What windows laptop?

[sawman]

I have never bought a windows pc.

My lad is studying engineering, and is complaining that he has to do a lot of his course work in the uni library (rather than his dingy, student flat) on their windows pcs because the software doesnt run very well or at all on his mac.

So we are looking at getting a windows laptop - I have no idea where to start, are there brands worth avoiding? he isnt adverse to a refurb, if it gets better spec at a reasonable price.
My only term of reference is the Dell i use at work, which has been reliable and seem rugged, but feels inferior to my macbook (its not worked that hard) but it does get dragged about quite a bit.

I guess we need something with a decent chunk of RAM, and a decent SSD

So recommended brands?
Recommended sellers?

thanks in advance

[Buttery Ken]

What spec is his Mac? Might be able to use Fusion (free) or Parallels (not free) to virtualise Windows. Also depends on the demands of the software he uses.

[wyson]

His uni course will recommend specs. I’d follow that.

HP zBook Studio is one line up you could look at for a portable workstation type laptop. That is what my company issues for staff who need high power laptops.

I was personally looking at getting something like this:

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-2-in-1-pcs...

Which is a consumer ‘workstation’ and more affordable than a business workstation like the HP zBook Studio. Get a high TDP chip with a beefy cooling system (2 fans and heat pipes). I think he might need a graphics card as well to run visualisations? Look for a laptop with a chunky frame rather than thin and light.

Edited by wyson on Tuesday 23 July 22:01

[sawman]

Buttery Ken: I did think about that option - I have run windows in VM ware in the past, with variable success.

his current machine is an intel macbook air might be 6 years old (definitely pre covid) cant remember what the spec is but its not super high - maybe 8GB Ram and 128 GB SSD

I am not sure he fancied dual booting

[Riley Blue]

I've recently bought a re-furbished Lenovo Thinkpad here: www.pcrenewed.co.uk

It's the most sturdily built laptop I've owned. 15.6" screen, 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD, Win 11 for under £500.

[maccas99]

Riley Blue said:

I've recently bought a re-furbished Lenovo Thinkpad here: www.pcrenewed.co.uk

It's the most sturdily built laptop I've owned. 15.6" screen, 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD, Win 11 for under £500.

That looks a good deal - I've always bought Dell Certified Refurbished from Dell Outlet - https://www.dell.com/en-uk/dfh/lp/outlet

They come shrink wrapped and look brand new, never had an issue.

[RizzoTheRat]

Another vote for the Dell outlet/refurb store, my wife and I have had 3 or 4 from them over the years. My last one arrived with a crack in the screen which they replaced, but the others have been fine. They also do an additional student discount. Note that thier prices online are ex-VAT though.

[tr7v8]

I work for Dell and obviously use a Dell Laptop. They get replaced every 3 years and all have been pretty bombproof.
A previous one need the keyboard replaced after the cats claw caught a key & removed it but that's pretty much been it.
As others have said worth looking at the outlet to see what they have.

[mmm-five]

CEX has some decent prices on HP ZBooks - not necessarily the latest G9 variant, but about £600 for a 15" Zbook G8 with 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Quadro T1200 gpu and Intel 11800H CPU.

https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail?id=slaphpzbstg...

[Evanivitch]

If your lad is doing engineering and needs a laptop then give him a budget and send him off to buy something. He should be asking his peers and checking the recommended specs for the software (is it FEA, MBSE, MATLAB?).

[Mr Pointy]

Riley Blue said:

I've recently bought a re-furbished Lenovo Thinkpad here: www.pcrenewed.co.uk

It's the most sturdily built laptop I've owned. 15.6" screen, 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD, Win 11 for under £500.

Refurbished is the way to go & some of these Lenovos look to be very tempting with 32Gb & an Nvidia graphics card.

https://www.pcrenewed.co.uk/refurbished-laptops/hi...

The only slight drawback is the screens are only 1920x1080 full HD but I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to upgrade the screen. Stick to Lenovo T/X/X1/P series.

[Riley Blue]

Mr Pointy said:

Riley Blue said:

I've recently bought a re-furbished Lenovo Thinkpad here: www.pcrenewed.co.uk

It's the most sturdily built laptop I've owned. 15.6" screen, 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD, Win 11 for under £500.

