Laptop Choice?

Yeah, no getting away from the delicate nature of an ultrabook. That said, XPS are regarded as not the most fragile in the class.

I actually ended up going with a pimped out Inspiron 7501 instead of an xps15 recently just so I could throw it about a bit.

Was worried that I'd regret going for a cheaper build after a decade of high spec ultrabooks but I've been pleasantly surprised for what you get for £650 with Dell.

I start looking at an XPS, but don't need anything that fancy, so I look down the range, but once i start throwing a bigger SSD and more RAM in, it gets closer to XPS prices, and I start looking at an XPS, but don't don't need anything that fancy, ... repeat.

Still haven't bought a laptop
(i only want it for photo editing/ storage and playing command and conquer, I should just buy a cheap Inspiron and be done with it)

I've sorted something temporary so my decision about a fancy laptop has been put off, but for reference, there are two 4k-ish displays available on the XPS13, OLED 400nit and non-OLED 500nit, the first being cheaper. Which would you lot go for? I'm thinking OLED because low-light performance.

It's usually much cheaper to buy and install your own upgrades. If you're going for an upgradeable model that is. I didn't need a chunky processor for my laptop so got an 8gb 512GB i5 Inspiron 7501 and put my own upgrades up to 16GB and 1TB. Came to about £540 all in.

Don't forget Dell Outlet and various other discount methods too.

Leonovo Thinkpads

Having retired from the NHS I ve had to return my Thinkpad.

If I was looking for a good used model what's the current best model available?

Using an NHS laptop for personal use was a disciplinary offence when I was ITD at an NHS trust. People were sacked for it. That was a long time ago though, sounds like more sensible rules have come in since.

In terms of a new used laptop, what will you use it for? The answer to that dictates what th "best laptop" will be.

Really?
NHS E was not as strict.... That said I had a strict rule of seperatinmg work and home machines. I don't think all of my colleagues did the same.

Two likely uses-

1) to be the main machine for home use- mostly docs, spreadsheets, web etc. It won't travel much

2) to be , come the autumn, my University lap top. It will travel in this role

I suspect that I'll use a Chromebook for being a student.

Good keyboard and screen critical.

Look at Tier1 refurbs. Buy the latest one you can mange - X1 Carbon or something like that...

Yoga280 also good.

Thanks for that advice. I assume you meant the Tier 1 website.
Have you used the Carbon? What are the keyboards like?

Underrated. They’re excellent for chicklet type keyboards or whatever they’re called.

Saying that, I’m still rolling on a soon to be modified x220 with different internals. I just don’t have the heart to get rid of it and the keyboard is magic.

Look into x260’s, they go for very cheap.

How did you get on with the green cell battery?

I'm going to fully upgrade my T440p and was going to get a green cell battery, but see mixed reviews.

I don't see any other choice though really.

Worked great.

Wasn't the same high capacity as the original, but for a reasonable price it now has a much higher capacity and fresh batteries.

TBH though... work supplied another new laptop, so whilst I made good the old one and still keep it (especially because it has the super convenient built-in ethernet port) I mostly use the new laptop.

Is there a resource that would help me spec out a laptop relatively pain free? The only machines I've bought for myself in the last 10 years have been work focused - simple word processing, Internet access, 'basic' and any gaming has been on a console.

I now want to look at getting a new laptop that's better specced, but I feel SO far behind the times in terms of what a 'decent' graphics card is, or how much RAM is appropriate/neccessary.

Where should I be turning to first?!

Scan do good speccable laptops as well as the various others mentioned above, have heard anecdotally that because of the chip shortage prebuilt stuff is much better value than build your own at the moment.

If you’re not playing games or doing video work the graphics on chip in ryzens or i5s are fine, a dedicated card just drains battery and will be underpowered compared to the desktop equivalent anyway. 16gb ram preferable to 8 but seems to be expensive in laptops.

Imo the new macs blow everything else out of the water, MacBook Air with the M1 chip is a grand, lovely screen and all day battery

Not sure if this is if interest to anyone but I recently got a Star Labs StarBook Mk5. Intel i7 4 core (8 hyperthread) with XE graphics, 480Gb NVMe SSD and 32Gb RAM.

Designed from the ground up, in Guildford, to run Linux. I got it pre-installed with Elementary OS 6.0.

Got a big old battery, good for 8 hours plus.

Very nice it is. Very nice indeed.

https://starlabs.systems/pages/starbook

What's your budget?
What do you want to do on the laptop? I.e. 90% browsing but 10% watching videos.

Regardless of budget, if you mention encoding videos or gaming you would always get more bang for buck with a desktop.

Budget isn't set in stone, but less than £1k and ideally closer to £500. If that's reasonable?

Majority of time would be general browsing, odd bit of YouTube etc (no need to watch movies). Some basic word processing and spreadsheets - but nothing processor heavy (and no specialist programmes for work either).

Some gaming capabilities would be nice - strategy/simulator games ideally (given a console isn't ideal) - Cities: Skylines, HOI4, PCM(!)

Is a desktop the way to go instead?

@clipon thank you too!

A desktop would get you a lot more for your money. You're probably looking at 3 times the cost for similar performance in a laptop. But if you're not maxing out the desktop then that's not necessarily too important.

I am looking for a new laptop for photo editing and maybe some very light gaming.
Budget around £650.

Have narrowed Dell down to either:
G15 5515 (Gaming laptop/15.6") with Ryzen 5, 8gb RAM and 256gb SSD (with a view to doubling ram and adding a 2nd SSD in the future) also has a GeForce RTX 3050. (£660)
or
Inspiron 5415 (14") with a Ryzen 7, 8gb RAM and 512gb SSD (with a view to doubling ram and adding a 2nd SSD in the future) no GPU. (£600)

Or other suggestions pls.

I am tempted with the G15 because it seems fancier but I know very little about computers.
However it is a kilo heavier than the Inspiron.

I've bought a few Dell Inspiron 16 laptops for work recently, in various configurations.

Can confirm that they are excellent bits of kit. Exellent quality for the money and built solidly. Despite having a 16" screen its smaller than many 15" laptops because of the slim bezel. Screen quality is very good too, compared to most other Inspirons.

I have a basic spec i5 model, which I have given 16GB of RAM and a 2nd SSD to dual boot Linux. Compiles C nicely without overheating so I assume it'd be ok for photo editing. You might be able to get one for £700 if you find a voucher or a return on Dell Outlet

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops/inspiron-16-plus-laptop/spd/inspiron-16-7610-laptop

How is the fan noise on these when you're running video?

We have Dells at work and it's like an aeroplane take-off when the video stream kicks in

This is one reason I am tempted to pay extra and get the Apple M1 for a personal machine

im going round in circles atm deciding what to buy.
what i want is a light weight portable 2 in 1 . ive boiled it down to group but i cant decide between them

Samsung Galaxy Book Flex 13.3 Inch 8 GB Intel Core i5
Yoga i7
asus zen book flip 13
HP ENVY x360 i7

i keep reading reviews but cant decide has anyone used any of the above ir give me pointers to any better options.
for the use ill be doing is some artworking/photoshop/illustrator
and of course spending too much time on lfgss

How is the fan noise on these when you're running video?

Really not bad actually. I had an Inspiron 15 before and that was noisy AF. I think they've put a bit of effort into cooling on this model.

I've got the 2 in 1 and can't say I've noticed the fan noise, it's there but not as bad as my old Mac on YouTube.

However I've noticed my battery life has seriously taken a battering as of late. Zero idea why but it may be time to try and get a replacement.

On the subject of which, is it possible to buy a bugger battery than stock?