What laptop should I get?

[Lindsayt]

The budget does allow to buy new. There's 3 new laptops in my shortlist.

As a user experience I think Windows has gone downhill since 7. Especially bearing in mind that the competition in Linux has moved on nicely over the last 10 years...

I don’t like Windows and avoid it as much as possible but 10 at least reopens some of the programs I was running before a software upgrade. Earlier versions just shut everything down.

I note the new laptops on your list but I know nothing about any of them. Hence my previous post. If forced to choose one it would be the Lenovo but I’d rather have a MacBook, which I know you don’t want.

Windoze updates! Probably the most annoying thing about 10 and 11. Although it's quite a long list.

With the Linux flavours I've used, by default, you either don't get a reminder to do updates or you get a very discrete reminder in the bottom right. And when you do the updates you can kick them off and carry on working. No need for a reboot. And when it's doing the updates I've noticed no difference in how responsive the computer was.

I intend taking the SSD out of my kaput laptop and sticking it in whatever I buy, even if it's just a temporary thing for data migration. It will be interesting to see if it works seamlessly... With a Windows build I'd expect to have to pfaff around installing the wi-fi drivers off a USB stick, and then downloading half a dozen more drivers for the audio, video etc

...I've just realised, for the Lenovo E16, there's the "No Operating System" option which would bring the price down from £1030 to £940.

[antonio66]

My vote is still with the Lenovo Slim Pro 14, it's open box so you are starting off with a good saving. I know you've said your budget is £2k, but that is one hell of a lot for a home computer. I look at laptops as having a 3 year life span before you want to change, if buying the Pro 14 and you didn't like it you could sell it on again without too much of a loss and go for one of the more expensive options. What advise have you given many times regarding hifi purchases?

[Geoff.R.G]

The budget does allow to buy new. There's 3 new laptops in my shortlist.

As a user experience I think Windows has gone downhill since 7. Especially bearing in mind that the competition in Linux has moved on nicely over the last 10 years...

I don’t like Windows and avoid it as much as possible but 10 at least reopens some of the programs I was running before a software upgrade. Earlier versions just shut everything down.

I note the new laptops on your list but I know nothing about any of them. Hence my previous post. If forced to choose one it would be the Lenovo but I’d rather have a MacBook, which I know you don’t want.

Windoze updates! Probably the most annoying thing about 10 and 11. Although it's quite a long list.

With the Linux flavours I've used, by default, you either don't get a reminder to do updates or you get a very discrete reminder in the bottom right. And when you do the updates you can kick them off and carry on working. No need for a reboot. And when it's doing the updates I've noticed no difference in how responsive the computer was.

I intend taking the SSD out of my kaput laptop and sticking it in whatever I buy, even if it's just a temporary thing for data migration. It will be interesting to see if it works seamlessly... With a Windows build I'd expect to have to pfaff around installing the wi-fi drivers off a USB stick, and then downloading half a dozen more drivers for the audio, video etc

...I've just realised, for the Lenovo E16, there's the "No Operating System" option which would bring the price down from £1030 to £940.

I don’t know about current versions of Windows but earlier versions came bloated with drivers for just about every common peripheral. Obviously one didn’t need the majority of them. Ideally a computer would detect the connected device and just download the requisite drivers etc. unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work that way.

[Lindsayt]

My vote is still with the Lenovo Slim Pro 14, it's open box so you are starting off with a good saving. I know you've said your budget is £2k, but that is one hell of a lot for a home computer. I look at laptops as having a 3 year life span before you want to change, if buying the Pro 14 and you didn't like it you could sell it on again without too much of a loss and go for one of the more expensive options. What advise have you given many times regarding hifi purchases?

I undersold the Lenovo Slim Pro 14 in the opening post and poll. It was actually a new laptop.
Looks like that particular one (linked to) has sold. Never mind, there's an abundance of laptop deals on ebay now. Thanks, in part, to Covid.

I agree about the £2k budget thing. It's one of those questions that's put on laptop forum stickied templates. Templates created by people that don't understand good IT purchasing principles.
If I wanted a hammer to knock in some fencing nails and had a budget of £250, it would be stupid to spend all that budget. However, if I wanted to bash in panels in an explosive atmosphere then a bronze and hickory sledgehammer at £250 might be the way to go.

I've seen people go on about future proofing. Buying a laptop that can deal with increasing demands from the applications.
But the only change that I've had to my laptop needs in the last 14 years has been going from a 16 to a 45 mega pixel camera.
Everything else: operating system, web browsing, video conferencing, word processing, simple spreadsheets, email client, speaker crossover design software etc etc have all stayed the same in terms of their hardware demands.

I prefer to get 10 years usage out of my IT equipment. I'm not one of those to dump my laptop because it's got a virus, or Windoze has gotten it's knickers in a twist, or the battery isn't holding charge, or the hard drive has failed, or the keyboard's had coffee spilt on it, or the screen is smashed or it's gone slow because it's got a stupid arsed hard drive and the (software) build has gotten bloated.

I prefer to buy laptops with decent mechanical and electronic engineering. Hinge areas that don't split. Capacitors that don't pop etc.

