Laptop Advice

[MikeInWimbledon]

To put some numbers on it, my MA Physics grad tells me that, for Physics students MacBooks are 2:1 for Girls, and probably 1:2 for Boys, but note these are geeky STEM boys who like to play with config, code, and do heavy pivot table stuff.

She's cheesed because she's got to go back to Windows in her 12 hour day Corporate life. But she'll continue to use her MacBook for her personal stuff.

Higher MacBook usage for anyone doing Arts and "normal" subjects like your one.

 

[KillerHERTZ]

We have an estate of over 3000 machines for which I support at work, we had around 200 Macs, over half of the Macs had serious issues during the years we supported them. this illusion that they have legendary build quality is simply not true. Back in the mid 90s during the Powermac years then perhaps, not now. Catastrophic drive failures and I/O port damage was occurring daliy. added to which the lack of network abilities unless you op into Apples bespoke tools are awful.

We now have less than 20.

Yes Macs look fancy and cool, if you are the type of person who only web browsers but other than that they are a total waste of money. For around half the price you can get a decent Windows Laptop.

The days of Apple dominating the Design market with programs from Macromedia and Adobe in the 90s have long gone, there is nothing you cannot now get on a PC now.

To the OP, get a 9th/10th Gen i5 or i7 (if budget allows) and as much RAM as you can afford and you wont go wrong.

 

[190]

When I was managing IT for a school with 500 machines I came under serious pressure to go down the Mac and ipad route. Standing up against it put me out of favour and effectively finished my career. I was always conscious of spending tax payers money and it was increasingly in short supply so any Apple device made little sense even if they had been fit for purpose which they weren't. The school management only wanted them to impress parents and didn't seem to care much that they were very poor value and wouldn't integrate easily with our network. When I see a person with an Apple device it tells me something about them but it's not what Apple would like to have me think.

 

[Dickster]

When I was managing IT for a school with 500 machines I came under serious pressure to go down the Mac and ipad route. Standing up against it put me out of favour and effectively finished my career. I was always conscious of spending tax payers money and it was increasingly in short supply so any Apple device made little sense even if they had been fit for purpose which they weren't. The school management only wanted them to impress parents and didn't seem to care much that they were very poor value and wouldn't integrate easily with our network. When I see a person with an Apple device it tells me something about them but it's not what Apple would like to have me think.

Really? So you know me because I use a Mac?

I was anti Mac for years. We always used PCs at work and still do - we’ve been through a lot of them. And i got sick of Windows laptops which need replacing or rebuilding every few years, even with AV software.

a friend in the print had been telling me for years that PCs were crap but I took no notice. Then on a trip abroad I was at the airport without a computer and decided to buy an iPad that was half price. I never looked back. My first MacBook Pro is five years old and still good as new - it has no AV software.

The whole household is on Apple products now and they all work great - we’ve had zero issues. although probably not practical for my work network, I do use my Mac for remote working

horses for courses.....

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I don't understand the "value for money" argument. My daughter has had her bog standard MacBook for six years, all the way through really heavy 6th form and MPhys work; It's always worked perfectly, despite being abused as only a student can: heavy video usage, while sat about 6 inches away from a hob while she baking and cooking away with barely a thought.

It's" maybe" cost £150 a year. Realistically less because it has a second hand value, even at six years old.

And the same applies to my son who used his, without fault, for five years before he upgraded it to the latest, fanciest MacBook Pro.

Laptops are the most insane value for money given the use that we put them through.

Myself: a bit different: I upgrade every year to the "last year's model." Again, it costs about £100 a year. But I do love the latest, fastest kit. And for the price of a bottle of wine a month, it runs all my admin, streams video and music in the UK and overseas, FaceTimes and messages....

If only the rest of life was so cheap.

Usability and reliability matters: not cost of purchase.

 

[John]

We run 700 workstations with a 70/30 split Windows/Mac.

I used to hate Apple with a passion and had some really unreliable 2010 iMacs at my last place (there were only 5 in total).

Since 2015, my perception of them has changed.

