Looking to get a new Laptop PC, looking for advice, opinions, help

Deex2 said:

I'm looking for recommendations in general not just brands but models of computers.... what processers, video cards.... should I look for or avoid and why

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Almost impossible. There's always the best, until someone else comes along and says I've had nothing but problems with that brand/make/hardware etc. Not helped when so may brands and models vary in hardware by one single component. I've seen models of laptops vary from model ABC to model XYZ simply because in a later model the brand name of the storage drive was different, in all other respects exactly the same device!

For mine, I've got an Asus Vivobook M1702Q and an HP Pavillion 15-EG0560. Both a bit dated but still perfect .... for me!

Bought my first Asus VivoBook, X512FA a couple years ago.
i5, 8GB RAM, SSD...
came with Windows 10 Home, put my Pro license on it..., now running Windows 11 Canary on it.
It's the fastest, most efficient powerhouse laptop I've ever owned.
Under 800 bucks!

this maybe of interest to you.

best of luck, Steve ..

XxXxX said:

this maybe of interest to you.

Dell Precision 5690 Workstation with Windows 11 | Dell USA

Shop the Precision 5690 Workstation with Intel core ultra processor and up to NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada graphics. View on Dell.com.

www.dell.com

best of luck, Steve ..

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That looks great but 1800 is a bit much, but thank you

Deex2 said:

Are Latitudes considered better then Inspiron models?

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The Dell Inspiron range is primarily aimed at consumers, the Latitude range is Dell's business class product.

Deex2 said:

Thank you for the info, what about this one do you like that would make you suggest it?

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This is just an example (for $1500-$2000 a great selection), but

"The Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 impressed us with a well-calibrated 120Hz display"

I understand there may be two displays. You have to choose
"2560 x 1600, 120 Hz, Non-touchscreen, Matte"

It's not a gaming laptop. The components are not the fastest, but they are reliable. The screen is matte, if that's important.

Well, I believed you have answered your own question. You state you have a Dell Inspiron that is 8.5 years old.
doesn't that tell you to buy another Dell? I used to be an HP laptop fan, but had issues and could not get past HP support and nor could I find parts for it. At (20 years ago) I was given and old ancient Dell laptop that ran windows XP...it was slow but always turned on when I pressed the power button. I would walk into the office and sling it towards the workbench not caring if it fell or not...it never broke nor cracked and would always turn on when you pressed the power button. I used to despise Dell but that one laptop changed my mind. Work eventually got us new Dell laptops specifically Dell Latitude 7240 and I loved that laptop, it was touch screen state of the art and fast. And later I go another upgrade and it was a Dell Latitude 9520 it was/is better than the 7240. I then purchased my very on Dell XPS and it is a great laptop as well. Even though I'm using a microsoft surface pro to write this...it is my last laptop.

If I were you...I would buy a Dell.

Good luck.

Deex2 said:

What specifically and why

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Price vs performance. Components with a higher TDP means that you'll have headroom in the future when you need it.

One thing important, buy from a reputable source, especially one that you know you can go to for help, and/or a source where you can easily return the product

Online market forums are NOT the place for the uninitiated to buy hardware

Inspiron are the general home consumer line. The Latitude is their business line and honestly I have always felt they are just a little more durable than the Inspiron. They do cost a bit more hower.

Honestly surprised that nobody has recommended the Dell XPS line. Fantastic battery life, built very similarly to the MacBooks. Will probably cost somewhere between $900 and $1399.....

pparks1 said:

Honestly surprised that nobody has recommended the Dell XPS line. Fantastic battery life, built very similarly to the MacBooks. Will probably cost somewhere between $900 and $1399.....

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I'll recommend the Dell XPS line. I've had 6 (six) Dell XPS laptops in the past couple of decades. Ask me why and I'll write you several paragraphs.

Click on "My Computer" below to see my current Dell XPS. It's the best one yet.

As you can see, you are getting a lot of opinions. I certainly have my opinions as well, but I'll spare you from enumerating those preferences here.

