flyinghaggis Posted February 6, 2020 Posted February 6, 2020 (edited) I was contemplating buying a new laptop to replace both my current laptop and desktop at home. I reckon my workflow would be better suited to a laptop that I could connect to my 1440p monitor (over displayport) when required. My current laptop is a 2016 12" MacBook (Intel M3/8Gb RAM/256gb SSD). It's a lightweight model I bought at the time as a portable device to go alongside my desktop. It runs ok but I'd want a better CPU plus 16gb RAM/512Gb SSD as a minimum if it was my only device. The single USB-C port also means docking options are limited. I've no strong preference on MacOS Vs Windows so I'm unsure whether to buy another Apple device. Being able to run both MacOS and Windows on the same device is useful though. If I bought another Mac I'd definitely want one with their updated keyboard as the butterfly one is garbage. At the moment the only device with the new one is the 16" model and, whilst nice, it's a bit large for a laptop IMO. I'm sure we'll see a new 13/14" model with the new keyboard this year though. Having a look around the main 2 Windows laptops which caught my eye were the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 and the Dell XPS 13 2in1. I like the fact that both of these have the latest Intel CPU/chipset and 3:2 / 16:10 ratio touchscreen displays which I feel are far better than the regular 16:9 aspect for most productivity tasks. I was favouring the surface laptop 3 as it seems pretty much perfect. My main gripe with it is the lack of Thunderbolt 3 support as IIRC I can't connect it to a 4k/1440p monitor over basic USB-C. This means I'll also need the Surface Dock which, though useful, is pretty expensive as an extra. Speaking of expense the price of the device rises steeply when you want more RAM and SSD storage as well. What's everyone using as their personal laptop? Any suggestions and/or recommendations? Edited February 6, 2020 by flyinghaggis
PotNoodleTech Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 A chromebook for daily use. I also have an old Dell Latitude with win10 I use if I need to do active directory gpo type things on the fly. That's not very often by the way.
sted Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 pixlbook. it does everything* i need (and i got it cheap) *i still havnt found a paint.net equivalent for some simple image editing i do basically add boxes over an image and crop all the tools seem to be serious photo editing or useless
achedgy Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Huawei Matebook x Pro, quick, slim, battery life is great does everything i need
Popular Post ICTDirect_Dave Posted February 7, 2020 Popular Post Posted February 7, 2020 Now might be a good time to mention that I've got a bunch of Lenovo Thinkpad T460s laptops just begging for good homes. 6th Gen i7 6600U 20GB DDR4 RAM 512GB NVMe SDD 14" 1920 x 1080 Touchscreen Dual Batteries Win 10 Pro License Less than £400 each! 5
Wubbalubbadub Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 All of our team here have Surface Book's! I don't think i could ever go back. The two batteries make these things last forever!!!! Plus once you get a dock to just wack in.. mmmm
Andycat Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Now might be a good time to mention that I've got a bunch of Lenovo Thinkpad T460s laptops just begging for good homes. 6th Gen i7 6600U 20GB DDR4 RAM 512GB NVMe SDD 14" 1920 x 1080 Touchscreen Dual Batteries Win 10 Pro License Less than £400 each! We have some T460s here, great laptops and that's a great price! 1
bald_pig Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Dave didn't have that kind of shiny shiny when I got my work laptop, so I went with an envy x360: https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/refurbished-hp-envy-x360-13-ag0003na-amd-ryzen-7-2700u-8gb-512gbradeon-rx-v-a1-4jv79ea I also have a USB C dongle with ethernet, HDMI, a USB C port for charging and a USB A port, I bought a separate type C charger to use with the dongle, and leave it permanently connected in the office at my main site. The original charger is not type C and stays in my laptop bag. The 360 is quite nice imo as you can rotate the screen right round and use it as a tablet, mine came with the HP pen as well.
hardtailstar Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Dell XPS Ive got the 15" 2017 model. 16gb ram Intel i7 500gb ssd i think. I cant remember as I cloud save pretty much everything except photos which I save to two external ssds Perfect for photo editing and general tasks. You can find some of the 13inch Dell XPS's second hand.
r0cketbev Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Macbook Pro 13" Mid-2012 i5 8Gig Ram 500Gig SSD running Mojave for personal but not daily driver and apple deployment use. Lenovo B50-51 i5 16Gig ram 240Gig SSD I replaced the DVD rom with a caddy to put a 1Tb drive in for storeage. Use this for VM work when on sites. Acer Chromebook 311 spin is my daliy driver. Daliy driver when I am at home is in my sig.
