Buying a new laptop

[Discordant Resonance]

After 14 years of faithful service, my home laptop is increasingly past the point of rescue. Not looking for anything especially expensive or technologically flashy, once it has enough processing power for regular broadband requirements, and personally used to dealing with Windows OS, so any particular recommendations?

[ursus arctos]

I have been very pleased with the Dell Inspiron series

[Wouter D]

After 14 years of faithful service

Fourteen!!? Which brand was it? I'll have one of those.

[Discordant Resonance]

HP - more personal laziness in terms of upgrading my software from Vista than anything else, so probably should have looked around ages ago!

[ursus arctos]

They don't even look alike . . .

ursus minor has a Sony Vaio of a similar vintage, the life of which appears to have been extended by it not being used to connect to the Internet (he also has newer HP that he uses for that purpose).

[Sam]

I was so happy with my first Lenovo (last seven years and would still be going now, but because I use my computer for work I wanted to replace it before, rather than when, it gave up the ghost) that I got a second at the end of last year. I've now got a ThinkPad* T15, which is rather overpowered for what you say you'll be using it for, but my girlfriend's got an E15 which she's also very happy with. Anything with a solid state drive (which is almost everything these days) is going to a) be very quiet and b) feel like a rocket ship compared with what you're used to. And because an SSD doesn't have the moving parts of a hard disk drive, the cooling system won't have to work as hard either, which makes for better longevity. Admittedly that's likely to be less of an issue in Ireland than it is here, but we all have to live on a warming planet.

*As you've clearly not been in the market for a while it's perhaps worth clarifying that ThinkPads used to be made by Dell but are now made by Lenovo.

[scratchmonkey]

ThinkPads have a very well-deserved reputation for being workhorses, a quick survey of friends indicates that Lenovo, Asus, and Dell have at least decent reputations. I haven't used a non-Apple laptop for years so I'm no help personally (they're all been work machines).

[ursus arctos]

I have had ThinkPads for work since they were produced by IBM and have always been satisfied. Some of their higher end machines are very light for the specs.

[caja-dglh]

Don’t buy a super powered monster. I have one from work which is of that form (I think it used to be a graphic designers machine as they removed a whole load of photoshop kit the other week)*.

Anyway - its original battery tried to explode. Its replacement battery lasts maybe 40 minutes and is maybe six months old. I guess the laptop part is you can pick it up and carry it because it is dreadful as a road computer otherwise.

* for whatever reason our IT remains as idiotic as is possible. They still provide people in my area with massive processing capabilities even though they also moved all our systems to remote machine & the cloud. That said, when I do bring a file local the machine reliably shits the bed.

[San Bernardhinault]

I have a "mobile computer" that matches Caja's description. Its relation to a laptop is that it looks like one and the manufacturers call it a laptop. But it weighs a ton and has no battery life and is exceedingly frustrating. It was useful at one point when I needed a computer when travelling for three or four months. Then having a powerful computer I could plug in and effectively use as a slightly underpowered desktop was OK. It's utterly rubbish for most purposes.

[Sporting]

Anything with a solid state drive (which is almost everything these days) is going to a) be very quiet

In my experience, which is scanty, most laptops are pretty quiet.

[Ginger Yellow]

If it were me, I'd get an XPS 13. But given your apparently limited specs requirements, you could probably get something for half the price, though the build quality and battery life might not be as good.

To be honest, I'm not sure what to recommend someone who has been content to run Vista (not even 7!) for 14 years.

[Stumpy Pepys]

I've used high-end Thinkpads and Dell XPSs for work and they've been very good. (The bog-standard Dells tend to be okay as well.)

But as GY said, if you've been using Vista on an antique laptop all this time, your requirements probably aren't very high. Have you also looked at Chromebooks?

[My Name Is Ian]

My last two laptops have been Dell refurbs, because of financial constraints. The older one (an E6230) was £220 in 2016 and still works fine as a media server (even though I believe it's now approaching its tenth birthday), and the newer one (an E7470) was £240 a couple of years ago; it's now my main home/work laptop and after two years it's just fine. But refurbs are always a bit of a gamble, and if you've got the money I'd recommend buying new. Refurbs are mostly former business laptops and have been reasonably well looked after, but there's an always an element of gamble to buying used.