They aren't perfect and have problems like Windows PCs but overall they seem to last very well and seem very well made (we only buy MacBook Pro 16" really and iMacs).

Whilst they are a lot more expensive and I wouldn't be interested in buying one myself as I prefer Windows, their life is massively extended by the free annual upgrade of MacOS until your hardware is no longer supported.

And the residual value as mentioned is excellent (not that we sell them at the end of their life).

At the moment, the 6 and 7 year old stuff is hanging on rather well albeit a couple of years ago we did a sweeping upgrade from HDD to SSD in all the older units which only cost £2k. Money well-spent.

Thanks, nothing fast required, only for Word, Powerpoint, Excel etc.
Oh and watching Netflix of course I would think.

16GB will be wasted in that case!

Running Windows 10 with AV, a web browser and all the Office products at once, you'd be lucky to get beyond 4GB.

So don't worry if it only has 8GB. If you get a decent one with (an) upgrade slot(s), you can upgrade it later on for £30...

 

[pmcgsmurf]

I don't have any Apple products and never have so would have no interest in switching myself or switching most of the kids.
One of the lads has a Macbook from work but he is a software programmer and has to use this.

Tried an iPhone one of the kids had many moons ago and I could not get my head round why I could not just copy my MP3 onto this. Apparently it all had to go through iTunes and be synced.
Thinking about it this may have been an ipod not a phone.

 

[pmcgsmurf]

16GB will be wasted in that case!

Running Windows 10 with AV, a web browser and all the Office products at once, you'd be lucky to get beyond 4GB.

So don't worry if it only has 8GB. If you get a decent one with (an) upgrade slot(s), you can upgrade it later on for £30...

Thanks, just a pity most of these machines seem to be soldered in RAM so no upgrade path.

I'm typing this on a 7 year old Samsung Ultrabook (NP740U3E-S02), i5-3337u, 6gb ram and 128gb ssd.
Works fine for just general browsing stuff and office tasks, only FHD but handy as also touchscreen.

My main work laptop is a Dell XPS13 9370 i7-8550U, 16gb ram, 512gb ssd.
Very noticeable difference between the two machines on the display quality as the Dell is 4K UHD.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

I always find it intriguing how you’ve just got to mention Apple and their products and it gets so many people’s backs up..!

 

[whizzkid11]

If you are still in the market for a quality laptop, I have one currently available.

HP EliteBook 850 G6

This actual model but has the 8365U instead of the 8265U

They are business standard laptops with 3 yr warranty and the G6 are very well built.

 

[pmcgsmurf]

If you are still in the market for a quality laptop, I have one currently available.

HP EliteBook 850 G6
This actual model but has the 8365U instead of the 8265U

They are business standard laptops with 3 yr warranty and the G6 are very well built.

Thanks but too big, 14" max.
We have always found 15.6 to be just too big as an easy portable.

 

[Mr. B]

Always used Apple products and never had an issue.
Switched over from Windows over 10 years ago and never regretted it.

 

[Gollom]

If you are still in the market for a quality laptop, I have one currently available.

HP EliteBook 850 G6
This actual model but has the 8365U instead of the 8265U

They are business standard laptops with 3 yr warranty and the G6 are very well built.

I've had laptops from Waz before and they have always been great value, especially with the 3 year warranty!

 

[MercedesDriver]

I’ve been working on Lenovo 12” ThinkPad for last 8 years and it’s been the best laptop I’ve ever used. It is DIY upgradeable and very robust (dropped it face down number of times). This one looks like nice match for what you want ThinkPad L13 | 13.3” powerful, affordable business laptop | Lenovo UK

 

[whizzkid11]

Thanks but too big, 14" max.
We have always found 15.6 to be just too big as an easy portable.

Understandable, I have a use Elitebook 820 G3 also available, but need to get hold of it physically to confirm the spec and condition.

Thats a 12.1" and I believe it may be an i7 with 16Gb RAM. If its of interest I can get hold of it and check.