I'm confident that I'd be happy with any laptop from the list. They're all good. It's just a matter of how good the goodness is - for my set of circumstances.

[slinger]

...I've just realised, for the Lenovo E16, there's the "No Operating System" option which would bring the price down from £1030 to £940.

Ah! Silly me. I automatically assumed you wanted Windoze. In that case, I recommend the Lenovo twice.

[Fretless]

Running an ancient Dell laptop here (15? years) still going strong - virtually indestructible. Only problem is 2 of the 6 USB ports don't work anymore.

[slinger]

My understanding is that the Lenovo Thinkpad E16 is:

1st out of the 8 on large screen size
1st jointly on age (it's new)
1st highest screen resolution
2nd, for screen brightness
3rd for sRGB (colour) coverage of the screen
2nd, maybe 3rd for engineering quality of the chassis and lid
2nd, jointly, maybe 3rd jointly for length of manufacturer's warranty I'd have on it
3rd for CPU Passmark Benchmark score
3rd for GPU Passmark Benchmark score
2nd for largest amount of installed RAM
4th jointly for maximum amount of RAM that can be installed
5th for low weight
7th for maximum battery whr rating and likely to be about 7th for maximum number of hours I can word process on the battery
8th or thereabouts for keyboard typing experience for me, as I hate short travel keys - and it's why no Dell XPS's made it to my shortlist
8th for ability to install my old SSD into it (it doesn't take the chewing gum type SSD's, only the short-arsed ones). Making me do a work around for data migration
8th for the "You spent how much?" factor with the wife.

[Geoff.R.G]

My understanding is that the Lenovo Thinkpad E16 is:

1st out of the 8 on large screen size
1st jointly on age (it's new)
1st highest screen resolution
2nd, for screen brightness
3rd for sRGB (colour) coverage of the screen
2nd, maybe 3rd for engineering quality of the chassis and lid
2nd, jointly, maybe 3rd jointly for length of manufacturer's warranty I'd have on it
3rd for CPU Passmark Benchmark score
3rd for GPU Passmark Benchmark score
2nd for largest amount of installed RAM
4th jointly for maximum amount of RAM that can be installed
5th for low weight
7th for maximum battery whr rating and likely to be about 7th for maximum number of hours I can word process on the battery
8th or thereabouts for keyboard typing experience for me, as I hate short travel keys - and it's why no Dell XPS's made it to my shortlist
8th for ability to install my old SSD into it (it doesn't take the chewing gum type SSD's, only the short-arsed ones). Making me do a work around for data migration
8th for the "You spent how much?" factor with the wife.

Does any of that matter if it meets your primary requirements. Surely only the final statement is important, the “You spent how much” factor.

[Lindsayt]

The RAM is the least important factor. What with used 8 GB RAM sticks starting from about £10.

Everything else is of some importance.
Even if some of them are only important for about an hour per week. With that hour being when I'm using Darktable...

[slinger]

I bought the Dell Latitude 5520 for £162 (£180 with 10% cashback).

It's 15.6". Which suits my Finance Dept Clerk type mobility profile very well.

It's under £200.

It has an 11th gen Intel i5 1145G7 CPU with the Iris graphics. This is a step up in benchmark performance over the Intel 8th, 9th 10th gen low wattage CPU's with UHD Graphics.

It has 16 GB RAM installed in a single RAM stick.

256GB (Samsung PM991a) SSD fitted.

Dell basic warranty till August 2025, which the seller agreed to transfer to me.

The lid and the baseplate are cosmetically challenged and 4 of the keys have their coating chipped away. Which in practice is not an issue for me. If a few more keys lose their coating I will replace the keyboard at a cost of up to £43.

It is a plasticky laptop, but at the least the plastics are not too tragically bad from a rigidity perspective.

It has no trackpad buttons. An example of aesthetics and bean counting (cheaper to make) triumphing over ergonomics.
The keyboard is OK to use. Not as nice as some, eg Lenovo E450, but better than others, eg Dell XPS.

Darktable is quicker than my old laptop, but there's still scope to speed up how quickly it loads and exports photos. I'm guessing this process is stretching how quickly it can load and save 50 MB files. Possible bottleneck is the SSD in loading the file. Or combination of the SSD, CPU and GPU in loading the file and getting Darktable to make sense of the file.

Whoever designed the fan placement on the 5520 motherboard should be taken out and shot. If it was moved 5mm upwards, the 97whr battery from the Latitude 5521 could have been fitted. Instead we have to make do with a 63 whr battery. It's like they deliberately kaiboshed the 5520 to make it not too desirable compared to their more expensive laptops.

I was tempted to go for a Dell Precision 7560 or 7760. They are mobile workstations with enough computing power to run Luxembourg. And they have really nice engineering of the chassis and lid, plus 95 whr batteries and trackpad buttons. But the price of them was too high for me to justify for my semi mundane application requirements.

Since getting it; I've run the Dell diagnostics, installed Debian with KDE Plasma. Installed my main apps, Made some tweaks to the interface. Migrated my data.

Overall: happy with it so far.