laptops, I tend to only keep them for two or three years though. It used to be that Sony had the best cosmetic build quality and materials, but I think everyone else had followed suit. Aluminum casing feels good. If I had one complaint, it would be all the crapware that Sony installs in their computers. My current Asus has top notch materials. Sony was always noted for their screens, but since I mostly connect to a 23 inch monitor, this isn't that important to me. My Asus too has a very good screen. I'm biased and because of this, I really like Asus. It's very good but I didn't go out and do any comparison shopping. Find a good deal, I guess. Under the hood, they're all pretty much the same.

Any of the current crop of laptops are 1000 times better than they were 10 years ago. I still have an old noisy plasticy ill fitting Dell in the other room to prove this. By todays standards, it was like owning a Model T.

Originally Posted by BeerAdvocate

I am not too familiar with AMD chips. Whats the difference between the Athlon,Turion, Phenom...
Also what brand (Asus, Toshiba, HP...)is the most reliable?
Thanks for all the advice/recomendations!