Laptop or Tablet with Keyboard?

[robsa]

Mark300zx said:

Thanks for all the replies, I am probably on my laptop for 3-4 hours per day but wouldn't say I have the IT ability to replace parts and get them to work. In terms of budget circa £500 may be the ballpark!

Something like this:


https://www.tech-bazaar.com/product/lenovo-thinkpa...

[TownIdiot]

I've just bought a used Lenovo Thinkpad X13

12 gen i5
16GB Ram
SSD

Could happily use it all day if required.

Paid £408 and I'd have thought it will suffice for office type tasks for the next few years.

[Mark300zx]

Have you read the first post?

[TownIdiot]

Mark300zx said:

Have you read the first post?

Yes
And then saw the poster above me recommend a Lenovo so thought I'd join in.

Thinkpads definitely aren't a pile of poo, but appreciate you may disagree.

You should be able to get a similar spec from Dell or whoever for a similar price which is well under budget.

[Mark300zx]

Maybe I am having a bad experience but I paid £700 for my laptop, and at just under two years old the motherboard packed up, Lenovo didn't want to know. I bought an extended warranty and by some jiggery-pokery, they swapped the motherboard. The laptop has gone wrong 5 times in the extended warranty period and their CS is one of if not the worst I have encountered!

Thanks but it is Nonovo!

[TotalControl]

Try looking at Asus or Acer then. They're midrange but seem well put together. Asus actually make some good laptops IMO.

[Forester1965]

I've used Surface Pros since 2016. Had 2 of them, replaced the 2016 machine last year when the battery failed.

Generally very reliable for me on a day to day basis. Used for typical office work. I've a docking station and drive 2x 24" monitors off it to extend the desktop.

Can be used as a tablet. The keyboard is easy to use but can get scruffy after a while.

Would definitely recommend.

[donkmeister]

I use a Lenovo tab and have a no-name BT keyboard with a little slot that you can hold a phone or tablet in. I also have a cheap Bluetooth trackball that I break out when I feel like I want a mouse pointer (the mouse pointer automatically comes up with Android, no need for any additional apps or settings changes)

It's handy for web surfing and light typing, and that's all that some need so no need for a full laptop or desktop for those people.

I have occasionally used it to drive a VM hosted elsewhere, so in theory it becomes a proper computer (however I obviously have the VM server too).

[donkmeister]

Mark300zx said:

Maybe I am having a bad experience but I paid £700 for my laptop, and at just under two years old the motherboard packed up, Lenovo didn't want to know. I bought an extended warranty and by some jiggery-pokery, they swapped the motherboard. The laptop has gone wrong 5 times in the extended warranty period and their CS is one of if not the worst I have encountered!

Thanks but it is Nonovo!

Ironically the worst experiences I've had with laptops have been the more expensive, well known brands.

£400 no-name one (who I learned supplied a lot of US schools so presumably had to be a bit more rugged) one that I bought 15 or so years ago is still going strong (although I'm told the WiFi module now seems to be on the way out).

HP is the exception, I've seen Elitebooks dropped, trodden on, coffee poured over them and so on and they just take it.

[Buzzfan]

Comment from a tech-luddite :

1) OP Question : Tablet & Keyboard or Laptop :

if you travel, the former.

If you work & browse mainly from home, the latter.

If you're rich, the top spec Microsoft Surface Pro (v 11 out next week) might be best of all worlds.

2) Software Question :

If you love Microsoft's office programs (excel, word, outlook etc), they work via Microsoft 365 on Ipads & Android tablets as easily as on windows laptops.

Other rival suites also work just as well. I prefer Google's apps myself as most can share/collaborate so easily.

3) Apple/Windows hardware debate :

Here's my tupp'orth - I have no interest in asserting my opinion is universally correct.

I use 1 windows, 1 Imac & 1 Macair laptop, mostly all at the same time, for work, with 5 screens. When travelling for work, I take both a windows laptop and a Macair.

I hate Parallels, & find Bootcamp setup of peripherals tricky to fine tune, so it's easier for me to have a cheap SSD windows laptop that runs a critical legacy CAD program that is only windows based.

2 devices gives me reassurance I can work from one if the other fails.