As far as I am concerned, building a PC can be a highly personal affair. I kind of hate this sort of open ended question because there are simply too many variables that only you can answer. A very small subset of things to take into consideration:

Budget
Do you need only low performance, mid performance, high performance. cutting edge performance?
What type of work will you be doing? Is it anything that will require a very high resolution display and superior color accuracy?
How much storage space do you need?
Is power savings or battery life (for a laptop) important to you or is performance more important?
Form factor - Do you care if it is a big box or is space savings important to you?
Do you want this to be a showcase with RGB lighting, glass "fishtank" type case to show off internals, or is pure functionality your priority?
Are you picky about components? For example, will you accept only Intel WiFi, Samsung SSDs, etc. or could you care less ho makes what components?
etc.

My personal opinion is that such an undertaking should be handled like this:

Take the time to educate yourself on all of these topics to determine what works best for YOU. If you have more specific questions as you go, ask. But you really need to make the bulk of these determinizations yourself. It will be time well spent to ensure that you get a system that best matches your own needs without breaking the bank.

You can sometimes save money in unexpected ways. As an example, I wanted a machine dedicated to video compression. It turns out that a lowly Intel N100 CPU (dirt cheap!) can do this almost as fast as the highest end i9 CPU because they both use the same hardware encoding hardware. Also, using the Intel QuickSync CPU encoding means I need no separate GPU. I ended up using a cheap $150 Mini PC for this purpose. The bottom line is that I was able to save hundreds or even thousands and build a dedicated machine for this purpose because I took the time to research what I needed for the intended purpose.

Deex2 said:

@

cheaterslick hey thanks for responding. So if you'd help me out what would you consider a "mid-range" Latitude model be for example? Are Latitudes considered better then Inspiron models? I mean other then the price tag how does one/me determine mid range from low end .... other then the price tag?​

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Latitudes are business machines. You can see them right here. Solid, no-nonsense machines that, based upon my experience, hold up for a few years.


There are two pages so don't forget when you go to the bottom to hit the next page.

I personally have an older model E7450 running on Windows 10 that's 6 years old, but here's the latest version of that.


And since laptops now come with soldered-in RAM that you can't upgrade, I'd recommend future-proofing it with at least 32GB of RAM. Or 64GB of RAM if you can afford it. You can currently get by with 16GB of RAM but that will soon change whereby that won't be enough.

I'd call them and order by phone. You can go through the list of options that they offer. Look for sales and discounts.

cheaterslick said:

I personally have an older model E7450 running on Windows 10 that's 6 years old, but here's the latest version of that.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/latitude-7450-laptop/spd/latitude-14-7450-2-in-1-laptop
And since laptops now come with soldered-in RAM that you can't upgrade, I'd recommend future-proofing it with at least 32GB of RAM.

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Not all. The Latitude 7xxx range is most likely to have embedded RAM, it seems to be designed to be lighter and thinner than the 5xxx/3xxx machines.

Some 7xxx do come with a single dimm slot in addition to the soldered RAM. The Lattitude 3xxx and 5xxx are more likely to have 2 dimm slots and all their RAM being upgradable. Full details here (ignore the Latitude Exxxx ranges, they are old models from before Win11).


This may also help decide....

@Bree that's good to know. I'd get an upgradable RAM one while you still can since I don't think those options will be available in the future. Their goal is planned obsolescence and ripping off the customer by getting them to spend more money than they have to.

I am really sour on soldered-in RAM.

cheaterslick said:

I am really sour on soldered-in RAM.

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Bear in mind that this issue only becomes more of a problem on the latest Intel mobile platforms. New mobile CPUs (Intel Core Ultra CPUs, Series 2) come with RAM built right into the CPU package with no possibility to expand RAM externally.

hsehestedt said:

Bear in mind that this issue only becomes more of a problem on the latest Intel mobile platforms. New mobile CPUs (Intel Core Ultra CPUs, Series 2) come with RAM built right into the CPU package with no possibility to expand RAM externally.

