New laptop advice

[wiggin]

I got some useful feedback last time I tried this on TWF, so here goes:

My four year old Dell XPS 15 has killed its second battery, and it's getting a bit worn from lugging it to and from work every day. Instead of shelling out for yet another battery, I'm considering replacing the laptop. My current specs are nothing too fancy, but they get the job done:

Core i5-2410M 2.3 GHz
8 GB RAM
~700 GB HDD
GeForce GT 540M

These are fine as is, though I would imagine that I'd need more processor/memory/disk space for Win10 (currently running Win7 SP1). My usage is pretty boring - web browsing, Office, statistical software (Jmp and R mostly), various graphing/graphics software (SigmaPlot, ImageJ, Photoshop, Illustrator, occasionally AutoCAD), MATLAB, and some modest gaming (SC2 is probably the most resource intensive). The biggest problem is that I need a bunch of these open at once, which is occasionally taxing to my computer.

I'm looking for something on the larger side - though I hate lugging a big bulky computer around, I prefer lower cost and better performance/screen than something super portable. I could go as low as 14 inches, but not much smaller. Definitely need an optical drive and at least 3 USB ports. Don't need a fancy gaming computer, just a basic workhorse. On my current laptop, I've enjoyed the bright and crisp screen and backlit keyboard, so those would be nice but not critical to replicate. Touchscreen is definitely NOT needed; in fact, it's probably a minus. The beautiful JBL speakers on my current laptop were wasted on me since I almost always have the sound off or headphones on.

If any of you have thoughts - or at least suggestions for manufacturers who have been putting out decent quality in the last year or two - I'd be much obliged. My budget is not fixed, but generally I don't like to spend more than ~$1k on a laptop... I believe my current laptop came to $1100 including OS.

[Wraith]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834232132
^ Under budget, and probably more power than you need.

If that's not precisely what you want, you'll probably still want to look hard at the ASUS line. They're pretty good for laptops and such.

Do you have wifi access usually? Would remoting into a desktop be a viable option, instead of running your CPU-intensive stuff locally?

[wiggin]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834232132

Do you have wifi access usually? Would remoting into a desktop be a viable option, instead of running your CPU-intensive stuff locally?

I do usually have wifi access, but I don't have a desktop, nor am I likely to get one (space being the main constraint). We do have access to a largish cluster at lab, but that's reserved for big computational jobs, not this kind of small scale stuff.

A quick look at the link suggests it would be fine - do you know anything about Asus reliability and build quality? This has been a pet peeve of mine on laptops, and I've never used one of their machines before.

[Wraith]

ASUS is usually pretty solid, at least on the mobile side of things. I don't hear too many complaints about them these days. I have no idea what their customer support looks like, though.

Was asking about the wifi because I think I have similar computational requirements in my job. I have a few boxes tucked away in the back of my office with no keyboard/monitor attached, because I only ever remote into them. All of my laptops invariably wind up being thin clients; it's easy to buy small form factor desktops with way more power than a laptop on the cheap. If it weren't for your gaming requirement, I'd probably be recommending a thin client + desktop combo more strongly, but you need the power for gaming anyways so it might not be worth it.

[Ominous Gamer]

Have 3 ASUS laptop/convertible thingies. None have broken yet, though the external coatings could have been a bit more industrial and less flashy. Their obsession with shiny plastic means lots and lots of fine scratches.

[Khendraja'aro]

These are fine as is, though I would imagine that I'd need more processor/memory/disk space for Win10 (currently running Win7 SP1).

Nope. Win10 is not more ressource intensive than Win7. Probably even less - that's why the Kernel will be able to run on phones, laptops and desktops alike. There's even a RaspberryPi version planned (though that will lack the UI from what I hear.)

[Hazir]

Why a traditional HDD and not an SSD? It really makes a world of difference. I put an SSD in an 3 year old laptop recently and for about €120 that got me a laptop that goes from off to fully operational in 15 seconds. It's being used to some video editing now and according to the person who uses it it's a joy to work with.

[Aimless]

At that price point you may also want to check out gaming laptops from MSI or Sager/Clevo,eg one that'll let you upgrade the graphics card in the future. Def get an SSD. Does the optic drive have to be built in or would an external be acceptable?