 

[John]

Tried an iPhone one of the kids had many moons ago and I could not get my head round why I could not just copy my MP3 onto this. Apparently it all had to go through iTunes and be synced.
Thinking about it this may have been an ipod not a phone.

That is probably my biggest complaint of the world of Apple.

They like to keep you "in the world of Apple" by making it more complicated than it needs to be to get out of it.

Sure, I like many technically-savvy people can get around these things, but they really don't need to try so hard!

With Windows 10, you can at least plug in your iPhone and copy off photos so that is a step in the right direction...

But I get a company iPhone and so obviously I want to stream music off that in my car so I have to cater for "the world of Apple" to some extent.

But they are good products if you can get on with them!

Thanks, just a pity most of these machines seem to be soldered in RAM so no upgrade path.

I'm typing this on a 7 year old Samsung Ultrabook (NP740U3E-S02), i5-3337u, 6gb ram and 128gb ssd.
Works fine for just general browsing stuff and office tasks, only FHD but handy as also touchscreen.

My main work laptop is a Dell XPS13 9370 i7-8550U, 16gb ram, 512gb ssd.
Very noticeable difference between the two machines on the display quality as the Dell is 4K UHD.

The biggest change there is a 3rd generation i5 to an 8th generation i7.

That will make a big difference in performance.

Then on using, probably the 512 SSD is much newer and probably slightly faster than the 128 but not massively so.

You can use Task Manager whilst you are in the depths of using a machine to see how much memory you are actually using (Windows 10 is the best for resource monitoring yet).

I literally just moved off of an ASUS running a pre-"i" processor (Intel Core 2 Duo), with a 250GB Kingston SSD and 4GB (maximum). It worked fine.

Only when Windows updates came along did they start to really struggle - and I used it as a home "work laptop" (in case I forgot my normal machine) since 2015 without issue.

This is why I am quite relaxed on 8GB on a machine you can easily change it on.

I wouldn't dream of specifying anything less than 16GB for work machines and have done for a couple of years now but that is because it is more expensive to upgrade later on and being aware of our environmental responsibilities, we like to run machines for longer than the traditional 3 years and requirements change in 6/7 years.

But if you are buying a hard-wired memory laptop, I would also recommend getting 16GB too!

 

[John]

I always find it intriguing how you’ve just got to mention Apple and their products and it gets so many people’s backs up..!

Indeed - I've experienced it quite a lot. I'm not sure why really. Pays your money, makes your choice.

Some people don't like change and would rather stick with what they are used to so why force them to change either way...

It's only beneficial if you want / need to learn another tech for your job etc.

 

[AW8]

Couple of recent & new Lenovos in the family here.... No idea on the specs. They seem durable enough & work fine albeit in honesty they are only used for streaming, social media & emails. The main criteria of the users was the colour of the laptops....Sorry I don't have more info

I accept an SSD is important if buying new. I am of the opinion that taking care of the machine in question can be more critical than minor differences in spec.....Many will spend many hundreds on a new laptop, eat over the keyboard, use it placed on or surrounded by a duvet, download all sorts of rubbish, not bother clearing out old files or running software to keep it healthy etc.

For coursework & studying I cant see a need for a mega fast machine. In reality an external USB stick will likely be used for storage.

I run an old T61 Thinkpad... probably worth around £100.....It doesn't freeze or slow down...however many programs, tabs, windows I have open. I don't knowingly download stuff that may cause an issue......it can be easily dismantled, upgraded & rebuilt. I try to look after it. The guy I bought it from (reconditioned) refurbs & fixes them.....(it can be reborn with relative ease if it dies).

All new laptops age & lose value quickly. I have no issue buying a used decent quality good grade machine from a from a trusted sellers offering meaningful post sale support & warranty.

 

[pmcgsmurf]

First machine details I listed has now went up to £675.

Couple of spanners in the works now.
Really wants a QHD or UHD display and Touch Screen also if available.
I doubt if both these would be possible at less than £1k so may just be out of the budget range.

 

[Deleted upon users own request member 138506]

Perhaps time to give your Samsung Ultrabook over for Uni student work and treat yourself to the new laptop.