New Laptop Advice

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nova

250 posts

Master Geek

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#3258193 10-Jul-2024 16:00

MikeAqua:

Thanks All. It sounds like I am on the right track. To answer many useful comments in one place.

Apple: I'm too cheap. Plus I don't have any other apple products

You can get a refurbished Macbook Air with an M2 chip for $1529 from the Apple website. Apple refurbished is really good in my experience and comes with a full 12 month warranty (and CGA). The base model only as 8GB of RAM but likely good enough for what you need. It is basically impossible to upgrade but tends to hold value fairly well, so sell it when you want to upgrade. I don't see the higher end macs as good value for money, but I think the base model air is actually pretty good bang for buck compared to what you are looking at getting.

MikeAqua

7785 posts

Uber Geek

#3258198 10-Jul-2024 16:30

Handle9: If you are considering a 15 inch laptop I’d want one that is higher res than 1080p. IMO 1080p is fine up to 13-14 inches but I’d want to use something QHD at 15 inches.

Saying that I’d never buy a 15 inch laptop. I really prefer something smaller and lighter.

I think 1080 will be OK for what I intend to use it for. Office Apps, a bit of R coding work and very basic video editing. Any serious number crunching or heavy graphics I'll do on my desktop. I use that now for proper video editing and CAD modelling.

15" is driven by the need to work with spreadsheet while mobile. I used to have a13" notebook for work, but I found it too small for spreadsheets. I'm a bigger guy so a 15" laptop seems light to me.

Mike

bendud

313 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#3258207 10-Jul-2024 16:53

The 15” MBA is available for 1959 from the Apple refurb store currently- this is the model I have bought for my sister and it is big, light, and the battery lasts for days. That’s a hundred bucks more than the laptop linked to in the OP

B

From the Antarctic Riviera

JillF

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3258218 10-Jul-2024 17:17

MikeAqua:

Thanks All. It sounds like I am on the right track. To answer many useful comments in one place.

Apple: I'm too cheap. Plus I don't have any other apple products

Camera: I hadn't thought to check that. I have a 1080 external camera at my workstation at home, but 720 should be enough for the road.

Elitebook: I have one for work now, they upgraded me the week before I resigned (whoops). I might see if I can buy it

RAM: I think I'll stick with 16GB. If that proves to be poor decision, I've done RAM upgrades before.

Size: 15" is what I have now. I'm OK with lugging it around

I have a 14" dell 5470, i9 32GB RAM and it does everything. Never been a fan of dell, always bought asus, but they got so "plasticy". Its been really solid and handles everything, including working with two 4k monitors

Scott3

3972 posts

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#3258219 10-Jul-2024 17:24

MikeAqua:

RAM: I think I'll stick with 16GB. If that proves to be poor decision, I've done RAM upgrades before.

Just check before purchase that the Ram is upgradable.

Soldered ram is becoming extremely common these days.

MikeAqua

7785 posts

Uber Geek

#3258373 11-Jul-2024 10:08

Scott3:

MikeAqua:

RAM: I think I'll stick with 16GB. If that proves to be poor decision, I've done RAM upgrades before.

Just check before purchase that the Ram is upgradable.

Soldered ram is becoming extremely common these days.

Cheers, Will do.

Mike

loceff13

1065 posts

Uber Geek

#3258982 12-Jul-2024 22:34

I get the Apple talk(great value if you are comfortable with osx and much lower amounts of device storage) but for me SSD upgrade is a must, 2TB is pretty cheap(<$200) and worth it where possible.

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nztim

3821 posts

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TEAMnetwork

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#3259195 13-Jul-2024 17:20

Scott3:

Just check before purchase that the Ram is upgradable.

Soldered ram is becoming extremely common these days.

In the HP Pro/Elite world that only applies to the dragonfly your workhorse pro/elitebooks are not soldered

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

LurkingKiwi

20 posts

Geek

#3260396 16-Jul-2024 17:42

MikeAqua:

15" is driven by the need to work with spreadsheet while mobile. I used to have a13" notebook for work, but I found it too small for spreadsheets. I'm a bigger guy so a 15" laptop seems light to me.

You won't get a numeric keypad/proper arrow pad 😀 on less than a 15", and it's annoying how many 15"+ laptops have ditched them.

I got a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro AMD 16" gamer on a good discount from PB (leftover corporate job lot?) because it had a 2560*1600 screen with good gamut and a numeric keypad. USB-C PD input means a generic 100W charger can get a fair bit of juice in (but it won't go to max speed without the power brick).

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