Refurbished is the way to go & some of these Lenovos look to be very tempting with 32Gb & an Nvidia graphics card.

https://www.pcrenewed.co.uk/refurbished-laptops/hi...

The only slight drawback is the screens are only 1920x1080 full HD but I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to upgrade the screen. Stick to Lenovo T/X/X1/P series.

I should have added, mine's a P52.

[Condi]

IMO it doesn't really make much of a difference who you buy from - they're mainly using off the shelf components from a small number of firms. Buy on spec and price, not brand. I doubt the software he's using will be that resource intensive, so no need to go over the top with the spec - it's likely the same software/calculations as 10 years ago, but computing power, RAM availability, and HD access speeds are considerably better than what they were back then.

In the past I've had Lenovo/Dell/HP and they've all been fine. Current work laptop is a Dell, my personal laptop is HP, previous work laptops have been HP and Lenovo. If he's planning to use it at a desk in his student digs then get an external screen, mouse and keyboard, and get a docking station. Easy then to unplug it and take it to lectures while having a nicer environment to work in at home. For this reason I'd certainly be looking for a Thunderbolt USB-C port.

[Haltamer]

A desktop workstation from Ebay could be a good option - It's awash with exceedingly capable machines that are just a few years old.

Admittedly, there may be limited space - But with some technical jiggery pokery, It would not be impossible to remote from the Mac to the desktop and have it humming away in the corner; It wouldn't even necessarily require a monitor once setup...

Depending on the network policies in place at the uni, you could use an application like Parsec to connect - Easier to setup for cross-internet use than RDP.

Win in a few ways:
Higher performance
Upgradeable
Don't need to carry another laptop
Don't need to carry another absurdly large laptop charger
Doesn't run out of battery after 40 minutes
etc...

You could even set it up at home and remote from the university...

[sawman]

Evanivitch said:

If your lad is doing engineering and needs a laptop then give him a budget and send him off to buy something. He should be asking his peers and checking the recommended specs for the software (is it FEA, MBSE, MATLAB?).

Thats kind of the plan - he has already done some legwork on it, need to get a feel for what we are looking for really, and whether budgets are appropriate for what he needs

[Evanivitch]

sawman said:

Thats kind of the plan - he has already done some legwork on it, need to get a feel for what we are looking for really, and whether budgets are appropriate for what he needs

I'd be asking his peers, 3rd year students and post grads. Probably just something he can stick in a facebook group. Also likely to find better student discount deals if buying new.

[RizzoTheRat]

If he's doing technical drawing or modelling work on it he might want to consider a bigger monitor for use at home. I find even spreadsheets a bit of a pain on 14" laptop, and way better on big monitor at home than on my 24" monitor at work.

[sawman]

Mr Pointy said:

Riley Blue said:

I've recently bought a re-furbished Lenovo Thinkpad here: www.pcrenewed.co.uk

It's the most sturdily built laptop I've owned. 15.6" screen, 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD, Win 11 for under £500.

Refurbished is the way to go & some of these Lenovos look to be very tempting with 32Gb & an Nvidia graphics card.

https://www.pcrenewed.co.uk/refurbished-laptops/hi...

The only slight drawback is the screens are only 1920x1080 full HD but I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to upgrade the screen. Stick to Lenovo T/X/X1/P series.

Thanks guys,
Got him sorted with a thinkpad

[Riley Blue]

sawman said:

Mr Pointy said:

Riley Blue said:

I've recently bought a re-furbished Lenovo Thinkpad here: www.pcrenewed.co.uk

It's the most sturdily built laptop I've owned. 15.6" screen, 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD, Win 11 for under £500.

Refurbished is the way to go & some of these Lenovos look to be very tempting with 32Gb & an Nvidia graphics card.

https://www.pcrenewed.co.uk/refurbished-laptops/hi...

The only slight drawback is the screens are only 1920x1080 full HD but I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to upgrade the screen. Stick to Lenovo T/X/X1/P series.

Thanks guys,
Got him sorted with a thinkpad