Laptop recommendations?

[John Galt]

Dell, HP, Lenovo seem to be pretty solid, I’m not a fan of ASUS, it’s quite a small budget, but I doubt you need it for more than the school work, so I would just pop online to Argos and get one that’s got a decent processor, and ram.

I try and stick to Mac as much as possible but my clients use windows, esp for PowerPoint and if you want my honest advise as we use laptops for large events where if something goes wrong with the PowerPoint your in a lot of trouble. Then I always hire out the HP laptops. They have never let us down for a windows system. Bare in mind I hire out AV kit for a living, so should know what I’m on about. Sometimes

 

[kelper]

It's moot now as OP has already decided.

 

[Oneflewover]

It's moot now as OP has already decided.

Well technically SWMBO decided, but yeah the deed is done

 

[kelper]

Well technically SWMBO decided, but yeah the deed is done

Are you posting without permission?

 

[Oneflewover]

Are you posting without permission?

Shhhhhhhhhh!!!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

His budget is £300 if you add external screens and keyboards it's going to reduce the spec of the laptop.

Just as a general comment that's perhaps less relevant here but still a point worth making - a big screen and a proper mouse are some of the best ways to "speed up" a system for some kinds of work (like spreadsheets).

Another factor is the ergonomics - SWMBO had all sorts of aches and pains in the early days of WFH on a laptop until I sorted her out with an external monitor and keyboard and got them positioned properly. I appreciate the problems with lots of people in a small house, but it's worth keeping an eye on that kind of thing, particularly for youngsters.

+1 for Chromebooks, I was a bit sceptical but a colleague uses one for all his stuff and seems pretty happy with it, keeping stuff in the cloud isn't much of an issue. Obviously a non-starter in environments where MS Office is required, but as a pretty heavy user I think I prefer Google Sheets to Excel for most purposes.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Just as a general comment that's perhaps less relevant here but still a point worth making - a big screen and a proper mouse are some of the best ways to "speed up" a system for some kinds of work (like spreadsheets).

I hate touchpads on laptops and have always used a mouse i agree about a separate monitor and if i didn't have the desktop i would probably use one with my laptop although the screen on mine is a decent size.

 

[Clint]

Mrs Clint needs a new laptop for her work "stuff"...

 

[kelper]

I like touchpads if there is an acceleration feature so you can walk all the way across the screen while retaining precision over buttons. I wouldn't go back now.

 

[jof]

I dislike chromebooks due to suffering dodgy internet connections in the past.
But you could run linux mint on similar low spec machine to a chromebook & run openoffice/firefox.

(I found mint more user friendly than the full ubuntu if your not a linux fan)

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I like touchpads if there is an acceleration feature so you can walk all the way across the screen while retaining precision over buttons. I wouldn't go back now.

I guess i am old school i can do stuff so much faster with a mouse editing moving stuff around the forum etc i have tried getting used to a TP but i could never get on with them.

 

[kelper]

I like a touch screen too but I only use it occasionally.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I guess i am old school i can do stuff so much faster with a mouse editing moving stuff around the forum etc i have tried getting used to a TP but i could never get on with them.

A lot depends on what you're doing, certainly for spreadsheets it's a lot quicker with a mouse (particularly with a scrollwheel), for other things a pad is fine. For fairly passive stuff like watching videos then you're not really interacting with it enough for it to make a big difference.

 

[kelper]

Can you explain why a mouse is better than a touchpad? With click-lock you can highlight a range and drag it to another sheet with one finger. I'm not disagreeing, just curious. I find keyboard shortcuts quicker than mouse or touchpad/touchscreen. WIN-X, WIN-R, Alt-Spacebar-N; Alt-Spacebar-X being especially useful.
Alt-F-S and ALT-F-A too. I always use WIN-I to get to settings.

 

[Nicks90]

You're showing your age! But I am the same, I am constantly using shortcuts instead of mouse clicks. I blame my programming days

 

[Appleyard]

You're showing your age! But I am the same, I am constantly using shortcuts instead of mouse clicks. I blame my programming days

Can you competently use vi?

 

[obscure]

Just as a general comment that's perhaps less relevant here but still a point worth making - a big screen and a proper mouse are some of the best ways to "speed up" a system for some kinds of work (like spreadsheets).

Another factor is the ergonomics - SWMBO had all sorts of aches and pains in the early days of WFH on a laptop until I sorted her out with an external monitor and keyboard and got them positioned properly. I appreciate the problems with lots of people in a small house, but it's worth keeping an eye on that kind of thing, particularly for youngsters.

+1 for Chromebooks, I was a bit sceptical but a colleague uses one for all his stuff and seems pretty happy with it, keeping stuff in the cloud isn't much of an issue. Obviously a non-starter in environments where MS Office is required, but as a pretty heavy user I think I prefer Google Sheets to Excel for most purposes.

For me the big revelation was dual screens I have my laptop on one side a full size monitor on the other, amongst other things it has completely eliminated my need for printing. I doubt my employer is alone in having made more of a move towards the paperless office in 9 months than in the last 9 years.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Yes, I am familiar with shortcuts But they work with mice as well.

I guess some of it is muscle memory/personal preference, some of it depends on the trackpad (I loathe the one on SWMBO's Mac laptop, but that's partly because of the Mac button thing, my Windows laptop isn't so bad), but a lot depends on what you use it for. I spend my life on spreadsheets, which are typically not heavy on data entry (so one hand is enough, and actions needing one hand on the keyboard and one doing cursor movement are very easy) but you are doing a lot of moving around, often moving the cursor a long way across the screen, but then needing very fine control to hit the right cell once you're there. That kind of thing is just much easier with a mouse.

And scrollwheel, I use that a *lot* on spreadsheets (and on brewing forums....)

 

[dwhite60]

Don't know how things work on your side of the pond but, here in the states I've gotten some smokin' deals on refurbished laptops. Yes, they are a few years old but look new and easily meet my horsepower requirements.

I have an HP zBook 15 G2, 16GB ram, 1TB SSD, i7-4810, Nvidia graphics card with 2GB video ram. Paid about $700 USD for it last year.

I have an HP Elite book 840, 5th generation i5, 16GB ram, 250 GB SSD. Paid $330 USD for it.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I used to have something similar to the one below and it was brilliant as you didn't have to move it all the time I sacked it when I got into online gaming, this thread reminded me I had used one I may get another and give it a try.