Well we kinda cheated with the answer to this question. A simple google search reveals a Wikipedia page listing major laptop manufacturers as well as a list of smaller less common laptop makers.
In total the list contains over 60 different names. Of this list around 12 names are pretty common that most of us have heard before these include: Acer, Apple, ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba.
The list then goes on to name another 47 brands – a lot of these names I’ve never heard of however I work with laptops every day!
What is most interesting about the list is that there are only a handful of companies that actually make laptops the names above are just brands! These companies are called ODMs (original design manufactures) and control a large majority of the laptop manufacturing industry. Did you know that a company called Inventec actually makes the HP/Compaq/Toshiba laptops? No I bet you didn’t however that does not explain why Toshiba laptops are much better than those HP machines. Ask any laptop repair company what brand of laptop to stay away from and I bet the name HP will be brought up.
That’s because there was a large batch of models that HP or should I say Inventec produced that had a faulty graphics chop (GPU) This chip was Nvidia and whilst most tech would be able to discuss the exact detail of the defect in simple terms I believe the chip got so hot it melted the solder joints on the motherboard which stopped the laptop from working correctly.
The only way to fix this issue was by doing a GPU reball however some companies took to heating the chip up or even cooking the motherboard in a special oven to reseat the chip.
The best course of action though is to ditch that brand of laptop – sell on ebay as faulty and use the proceeds for a better brand system.
Back to laptop manufactures. If you want the complete list of laptop manufactures including the original design manufacturers check out the wiki page here.