LeMarchand Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 (edited) I don't have a "home" laptop. I'm lucky enough to have the space for a desktop, and much prefer the experience. I do have an old XPS M1710 that was given to me as it stopped recognising the charger and throttled everything down that I keep meaning to look at for when I get the Man Cave sorted. If I need something portable it's a old 32 bit Linx 7" tablet or my phone. I now have one superb and one pretty good desktop at my 2 main sites (thanks to @ICTDirect_Dave). I use an older x360 if I need something more portable/at my third site. It just tends to be web and RDP. On the whole, I couldn't see myself ever splashing out on a fancy laptop unless we had to move. Edited February 7, 2020 by LeMarchand 1
dhicks Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 What's everyone using as their personal laptop? I currently have a Dell with a 15" screen and enough room to fit 2 harddrives, with the idea that I have one for video editing storage. That's okay, but it's quite a large computer to lug around, and most of the time when I'm using it in my office it's plugged in to a monitor and external keyboard anyway, so I'm tempted to get an 11" Chromebook. Pretty much all my work is web-based anyway (or, at least, accesing remote services through web-based interfaces), although the handy thing about a Windows laptop is that you have multiple web browsers, making it easier to keep different accounts separate.
sted Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 although the handy thing about a Windows laptop is that you have multiple web browsers, making it easier to keep different accounts separate. you can sort of on a chromebook. at one point (until work changed my gsuite account from a .co.uk to .cloud and borked my logon) had the linux version of firefox running on my chromebook alongside the obvious chrome (id imagine you could also install linux chrome/opera etc pretty easily) 1
FishCustard Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Macbook Pro 13" 2017 with macOS, Windows and Linux. Best of all worlds. Given that it mostly sits in a dock at home now, I should probably swap it for something better suited to being plugged in all the time...
supportman Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Surface Laptop 2, best laptop i've ever used narrowly surpassing my old Macbook Air
bald_pig Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Ahh, home laptop, misread the question! I don't. I have a gaming rig and an android tablet.
southhamster Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 HP Probook 4340 i3 with 8gb ram and 512gb SSD. Still on the original battery 1.5 hours) and no problems after ?6 years of everyday use. Some keytopsare starting to lose their lettering but good enough. Really like the 13.3 screen as it's nice and portable.
andydis Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 I was contemplating buying a new laptop to replace both my current laptop and desktop at home. I have always failed making this transition , I ALWAYS needs a Desktop to come back to for one reason or another ( GPU testing or m.2 testing without external kit, creating a few hyper-v pc's , lots of reasons). my laptop is the HP omen 17" version and I like to use it with 2 external monitors .
localzuk Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 These days? I don't. If I need a portable device, I use a Chromebook - I can RDS in to our servers with it if I need to, and access all my documents on Drive. But, even then, I think I can list the number of times I've needed it on one hand since Sept. At home? I don't have a laptop. I have a desktop with a 43" ultrawide screen instead.
FishCustard Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Same for work, I just don't need one. In a pinch I can use any PC via web RDP to do remote admin tasks. I inherited one when I started here but reassigned it to someone else - saves some money!
flyinghaggis Posted February 7, 2020 Author Posted February 7, 2020 (edited) I'm kind of shocked how many on here are using Chromebooks at home:eek: Though perhaps given how much time I spend in a browser on my desktop/laptop and most services moving to cloud platforms like Azure/AWS I shouldn't really be. Plus IIRC can't most run Android apps these days as well? Do you not find running ChromeOS limits what you can run and do especially if you're supporting, developing and training for a Windows based network? Edited February 7, 2020 by flyinghaggis
sted Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 I'm kind of shocked how many on here are using Chromebooks at home:eek: Though maybe given how much time I spend in a browser on my desktop/laptop I shouldn't really be. Plus IIRC can't most run Android apps these days as well? Do you not find running ChromeOS limits what you can run and do especially if you're supporting, developing and training for a Windows based network? Are you RDP'ing to your desktop computer or cloud based VM's for running development/scripting/testing apps/networking configs/etc? a lot of android apps run well, some android apps run stupidly (like crunchyroll plays video in a postage stamp sized window as it seems to think the screen is always in the wrong orientation) some dont work limiting depends for 95% of what i do rds and a browser is all i need. if i need to do script testing ill use a vm/spare pc. esp at home i seldom need anything more infact when the pc under my tv finally gives up teh ghost im debating replacing it with a chromebox as all i ever use it for is watching youtube etc
chaplic Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Daily Driver is a Lenovo x1 carbon 7th gen, 16GB, 512SSD and inbuilt 4G. Im usually carrying two laptops so something fast and light is needed, USB C charging is handy too. Has enough grunt to run Vms if required, and great keyboard.
mavhc Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 At home? Whatever we were getting rid of at work, install linux on it. Work laptop is i5 HP Probook, still not used the usb-3 port, the toshiba dynadock is usb2
manc_techie Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 At work I have a Dell Precision 5540 and avoid tech at home so just a trusty Samsung J6
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