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More planned obsolescence designed to rip you off.

cheaterslick said:

@Bree that's good to know. I'd get an upgradable RAM one while you still can since I don't think those options will be available in the future. Their goal is planned obsolescence and ripping off the customer by getting them to spend more money than they have to.

I am really sour on soldered-in RAM.

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I don't think it's planned obsolescence, but I can see how many would draw that conclusion. For many manufacturers it's

1. space saving. Many people (I know it's not all, but you cater to the masses) want lots of portability, and super light, thin, and sleek laptops. With soldered in RAM, the manufacturer can put it anywhere on the main board it has room, and it doesn't have to account for the extra space that a ram slot and module would take. Then, that extra savings in space can be used for other purposes, like improved cooling or larger capacity batteries.
2. Some newer chips also have higher frequency caps on the LPDDR memory, which is always soldered and provides for much reduced power draws, (higher battery life), but these higher speed RAM modules aren't available via external modules, but rather soldered as close to the CPU as possible.

I think for many people, as long as you don't buy a laptop that's woefully short on memory, (like a 4GB windows laptop), you probably aren't going to have too many problems down the road. I personally run 64GB in my desktop, but ONLY for running lots of virtual machines and testing things in a lab situation. I don't need to do that on my laptop where i need the portability and long battery life. As an example, at work they gave me a Dell precision with a Core i9 CPU. Wow, it's a beast. But my battery life is absolutely horrendous and I would have MUCH preferred a core i5 that got 2-3x as much battery life. For what I do at work, I don't need raw horsepower. But it is, what it is.

Deex2 said:

never heard of them

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ThinkPad was originally IBM's notebook line which was the reference standard for notebook computers. IBM was the original PC that 100% works with all software. Dell and anything else was known as clones or 100% compatible. Lenovo bought the PC division from IBM.

Before buying any machine, read the reviews as one problem with notebooks/laptops is that unlike a desktop, is that it can be extremely slow at times if the CPU throttles due to the temperature as some systems have better thermal designs for cooling than others. So make sure it has a good return policy as well so if you are unhappy, you can get your money back. And then ofcourse a majority of notebooks/laptops run very slowly on battery compared to when being plugged-in so be sure that meets your requirements too. The other thing to consider is the CPU, not sure if there is a ranking somewhere that compares Intel vs AMD performance for single core vs multi-core or not so atleast you will get an idea of how fast each one is.

pparks1 said:

I don't think it's planned obsolescence, but I can see how many would draw that conclusion. For many manufacturers it's

1. space saving. Many people (I know it's not all, but you cater to the masses) want lots of portability, and super light, thin, and sleek laptops. With soldered in RAM, the manufacturer can put it anywhere on the main board it has room, and it doesn't have to account for the extra space that a ram slot and module would take. Then, that extra savings in space can be used for other purposes, like improved cooling or larger capacity batteries.
2. Some newer chips also have higher frequency caps on the LPDDR memory, which is always soldered and provides for much reduced power draws, (higher battery life), but these higher speed RAM modules aren't available via external modules, but rather soldered as close to the CPU as possible

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Yeah, I've heard manufacturers use that excuse before. Business laptops don't need to be "sleek and thin". The Windows industry trend is to follow Apple and their way of getting you to buy something new every couple of years, which is total bullsh*t. And thanks to Apple, it's another reason why tactile physical mousepad buttons have disappeared. Ever notice that? On new business machines? They are getting pretty rare, nowadays.

This is all how they make money at your expense. I don't like the idea of giving advice about future proofing RAM but that's the only way some people will be able to stay ahead of the game. Especially with the way Windows 11 and future AI versions of Windows is going. They'll suck up even more RAM in order to be able to run their bloated adware garbage even more.

What @Bree said in post #34 still holds true today, but I don't expect those options to be there in a year or two. I'd be surprised if it went on much longer than that. It's gonna go the same way removable batteries disappeared. You watch.