Laptop suggestions

Yeah, the keyboard give is a real thing. I guess it comes down to use case, really. I don't remember the last time I used a laptop actually on my lap...top.

Check out Asus stuff. They usually do a good job of packing hardware into a machine for reasonable prices.

 

Yes, that was part of the selling point for me. I upgraded to normal Windows10 as soon as I unboxed it. I can say that the specs on the surface laptop (i got the i5) a least have no problems running Windows10. On top of that it's a free upgrade from the app store. I had Macs for years but can say I'm real pleased with the surface...even if they were the same price

 

I haven’t used it in my lap either lol. That just doesn’t sound ideal as when I type I put a decent amount of weight on the keyboard and I would just be afraid of breaking it. I’ve looked into ASUS but I’ve read some janky reviews about them, same as Lenovo. I really want to go outside of the box here and get something that’s not a common because of the brand name and what not but it can be hard.

 

The surface looks like a Mac plus more from what I’ve researched and heard of. That’s a huge plus if I can get normal windows 10. Hopefully they put them on sale for Black Friday

 

Buy a Clevo or Sager. No since in paying a markup for a name.

 

I looked them up and it seems they’re gaming laptops. I don’t do any gaming whatsoever so they might be what I’m looking for. Thanks for the insight though!

 

What do you plan to use the laptop for? For graphic design and Photoshop the Mac is a great way to go. If you're using it for engineering or similar avoid Macs at all cost. I've had HP's for the past 15 years, my current laptop has lasted 7 years. The place that I work uses HPs exclusively, worldwide, for every area: engineering, finance, marketing, tech support, etc. Does it actually need to be portable? I just built a PC for $800 that has high end capabilities.

 

Gaming in the fact that they have more powerful graphics cards and faster RAM. Do you plan to use Photoshop or video editing software?

You can get a Clevo or Sager for $1000 or a Dell/HP/whatever with the same specs for $1200+

 

If a Sager goes sideways on you though you are SOL on support unless you buy their warranty. I know a few people I game with who have been caught by that. My advice when buying a "gaming" laptop is to wait for a sale and buy whatever fits your budget. If you aren't going for ultrabook slim then it's easy to take apart a low end model with a good CPU and GPU and upgrade the ram and drive for cheaper than paying for it built with those components. I'm rocking a Lenovo Legion right now with an i5-7300HQ and 1050Ti that I paid less than $800 CAD for (that's less than $600 USD.). I then threw in another stick of ram and swapped out the HDD for an SSD for a grand total of $1000. Is it the best gaming laptop ever? No, not even close. Can it run almost any game at high settings and still fits into a normal 15.4" laptop bag? Yup, and it even looks good doing it. It didn't cost me the $2K that Razor, Seager, or the other top end gaming laptop brands are asking for the same components too which is always nice.

My opinion is to stick with the surface book unless you plan on doing video editing or gaming. I have the Surface Pro Tablet (5th gen) for work and it's great.

 

Nice to see this thread. I am looking myself to replace a 12 year old dell inspiron. The only thing that has failed is the keyboard which was really easy to replace. I want to do video editing and am kind of surprised those things are as expensive as they are. Ram used to be cheap. Solid state drives are faster but more expensive. High quality graphics card are expensive.

 

The surface is hard to beat. I am in the IT world as well and we have over 70,000 machines. Mostly HP. They seem to hold up well but are overpriced.

I have had a Surface for about 3 months and a Surface tablet for years. Love them.

Like anything else though a laptop is a personal like/dislike type item. Get what you like and can afford. And STAY way away from BestBuy! Go look there to see and feel but buy elsewhere. They do have a bad rep for selling out older gen stuff.

 

They have the surface on sale right now for $1000 and have open box ones for $700! 256GB SSD, 8GB of ram, and an i5 core. If they’re having that kind of sale right now Black Friday may be a score for a brand new one.

 

If you want to edit videos than a dedicated graphics card, SSD, minimum 16 GB of ram, and high core count are really must haves. I’d go up to the entry level class of gaming laptops and look for those features. Keep in mind the 9000 series Intel processors will hit the market right away so there will be deals to be had on 8000 series CPU laptops. I know Dell was running a few promotions and they’re G-Series is an excellent value performance laptop.

 

@Rustytaco71 nit sure if you’re still looking but my personal favorite is the hp spectre x360. I have one from 2015, my coworker has one from last year and we both like them a lot. I think they are also transitioning to usb-c but I think thats where ultrabooks are going...if they are still called that.

I use HP and dell business models for work and they are both solid. My original school computer was a dell latitude, stupid heavy which is why I went to a spectre my senior year. Super light and solid options for SSD, ram, and screen resolution.

 

Light and powerful usually means double the price for the same specs. Besides, most of the newer 15" entry level gaming stuff is under 5 pounds which is a lot lighter than even the lightest laptops that existed in the 2000's. I'm not a fan of HP's lineup simply because most of it is form over function. Both the spectre and omen lineups add a lot of features that only a select few would want while jacking up the price over the competitors. Dell, Lenovo, and MSI still have a great entry level lineup that brings tons of value in at a lower price point with high reliability.

 

Check out this laptop from Lenovo.

https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptop...series/Lenovo-Legion-Y530-15ICH/p/88GMY501020

It's the newer version of what I have. I like Lenovo because like the G-Series from Dell the Y5XX series is in a nice but not attention grabbing frame with tons of high end components at a great price. They are having a sale where you can get an i5-8300H with a 1050Ti, 8 GB of memory (just upgrade it yourself if needed), and a SSD + HDD for under $1200.

 

Yeah HP has definitely transitioned to more form. The spectre was pretty much perfect for me at the time with 256gb ssd, 8gb ram, i7, full hd touchscreen and most important for me was size and weight. The only other options for me at the time were the dell XPS 13 and Lenovo x1 carbon. The spectre was cheaper so it won. I wouldn’t have a problem picking up either of those right now, I just don’t have experience using them.

 

In had the original XPS 13 about 10-12 years ago lol. It was a tank compared to what it is now. A good laptop in that range too is the Zenbook but again, it won't have dedicated graphics. If he wasn't going to edit videos I'd pushing him to one of those but in Win 10 a lot of the editing software likes a decent GPU with it's own memory cache which the ultrabooks don't have until you spend over $2.5k

 

The xps13 with the edge to edge screen was really small in 2015. But that’s fair, dedicated GPU is definitely hard to find in an ultra book haha.

In that case my brother has the dell g5 which he likes a lot. Kind of big but under 1k for hybrid 256ssd +1tb hd and quad core i5 with nvidia gtx1050 ti. I’m not super up on GPUs but seems like really solid specs

 

Yeah, the laptop I linked the poster too has the same specs lol. The Dell G5 and Lenovo G530 go on sale for around $1K lots with those features. The key is to get that i5 quad core with the 1050Ti. That will run almost anything, it's a really well balanced combo. The memory and storage can be addressed with upgrades as needed.