Ok so basically I am considering buying a laptop. I currently have a desktop that’s quite slow. Most of the things I do on it work, but I tend not to use it often just because it does take a while to load up and start software. And also it’s fixed location in my apartment can be painful, it would be nice to be exceptionally lazy and use it in bed.
I do a bit of photo editing using RawTherapee and this can be slow for my changes to apply. Otherwise I’m mostly playing a few games or just internet browsing. I guess my main purpose for my desktop (which I will still keep), is file storage. (Let’s not go into the physical v cloud debate either!)
I used a Surface Laptop 2 in an old job and quite liked it. It was fast in booting up and seemed to manage most tasks well. That being said I never installed all of the games or RT on it.
Given the current sales on the surface laptop 2, I’m wondering if I should buy one or research alternatives before jumping in.
I’m not in a rush to buy one, but if it turns out the surface laptop 2 is the best choice, I’d probably have to wait until Boxing Day (or next release) for similar prices.
Thanks in advance!
"Most of the things I do on it work, but I tend not to use it often just because it does take a while to load up and start software. '
Anything with an SSD as its storage drive will solve that.
"it would be nice to be exceptionally lazy and use it in bed."
Yep, a laptop would be ideal.
"Given the current sales on the surface laptop 2, I’m wondering if I should buy one or research alternatives before jumping in."
Something with an i5 or i7 quadcore and lots of RAM (8GB minimum, 16GB desired)
Now that I have had experience of both consumer and business grade laptops, I would suggest going for a business grade laptop as they are built to be tough.
If you don't know what I mean, just look at some review videos on youtube where they have a look at the insides of the laptop if possible (pay special attention to where the screw holes are, you can see if the material changes or if its the same).
For example, I owned an Asus Zenbook UX303LB, it's not aluminum unibody, it's aluminum layered over plastic.
I found this out when I took off the bottom cover.
My favourite currently is the Dell Latitude 7390 (you can get different variants), refurb ones are usually around the $1.3K mark, there's random 15% off sales on the Dell Outlet every now and then, most of them are actually new but rejected orders or sample units for customers, i.e. they're "new", but for accounting purposes.. and that they were custom built for someone else (some have BT disabled for security reasons, check the spec sheet), they're unable to sell them off "As New", only refurbished.
Full disclosure, I work for a different subsidiary of Dell Technologies (NOT Dell Computers), and I have bought 3 refurb laptops without an issue.
The material for the body of the 7390 2-in-1 is two very solid pieces of some sort of alloy, not plastic.
Other contenders that come to mind are Lenovo X1 Carbon, or the T460s or T470 (whatever increment they're up to now).
These don't usually come with GPUs, so aren't meant for gaming, but are built to last.