which business laptop

[Hudson1984]

hi all,

so i'm soon to be moving into a new office, so will be moving the desktop into there.

this is fine most of the time, but there are occassions I'll still need to work from home, or travel to other offices. MY current laptop is awful, and the one my wife bought last year just as a "we'll use it for emails etc" is pathetic, takes a couple of minutes to even boot up let alone actually do anything.

I've no need for gaming, no need for anything other that being able to do office tasks quickly. I can't stand slow laptops especially when it's only for work.

any recommendations? Sub £1000 would be ideal.

[LeeM135i]

What's your budget?

If you just want it for email / media consumption then iPad? 11" or 12.9" pro are lovely machines and can do everything in a iPad sort of way.

If you are into Apple then a MacBook Air will cover this off with ease? Small, light, amazing battery life but you have to comfortable with MacOS

If you have deeper pockets then a MacBook Pro, but it will be overkill. Super powerful and capable of full video editing.

If you are into PC then we have Dell Latitudes at work, just ordered a couple of 5420's i7, 16 Gb ram, 512 Gb storage. Nice fast machines but probably overkill, if you want full overkill the XPS with the right spec is a small light fast computer as well

[Hudson1984]

LeeM135i said:

What's your budget?

If you just want it for email / media consumption then iPad? 11" or 12.9" pro are lovely machines and can do everything in a iPad sort of way.

If you are into Apple then a MacBook Air will cover this off with ease? Small, light, amazing battery life but you have to comfortable with MacOS

If you have deeper pockets then a MacBook Pro, but it will be overkill. Super powerful and capable of full video editing.

If you are into PC then we have Dell Latitudes at work, just ordered a couple of 5420's i7, 16 Gb ram, 512 Gb storage. Nice fast machines but probably overkill, if you want full overkill the XPS with the right spec is a small light fast computer as well

Max £1000, I mean i'm tempted to just get a gaming laptop as I know it'll do anything I throw at it

[mmm-five]

Hudson1984 said:

Max £1000, I mean i'm tempted to just get a gaming laptop as I know it'll do anything I throw at it

Don't. They're heavy, power-hungry, hot, noisy.

I'd go for something like a Dell XPS 13 with 11th gen i7, 512GB m.2 SSD & 4k screen for £1k

Edited by mmm-five on Tuesday 14th June 16:52

[somouk]

I agree with the Dell approach, I usually search the refurb site as well as you get a reasonable discount on things that are still very current.

I'd be aiming for something similar spec to mentioned above.

[Hudson1984]

That’s true, my msi gaming laptop was always noisy. But it’s last me 5 years.

I’ll see what dell refurbs show me

[Narcisus]

I’ve just taken delivery of 350 Dell Latitude 5320’s seem like decent machine.

[Narcisus]

Just to echo what others have said though at home I have a 12.9’ iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard that has replaced my old XPS laptop.

[colin79666]

MacBook Air unless you need Windows in which case HP make some great business kit these days. I'd argue they have surpassed the Lenovo Thinkpad line on keyboards too (although nothing beats the old IBM ThinkPad keyboards). The HP EliteBook 830 G8 is a great piece of kit, available in various levels of processors, memory etc. The DragonFly is wonderful but probably over budget.

[captain_cynic]

Couldn't recommend an Apple or HP less.

A simple question... If the latpop's not working are you not working?

If the answer is yes, I can't recommend Dell enough. Their NBD business support is second to none. When I managed a fleet the Dells would be fixed within a day, if not the same day. Apple products would be lucky to be fixed in a week.

Dells are slightly more expensive than other brands, nowhere near as and as Apple but with Dell you're paying for quality and support.

[Captain_Morgan]

captain_cynic said:

Couldn't recommend an Apple or HP less.

A simple question... If the latpop's not working are you not working?

If the answer is yes,

Hudson1984 said:

hi all,

so i'm soon to be moving into a new office, so will be moving the desktop into there.

this is fine most of the time, but there are occassions I'll still need to work from home, or travel to other offices.

My guess is he’ll be fine...

I’d echo the views on the MacBook Air or hp, dell or Lenovo.

I’d suggest you need to decide what aspects are more important to you, build quality, performance, portability, screen size or battery life.

The MacBook Air comes high if not top on most of those criteria the obvious failing is screen size and it that is key then the option of a home monitor is available for relatively little cost if the rest of the package is good for you.

If not then hp, dell and Lenovo will all have options with 15”+ screens

[pherlopolus]

I bought an asus Ryzen 9 ROG gaming laptop just before lockdown in 2020 as a work laptop.

It's been great, it's only noisy when really hammering it (MS fs2020 in ultra mode for instance), but you can throw anything at it.

it's 17" so weighs a ton, but you can get smaller ones.

[Whoozit]

Hudson1984 said:

MY current laptop is awful, and the one my wife bought last year just as a "we'll use it for emails etc" is pathetic, takes a couple of minutes to even boot up let alone actually do anything.

That doesn't sound right. For the sake of an hour of your time and taking out a few screws, it may be worth considering replacing the drive with a new SSD if it doesn't have one already? There's software to clone the drive so no need to reinstall everything. Pop on the Crucial website and download the scanner, it'll tell you what will fit.

[vikingaero]

For "work" laptops you can't beat a decent Lenovo - Thinkpad X1 Carbon. Mine has 4G so you can keep going when there's no wifi.

[bitchstewie]

Dell Latitude 54xx are cheap enough and seem fine as with most of the Dell business range.

Get a suitable level of warranty and check the weight if you're going to be carrying it for any decent amount of time.

[wombleh]

For under a grand, assuming no particularly high needs like graphics and assuming you won’t be fixing it yourself…IMO Dell is a good suggestion, plenty in your price range, decent build that’ll cope with a few knocks, can get onsite support for repairs at not too bad a price . I’d probably look at the latitude range if it’s day to day business stuff.

[eeLee]

vikingaero said:

For "work" laptops you can't beat a decent Lenovo - Thinkpad X1 Carbon. Mine has 4G so you can keep going when there's no wifi.

I agree, I still have an i7 3rd gen one going strong.

Lenovo, 15", Pro OS and Intel i5: https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/d/sale?IPromoID=LEN33...

The support is excellent too. If you rely on it then get on-site, if you can live without then you might save a few £££....

[blue_haddock]

vikingaero said:

For "work" laptops you can't beat a decent Lenovo - Thinkpad X1 Carbon. Mine has 4G so you can keep going when there's no wifi.

Not sure of what version i have but i'm happy with my lenovo thinkpad, only issue is the case has a couple of cracks in it.

[sparkyhx]

Dell or Lenovo

[juice]

My xps 15 died on holiday. Now have a Samsung S8 ultra with keyboard.

Connectivity via Fortigate VPN client and windows RDP apps. Works even better than the XPS as the s-pen and keyboard make it so much nicer to use imo. Wouldn't go back to a laptop now. Especially as using the pen to write, rather than type emails is a proper game changer