I'd recommend an i5 processor (or its AMD equivalent, the Ryzen 5), an SSD (preferably 256gb or higher) and a minimum of 8gb of RAM. Any new laptop that you get (apart from Macs, Chromebook etc) now will have Windows 11 on it, so that's kind of future-proofing itself. I had a Thinkpad for work and it was just fine, but recommending one without knowing your budget is really difficult. Something like this would sit right in the middle of what I'd expect to pay for a new laptop:

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/as...-10224714.html

But really, it depends on what you want to do with it. Do you want to game on it? (If so, things are about to get much more expensive.) Do you want/need a touchscreen? What size do you want the screen to be?

The one thing I would recommend would be to get out and have an actual go on one if you can. The actual keyboard itself is the one thing that will make a difference to your experience of using it that you can't get much of an idea of from the specs, and the best speced laptop in the world *could* have a shitty keyboard. Both of the Dells that I've had have had superb keyboards. I didn't like the one on the Thinkpad for extended use so much, though. Over the last 20 years, I've had laptops made by Dell, HP, Lenovo and Acer, and the only one of those I'd advise to steer clear of would be Acer, though others' mileage may vary on that.

[Snake Plissken]

I have a couple of Dells - a standard user type one plus an ultrathin for everyday work. My rules for buying a laptop are the same as always.

1. Set a budget.
2. Decide your order of preference for weight (or lack thereof), screen size, RAM

Go to Dell, Lenovo, HP or whoever your preference is, set the slider to the maximum of your budget and then filter/sort by your three options in preference.

Laptops are much of a muchness, using the same components.

[Auntie Beryl]

My current and previous laptops have both been Asus Vivobooks, which hit a sweet spot on price, screen size and processing power when I was looking around.

[Stumpy Pepys]

The thing with Windows laptops is that the manufacturer—be it HP, Lenovo, Asus, Acer or Dell—isn't much of a guide. They all make crappy laptops at the low-end and really good ones at the high-end.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

This is a topic I know almost absolutely nothing about, but when I was talking to a friend who works in IT, his main comment was to get an Apple laptop (if that's not a terminological oxymoron - as I say I know nothing about computers). He said it was worth the extra to get something which is (a) a lot longer lasting and (b) a lot less vulnerable to viruses and other malware.

Would be interested if those in the know could confirm that or shoot it down. My entire computing experience, limited as it is, has been on Windows-based hardware, so getting an Apple thing would be a bit of an adjustment for me.

[Ginger Yellow]

Well, if it hadn't been for the stated preference for Windows and the implicit budget constraints, I probably would have recommended waiting for Apple to release their M2 Macbook Air. Battery life is insane on the ARM Macbooks.

[Sporting]

I only use my laptop at home so battery life isn't an issue.

[WOM]

But for an 18 month ...er window...in 2004/05, I've used Macs exclusively and swear by them. They're just dead easy to use and beautifully designed across the board. Yes, pricey AF and all. I just got my new Macbook Air in January and it's a work of art. Thin, light, lovely keyboard.

[delicatemoth]

From personal experience I would strongly advise against Dell. You have to take the thing apart to clean the fan, then it's all clogged up again in no time. I also find it's way too easy to accidentally press something that fucks up a setting without realising it.

[ad hoc]

Because they run the surveillance and other networks of oppression in the West Bank, I always beg people not to buy HP.

[Stumpy Pepys]

But for an 18 month ...er window...in 2004/05, I've used Macs exclusively and swear by them. They're just dead easy to use and beautifully designed across the board. Yes, pricey AF and all. I just got my new Macbook Air in January and it's a work of art. Thin, light, lovely keyboard.

The new Mac laptops are really impressive, especially in terms of performance and battery life. Easily the best laptops out there at the moment.

Then again, there's kind of a consumer sweet spot for Windows laptops, which is a 15.6" screen, with 8 GB (or maybe 16 GB) of RAM and an i5 processor, which is fine for general tasks. These laptops rarely leave the house (if at all). The nearest to that is the 13.3" MacBook Air. It is more expensive, but if you don't mind the smaller screen, probably a good investment. MacBooks also go for much more on the second-hand market, if you ever want to sell it.

My worry with Apple kit is if something goes wrong after the warranty has run out. Then it can get pretty expensive (as can paying for AppleCare).

I'd still recommend a Chromebook for general purpose computing (I own a Mac Mini, a Windows laptop and a Chromebook, so I'm not particularly biased). I wouldn't recommend a Chromebook if you need to run intensive tasks (e.g. video editing), if you need certain Windows software, or if you want to use old peripherals. But I use mine 80% of the time.

[Lang Spoon]

I use an i7 Surface Pro, which has worked unfailingly the past two years (he sez, jinxing madly).