[Aimless]

Btw I dunno what your preferences are but a nice matte screen makes up for many smaller disadvantages in my book

[wiggin]

Was asking about the wifi because I think I have similar computational requirements in my job. I have a few boxes tucked away in the back of my office with no keyboard/monitor attached, because I only ever remote into them. All of my laptops invariably wind up being thin clients; it's easy to buy small form factor desktops with way more power than a laptop on the cheap. If it weren't for your gaming requirement, I'd probably be recommending a thin client + desktop combo more strongly, but you need the power for gaming anyways so it might not be worth it.

Yeah, with my current working/living/internet arrangements, it isn't likely to work that well. I can imagine a time in the future when that would be the case, though (to be honest, though, my next job will probably give me a work computer so portability will become far less important).

Why a traditional HDD and not an SSD? It really makes a world of difference. I put an SSD in an 3 year old laptop recently and for about €120 that got me a laptop that goes from off to fully operational in 15 seconds. It's being used to some video editing now and according to the person who uses it it's a joy to work with.

I boot up my computer once a week; this isn't a significant selling point for the price. My only issue with HDDs generally is the risk of catastrophic failure, but with adequate external and cloud backups that's not a big issue. I am a little underwhelmed by the rather slow speed on the HDD in Wraith's link, but there are plenty of other fish in the sea on that front.

[barlow]

For about $1100 you probably should get Lenovo Ideapad Y50

[barlow]

Lenovo makes great windows machines and their quality is usually top notch, also you could try the ASUS ROG series, check them out http://pcgamerhome.com/gaming-laptops-under-1000/

[Ominous Gamer]

If you trust a company like Lenovo to not pull another superfish, which they still haven't fully fixed.

Out of my Black Friday laptop buys, Lenovo was the only model so far to not last a year. Power connector in the laptop failed.

[Aimless]

I boot up my computer once a week; this isn't a significant selling point for the price.

Honestly, it makes the entire experience faster and more pleasant. Faster bootup/wakeup is nice, but it also makes loading programs faster, makes many programs feel faster while you're working with them, etc. Also far quieter and less hot and if I'm not mistaken SSD:s tend to consume less power. It's a good value upgrade tbh (up to a point--no need to get the best and largest options out there), but it's obv your call. You should be able to get a decent SSD (in terms of capacity and quality) for around $100, unless you absolutely must have all of your data stored on your laptop. For my part I have most of my stuff on a small NAS mapped as a network drive that I can also v easily access when I'm not on my home network.

[Hazir]

Honestly, it makes the entire experience faster and more pleasant. Faster bootup/wakeup is nice, but it also makes loading programs faster, makes many programs feel faster while you're working with them, etc. Also far quieter and less hot and if I'm not mistaken SSD:s tend to consume less power. It's a good value upgrade tbh (up to a point--no need to get the best and largest options out there), but it's obv your call. You should be able to get a decent SSD (in terms of capacity and quality) for around $100, unless you absolutely must have all of your data stored on your laptop. For my part I have most of my stuff on a small NAS mapped as a network drive that I can also v easily access when I'm not on my home network.

Exactly, the superfast boot up was just an example. Other programs also work incredibly much faster. Real bulk stuff is stored on a central HD that's connected to my router.

[Wraith]

The catch is that hitting his price point with an SSD that isn't miniscule is going to be rough.

[wiggin]

For about $1100 you probably should get Lenovo Ideapad Y50

Lenovo makes great windows machines and their quality is usually top notch, also you could try the ASUS ROG series, check them out http://pcgamerhome.com/gaming-laptops-under-1000/

I'll check them out - I'm a bit nervous about Lenovo both because of the Superfish mess and because I had one before my current laptop (which, admittedly, was a good 8ish years ago) and it was only okay.

The catch is that hitting his price point with an SSD that isn't miniscule is going to be rough.

Quite. Also, Windows + some of the programs I have installed are real hogs of disk space (MATLAB alone with extensions works out to 4 GB?). I don't challenge the basic idea that SSDs are a superior experience - I just don't think the price/disk space/performance tradeoff is worth it yet. I fully assume my next machine after this one will have a spacious and relatively cheap SSD.

[Loocid]

Buy a second hand MBP.