Hi all
Slight variation on recent "laptop recommendation" threads.
I work from home as a professional writer (helping with writing from scratch or making technical docs readable), mostly on word, plus a bit on excel. I have, for the past 6 years worked off a 13.3 inch macbook air (4GB/128GB). I use an external screen at times, particularly when working long hours. My eyes are getting worse though (in my early 40s) and i assume will only continue that trajectory....my macbook is getting very slow and the screen isn't great anymore.
So I was hoping to get a 14 inch ultrabook. The 14 inch Lenovo Carbon X1 gets great "professional reviews" but personal comments on reviews are that they are a pig, often don't work from scratch etc and that customer service is appalling. That about $2900.
The Dell XPS 13 would be OK but the screen looks really tiny. Maybe its not as small as it looked, I only had a quick look in PBtech. From this forum sounds like the keyboard is too small too??? ($2400 ish)
Third option i considered is the asus zenbook ($2k). The fan cooling issue seems to come up alot and as i do (yeah i shouldn't) work on my lap quite a bit, could be a problem.
Would love some assistance with this, other alternatives? Ideally I want 16GB of RAM (the 4GB on my macbook is totally inadequate even for mac OS), and 256GB SSD should be plenty for a few years. Backlit keyboard (yes, often work on the couch in the dark too). Portable and light. Decent screen (the Air is about as small as i realistically want to go). I think the 15 inch machines are just too big to be portable.
Thoughts?
TIA!