My 2013 Macair still works well, and was only usurped by the Imac & new M1 Macair in 2022, after use 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week for perhaps 8-9 years, during which I replaced battery, numerous keys, 2 fans, and 2 screens all following Youtube tutorials. The screens broke due to my handling, the hardware I feel is amazing value & reliable.

4) Apple Support

The key reason for my loyalty to Apple has now't to do with any of the above, it's just down to the 24/7 365 Applecare support.

I pay c £ 80/year for unlimited support & theft/breakage insurance. I can go for months without support, then find I need to spend hours a week solving often non-apple-related problems. Without any IT department staff, and without Apple support, I'd be lost.

[the-photographer]

Laptop for work : any Dell Latitude or Lenovo Thinkpad with on-site warranty (Pro support / Premier support)

Entertainment / home : tablet. Say a Samsung A9 / Ipad 7th Gen 2019

[Chrisgr31]

I am in the market for a new laptop for home. The existing one is a Dell, 7 years old but the touchpad is faulty and I can no longer use the left hand touch pad button which is a bit inconvenient!

I have a work MacBook which is light has great battery life but I can’t get used to swapping between IoS and Windows.

I am pondering a Surface Pro but have an iPad. Is it too much like a tablet rather than a laptop?

[QuartzDad]

Chrisgr31 said:

I am pondering a Surface Pro but have an iPad. Is it too much like a tablet rather than a laptop?

I have a Surface Pro 6 and an iPad. Surface spends 99.5% of its time on my desk with keyboard attached and plugged in. Works well as a laptop when I need to do anything other than surf on the sofa with the iPad.

[Forester1965]

Think of the Surface as a small form factor laptop that can behave like a tablet rather than the other way around.

[donkmeister]

Buzzfan said:

Comment from a tech-luddite :

1) OP Question : Tablet & Keyboard or Laptop :

if you travel, the former.

Presumably that's very situation dependent - I have had traveling jobs where a tablet without keyboard would probably be fine as I did all my prep beforehand and the most I'll need to do is knock out an email back at the hotel asking someone back in the UK to look into something the customer has asked about. However one of my mates needs something akin to one of those old luggable gaming "laptops" for his outings as a software systems engineer. No idea why he can't have something lighter and a VM back at base, but I suspect it's due to having no guarantees of being able to have access to a reliable, fast, low latency internet connection when doing stuff with his customers at their sites.

Even taking the processing power out of the equation I wouldn't want to be typing much on a tablet keyboard, even the best are no better than a fairly crap laptop keyboard. So if traveling involves more than an occasional short email I would want a decent laptop. But that's just my opinion.

[Chrisgr31]

Thanks - food for thought. Now to find a shop to actually go and look at a Surface!

[Chrisgr31]

Thanks - food for thought. Now to find a shop to actually go and look at a Surface!

[Paddymcc]

Dell also do a copy of the Microsoft Surface and they are equally as good but much cheaper.

Some of them have the added benefit of being able to screw apart so you can replace batteries or upgrade SSD drives.

Microsoft also do a surface book laptop which has a proper laptop form factor and hinge but you can also detach the screen to use as a tablet but it's 13.5" so quite large as a tablet if that makes sense.

Got a refurb one of these myself at home and it's pretty good.

[Mark300zx]

Thanks for all the help so far, after a mind-numbing phone call I was put through to the escalation team at Lenovo who offered me a choice of two replacement laptops, I am after some advice from those in the know!

The first offering is a Lenovo Yoga 7 14ARB7 14" R7 CPU (2023), 16 GB, 1TB SSD

The second offering is the 16-inch laptop. PN 83BS0008UK, this one is a lower spec but I prefer a larger screen, but noticed this is an obscure model.

[TotalControl]

Mark300zx said:

Thanks for all the help so far, after a mind-numbing phone call I was put through to the escalation team at Lenovo who offered me a choice of two replacement laptops, I am after some advice from those in the know!

The first offering is a Lenovo Yoga 7 14ARB7 14" R7 CPU (2023), 16 GB, 1TB SSD

The second offering is the 16-inch laptop. PN 83BS0008UK, this one is a lower spec but I prefer a larger screen, but noticed this is an obscure model.

I'd take the Yoga 7.