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Need to Buy a Windows Laptop
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Need to Buy a Windows Laptop

raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

Everything I buy for myself is either Mac or old laptops I turn into Linux.

But now my daughter needs a Windows-based laptop for school and other projects. If you were going to buy a laptop today, where would you look?

I don’t have any preset notions or brand preferences – just something that won’t fall apart, has an SSD or NVME drive, and is an i3+ (she needs more horsepower than an Atom).

If I asked her about requirements, she'd add "can play Sims 4 and Minecraft".

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Comments

  • SpryServers_TabSpryServers_Tab Member, Host Rep

    Budget? $7?

    Thanked by 3WSWD yoursunny 1allen
  • SpryServers_TabSpryServers_Tab Member, Host Rep
    edited August 2020

    For real though, if I were to buy a laptop today I'd buy a Lenovo ThinkPad E15 Gen2 (AMD). Biggest downside here is soldered RAM. See below for model without soldered RAM.

    If I were able to wait a few weeks until Lenovo gets off their ass and posts the ThinkPad L15 AMD, I'd buy that.

    Thanked by 1raindog308
  • Lennovo Flex. An amazing daily driver.

    Thanked by 1raindog308
  • dustincdustinc Member, Patron Provider, Top Host

    Just last week I purchased a laptop for my dad, he didn't need anything special, but for the price and specs I felt this wasn't a bad deal:

    "ASUS VivoBook 15 Thin and Light Laptop, 15.6” Full HD, AMD Quad Core R5-3500U CPU, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB PCIe SSD, AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics, Windows 10 Home, F512DA-EB51, Slate Gray"

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QQB7552/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    Thanked by 1raindog308
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    Well south of $1000, ideally.

  • Buy a macbook and Install Windows (bootcamp) on it.

  • @raindog308 said:

    Well south of $1000, ideally.

    IdeaPad Slim 7 selling at BHphotovideo for $769.

    1.0 GHz Intel Core i5-1035G1 Quad-Core
    8GB of LPDDR4X RAM | 512GB SSD
    14" 1920 x 1080 IPS Display
    NVIDIA GeForce MX350
    microSD Card Reader
    USB 3.2 Gen 1 | Thunderbolt 3 | HDMI 2.0
    Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) | Bluetooth 5.0
    180° Hinge
    Backlit Keyboard
    Windows 10 Home (64-Bit)

    Only downside I can see is soldered RAM. Otherwise have great features for the price, this is aluminum built, have really good 100 sRGB display and thunderbolt. MX350 for occasional games.

    Thanked by 1raindog308
  • SpryServers_TabSpryServers_Tab Member, Host Rep

    @raindog308 said:

    Well south of $1000, ideally.

    I'd go with ThinkPad for best durability. You can get for under $1k easily. (Look at E and L series) They REALLY last. The downside of the other Lenovo's, IdeaPad, etc, in my experience, is they don't last near as long.

    Thanked by 2raindog308 poisson
  • @SpryServers_Tab said:

    @raindog308 said:

    Well south of $1000, ideally.

    I'd go with ThinkPad for best durability. You can get for under $1k easily. (Look at E and L series) They REALLY last. The downside of the other Lenovo's, IdeaPad, etc, in my experience, is they don't last near as long.

    IdeaPad 700 or 7 series are above midrange laptops and have good build quality. Thinkpads on the other hand built solid but are ugly and have low brightness display. You won't find ideapad 7 quality display on any thinkpad below $1500.

    Thanked by 1raindog308
  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    @raindog308 said:
    ... just something that won’t fall apart, has an SSD or NVME drive, and is an i3+ (she needs more horsepower than an Atom).

    If I asked her about requirements, she'd add "can play Sims 4 and Minecraft".

    Any other requirements, e.g. sturdiness, coolness (she is young after all), weight, etc?

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited August 2020

    Because of MacBooks I’ve had a really hard time with trackpads on windows laptops. None of them are anywhere near as comfortable and accurate, they’re just not. After trying again and again I found one laptop brand that I enjoyed using the trackpad, and everything else about it’s build quality as well: Razer.

    I really regretted going cheaper with an ASUS Ryzen laptop that was just as good as my Razer on paper, but the build quality wasn’t great. If I picked it up while it was on, the case would actively bend to its weight and the fans would hit against plastic, making an awful noise. Trying to accurately click on things with the trackpad made me look like an old man trying to use a computer for the first time. It cost less, and I paid a lot more for having to replace it because I made a mistake by buying it.

    That was my most recent venture into Windows laptops and my purpose was gaming, so it’s not a 1:1 comparison. Hopefully it’s some interesting data points though.

    Thanked by 2raindog308 poisson
  • Lenovo should be a solid pick.

    Thanked by 1raindog308
  • ricardoricardo Member
    edited August 2020

    Bought this one a few months back https://www.johnlewis.com/hp-pavilion-15-cs3009na-laptop-intel-core-i5-processor-8gb-ram-512gb-ssd-15-6-inch-full-hd-mineral-silver/p4870223

    Quick Google suggests you could get it for ~$780 (I only saw GBP prices)

    Has a GPU, decent battery life (about 14 hours when streaming). My only gripe I'd say is that the ventilation isn't great. I mainly run Linux on it, where battery life is poorer and the fan can stay eternally on if the computer is turned on hot. Runs absolutely fine on windows though.

