New Laptop.. Any Pointers Welcome

Dell XPS 15 or 17

 

The high end Lenovos are good. Yoga or whatever the Pro version was called, I have a C930, all you would need. Got it with full warranty and they have next day troubleshooting on site, well worth it.

 

+ 1 for a good spec Dell XPS, go with whatever screen suits you, but 13" can be a bit small for day to day use.

 

Budget?

 

if you have a knowledgeable mate you could go second-hand...they don't "wear out" like bikes do...

 

Depends on your workflow. Emails are fine on 13inch, anything else is annoying

 

Dell precision 5560, 32gb ram, 500gb hard drive 15in screen, i9, really good option for a business machine, just replaced my 5530 with this newer one. They got my disk wrong, but it’s not a major shop stopper. I run VMware, massive spreadsheets and Visio etc with no issues. Get a dell dock and it’s thunderbolt ports supply all power and pass through, I run 2 24in screens plus the laptop and works as it should.

 

laptopsdirect.co.uk

Lots of choice. I bought a laptop from them and decided to upgrade further before the one I ordered actually arrived. No trouble.

Lots of different spec Dell and Lenovo. You can sort by criteria that is important including price,

 

I've got a 13" xps for work and screen size is a right chore compared to my own 14" Macbook and HP laptops.

 

HP Spectre, beautiful screens, converts to a tablet and is easily as good, of not better than the wife's new macbook pro. Happily runs photo and video editing software with ease.

 

Get one with a SSD (solid state drive). They tend to be smaller than a standard HDD but just get some external/network storage as required. Makes a big difference in speed as it starts to age.

 

I'd avoid any that have touch screen features as they tend to be fragile and problematic as they age, usually seen as random mouse movement key press actions that sometimes stop you using. Had two screen replacements under warranty on a prior HP Spectre, 3rd screen death out of warranty killed the laptop before it had aged out (become too slow due to OS bloat).

 

For business use I’d steer clear of Mac personally depending on your sector.

Top end Lenovo or Dell for me. I run a predominantly Lenovo environment in my place and have done for the last 4 years or so and they’ve given me virtually zero issues.

 

A couple of points, for what they're worth.

I bought a Lenovo gaming laptop last year (not for me) and I found the best price as direct from the Lenovo website. I think I may have got some extra discount from them by registering for their email newsletter and getting a voucher code, and they threw in a decent 3 year warranty for a trivial amount extra. A 1 year warranty is a bit risky for anything but a cheap PC/laptop, because I wouldn't want to write one off if it were to fail after just a year (and modern laptops can't always be mended cheaply).

With HP the Elitebook range are the "premium" business laptops and they should be the most durable - they have been for me (Spectre are nice, but perhaps a bit more of a fashion statement); of course it all depends on what it's going to be used for, and how - there's a big difference in wear-out possibilities between a laptop which sits on a desk most of the time, especially if connected to separate keyboard, screen and mouse, and one which is in and out of its bag every day, banged about in car boots and on public transport, etc. I've even managed to wear out the hinges on a laptop in the past.

 

I used to have an xps, then notebook (work paid) and now have an ASUS zen book (I paid) it’s got an SSD and decent spec, big saving against the others and no issues so far. I use a second screen so 13 not a problem. Amazon, JL etc all sell what seem to be the same model with slightly different specs so be careful. Be mindful that you’re gonna have to buy a windows and anti virus subscription too.

 

If you spend over 2K can you still get the full 20% VAT back? Just thinking if you were to up your budget a little you would see the return on the VAT?

Personally I'm a Mac convert, I'm on my second Macbook, I got the last of the Intel MBP's a year ago and saved some £££ over the new M1.

It's expensive by comparison to it's Windows alternatives but it just works, I bought it as my last contract required me to use my own kit and then run a Windows 10 VDI session into the company I was contracted to, worked a treat without any issues.

You could probably dual boot as you say, or install software on your MacOS to run a Windows session as and when required.