Buying a new laptop

I am not going to recommend any particular one, but rather give some specs to look for
  • OLED screen. Well worth it
  • replaceable NVME. Usually they come with slow dramless option so you can swap them out for say Samsung 990PRO 2TB on day 1.
  • some form discrete GPU even if not a very high end. Most recent apps from the like of Adobe now use more and more of GPU so this a very important item. Intel iris integrated one is very poor and outdated.
  • Where possible more than 16GB of RAM. This is likely to be fixed these days, so choose wisely.
  • Metal / aluminium shell. It is just nicer.
  • 13-14" is ultra-portable but even doing minor work on them is not very nice. 16" is probably best all round compromise.
I wouldn't pay much attention to tablet, pen and all that hybrid functionality. They are mostly gimmicks. I never ever use any of it,

I also wouldn't pay much attention to the manufacturer sticker on top; they all come from Greater China made of Chinese components so that is that. Just look for a good deal.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
I am not going to recommend any particular one, but rather give some specs to look for
  • OLED screen. Well worth it
  • replaceable NVME. Usually they come with slow dramless option so you can swap them out for say Samsung 990PRO 2TB on day 1.
  • some form discrete GPU even if not a very high end. Most recent apps from the like of Adobe now use more and more of GPU so this a very important item. Intel iris integrated one is very poor and outdated.
  • Where possible more than 16GB of RAM. This is likely to be fixed these days, so choose wisely.
  • Metal / aluminium shell. It is just nicer.
  • 13-14" is ultra-portable but even doing minor work on them is not very nice. 16" is probably best all round compromise.
I wouldn't pay much attention to tablet, pen and all that hybrid functionality. They are mostly gimmicks. I never ever use any of it,

I also wouldn't pay much attention to the manufacturer sticker on top; they all come from Greater China made of Chinese components so that is that. Just look for a good deal.
Click to expand...

Most of that is what I looked for, though must admit not too worried about the screen.

I decided that this would be closest to what I wanted. (there was no choice to remove MS365, so if I went ahead, that would be uninstalled the day it arrives)
The RAM and SSD are midrange, adds too much to go better for the % increase in performance.
I have made one change since yesterday morning which is not shown here, I added a years dead pixel cover.

elimina2f.jpg
 
Hi @Sangoma, did you go ahead with the PCspecialist laptop? How has it been?

I'm in a similar position of seeking a new laptop and interested to hear if you would recommend PCspecialist.
 
4tea2 said:
Hi @Sangoma, did you go ahead with the PCspecialist laptop? How has it been?

I'm in a similar position of seeking a new laptop and interested to hear if you would recommend PCspecialist.
Click to expand...
No, I didn't, so can't help, sorry.
 
Have you checked the Amazon warehouse?

This Asus was less than half retail price as it was last years model unboxed.
 
Mehal said:
Back again

I have been following the thread since I made my comments regarding the option of PC Specialist as a means of moving forward, it may help if I offer you my means of using my highly specced laptop, which I have now owned for almost 18 months since I chose to upgrade from desktop PC's to a laptop.
My main interests besides photography is historical research and to this end I have a vast archive of over 2TB, I have my laptop sitting on my desktop on a stand, and this connected to an elevated iiyama 28 inch monitor and I use a separate cherry keyboard. My laptop’s internal 500GB SSD drive only holds my system file (Windows 11) and other programmes, I have 2 external 4TB Seagate HDD, these are where all my photographs and historical archive are stored, the 2 HDD are mirrored using a programme I have used for years called SYNCHBACK, this is available as a free download, though I use the SE paid for version (my choice), I have used this programme for years and never had any problems whatever, all this equipment is connected via an ANKER 8 Port USB hub, the 2 HDD's are synchronised to mirror one another daily, this can be set up in SYNCHBACK to work automatically on an hourly, daily, weekly or even monthly basis. Having once many year ago used a NAS system, and having suffered a catastrophic failure, is the reason that I moved to the option for saving my files that I now use, of course this is entirely what suits my way of working and also my needs, but may not be ideal for others who read this, and may I please add that I am in no way attempting to sway anyone, but just offering an insight into my way of doing things, finally I have a Samsung 4TB SSD that once a month I mirror from my up to date SEAGATE HDD, and this is kept away from my Laptop set up in safe place in another part of my house.
Click to expand...
vast archive 2TB? try 90+TB and growing! :)
 
Decided I must do something, but what I wanted from pcspecialists has gone from £1301 to £1673 in a few months!.
Have to struggle on :)
 
I've had two Lenovo's bought some years apart and both have been excellent. The second one was bought after 10 years and not having any preference for make I just looked around, read the reviews and prices and finished with another Lenovo. It after a few years and a SSD upgrade has now been replaced by a mini PC and sperate screen as my requirements have changed.
 
Sangoma said:
Maybe I should look at Dell.
I didn't because I had attrocius service from then many years ago when we used a lot of their mahines, and I have an i7 Dell laptop I don't use.
Click to expand...

I'm still using my Dell XPS I bought in 2011. Put a new SSD in, but that's it. And it gets used every day.
 
Plain Nev said:
I'm still using my Dell XPS I bought in 2011. Put a new SSD in, but that's it. And it gets used every day.
Click to expand...
Dell kit does seem to last.

Bought in 2009, my 1750 has long outlived the 15 inch 2012 MacBook shown with it here...

MacBook Core-2 15 inch and Dell Inspiron 1850 TZ7 0P1040053.jpg
 
Sangoma said:
Decided I must do something, but what I wanted from pcspecialists has gone from £1301 to £1673 in a few months!.
Have to struggle on :)
Click to expand...
still recommend a trawl through Amazon Warehouse
 
If you can it may be worth waiting another few months as PCs using ARM CPUs are being announced. These promise good performance at very low power levels so give very good battery life. I know there's always something new round the next corner but these could be a step change like the M series Macs.
 
I think it is important to remember about dell that their laptop division is separate to their desktop division is separate to their desktop division. Desktop wise they tend to focus on office customs and sell cheap and cheerful. The monitor division has a great rep, although slip a little recently. The higher end laptops are some of the better ones out there, the xps ones especially. I wouldn't hesitate to have one.
 
Deleted member 95430 said:
Your set up (3 1TB drives) in a laptop I’ve never seen before and quite unusual to me
Click to expand...
I’ve got four of them in my Dell Precision, while in its predecessor, I had two, with an SSD in my converted optical drive.

(Helicoptering due to headache).
 
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