    /edit, that's not the same one I have but quite similar. Have 256GB SSD / Nvidia 1050M

    Thanked by 1raindog308
  • @raindog308 said: If you were going to buy a laptop today, where would you look?

    These days eBay is so full of different lovely offers, I'm unsure when I'll be buying brand new hardware for personal use again.

    However I don't compile chrome each hour and don't render 8K trinitro-quad-ultraHD videos at home. Tasks like that will surely involve extra spending.

  • Surface pro is a solid choice

  • LordSpockLordSpock Member, Host Rep

    I would highly reccomend Lenovo. Fantastisk quality for the price. There are a good chunk of Ideapads on BestBuy's site that may fall within price range. My personalish laptop is a Hackintoshed Ideapad from eBay and that thing has survived countless drops and other abuse.

  • mxroute = prem
    thinkpads = prem

    Thanked by 2jar SpryServers_Tab
  • Any Lenovo thinkpad

  • Thinkpad T14/L14 AMD. You can get T14 with Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U (6c12t) for 1100-ish

  • vyas11vyas11 Member
    edited August 2020

    @raindog308
    Refurbished Lenovo thinkpad on Newegg. Typically they bump up processor or ram or both. Great specs for sub- 500 600 USD. Warranty used to be one year not sure now

    Many come with Win10 licensed. Random examples

  • mhosting_inmhosting_in Member
    edited August 2020

    @raindog308 said:
    Everything I buy for myself is either Mac or old laptops I turn into Linux.

    But now my daughter needs a Windows-based laptop for school and other projects. If you were going to buy a laptop today, where would you look?

    I don’t have any preset notions or brand preferences – just something that won’t fall apart, has an SSD or NVME drive, and is an i3+ (she needs more horsepower than an Atom).

    If I asked her about requirements, she'd add "can play Sims 4 and Minecraft".

    Acer Swift 3 Laptop **16-17 hours battery backup **
    8 Gb Ram [ ram is solder so don't go with 4gb ram]
    i5 processor
    512 GB SSD
    Nvidia graphic cards

    very positive reviews about this laptop.
    this laptop battery may be 1+ days or 2 days battery.
    I think its world-first laptop which claim16-17 hours battery backups.

  • @mhosting_in said:

    @raindog308 said:
    Everything I buy for myself is either Mac or old laptops I turn into Linux.

    But now my daughter needs a Windows-based laptop for school and other projects. If you were going to buy a laptop today, where would you look?

    I don’t have any preset notions or brand preferences – just something that won’t fall apart, has an SSD or NVME drive, and is an i3+ (she needs more horsepower than an Atom).

    If I asked her about requirements, she'd add "can play Sims 4 and Minecraft".

    Acer Swift 3 Laptop **16-17 hours battery backup **
    8 Gb Ram [ ram is solder so don't go with 4gb ram]
    i5 processor
    512 GB SSD
    Nvidia graphic cards

    very positive reviews about this laptop.
    this laptop battery may be 1+ days or 2 days battery.
    I think its world-first laptop which claim16-17 hours battery backups.

    That's not possible unless it runs on arm also advertised is not always true most intel laptops can last 10 hour in best case scenario

  • Lenovo. Lenovo. Lenovo.

    You can take over it five years later, put Linux on it, and it still runs like brand new.

  • @poisson said:
    Lenovo. Lenovo. Lenovo.

    You can take over it five years later, put Linux on it, and it still runs like brand new.

    Can confirm this I have a probably 10 year old lenevo laptop but still work

  • @mhosting_in said: Acer Swift 3 Laptop **16-17 hours battery backup **

    8 Gb Ram [ ram is solder so don't go with 4gb ram]
    i5 processor
    512 GB SSD
    Nvidia graphic cards

    There is an AMD Ryzen 4000-series version of this laptop for $600. It has the Ryzen 4700U (very powerful processor).

    I recently picked up the ASUS Zephyrus G14. Ryzen 7 4800HS, GTX 1650, 512GB NVMe for $880. Great deal, and it's super light too (3.5 lb)

  • @Unixfy said:

    @mhosting_in said: Acer Swift 3 Laptop **16-17 hours battery backup **

    8 Gb Ram [ ram is solder so don't go with 4gb ram]
    i5 processor
    512 GB SSD
    Nvidia graphic cards

    There is an AMD Ryzen 4000-series version of this laptop for $600. It has the Ryzen 4700U (very powerful processor).

    I recently picked up the ASUS Zephyrus G14. Ryzen 7 4800HS, GTX 1650, 512GB NVMe for $880. Great deal, and it's super light too (3.5 lb)

    I know Asus is cheaper but not good reviews.
    battery backup 4-5 hours in Asus.

  • DewlanceVPSDewlanceVPS Member, Patron Provider

    HP laptop with DOS, Purchase Windows from Microsoft and install it on your Laptop.

    It will cost around $650 with Windows Home.

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