Recommend me a laptop

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Dale_tem

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Dale
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I'm after a laptop which must meet the following specs

15" display
High Res screen (1920 x 1080 ideally)
Large HD - 500Gb or bigger (can always swap out for a bigger HD if I can't find one big enough)
6Gb of RAM or more
i5 or i7 processor
HDMI output
Long battery life
Touch screen would be nice, but definitely need a multi touch touchpad.
Webcam

And lastly....

Long lasting and tough. My current Lenovo T500 has been bouncing around the boot of my car up and down the country, various trips on public transport and been dropped a fair few times. It has worked without fail for 3 years (apart from WWAN card dying).

Don't recommend....

Apple
cheap brands that will last if you are careful, I want something that can be bounced around for 3 years and not break.

I've been looking at Toshiba, Lenovo, Dell and HP as they seem to be the most popular with businesses due to reliability and toughness. I've got lots of experience with Lenovo laptops, some Dell experience but not HP or Tosh experience.

The only laptop I've found that meets the bill is a Dell XPS 15z

http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/xps-15z/pd?oc=n0015z06&model_id=xps-15z

Any other suggestions?
 
I have a XPS-15 with full HD screen, 8G mem, i7-2630QM, 750G 7200RPM, Nvidia 525+1G graphics. Cost £910 delivered and I'm happy with it. Not sure how drop proof it is though...
 
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Can't you drop it for me? ;)

So no problems them :)

Where did you get it from?
 
the dell latitudes are pretty solid, we've got models that are 4-5 years old still in circulation that have been used and abused.

the E6520 looks to match your spec? "Stylishly armored top to bottom with hard-wearing and MIL-STD 810G tested Tri-Metal™ casing, powder-coated base and spill-resistant keyboard" sounds pretty hard wearing.

not cheap mind.. not much change from £1300 (£1,114.00 ex VAT and shipping, after upgrading memory, screen and 64 bit)

edit - 3yr business NBD support too
 
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arad - That laptop is currently £983 exc VAT:( Does the i7 in laptops still feature hyperthreading?

Neil - that E6520 looks pretty good, sadly comes out more than the XPS :(
 
Dale_d3100 said:
arad - That laptop is currently £983 exc VAT:( Does the i7 in laptops still feature hyperthreading?
Click to expand...
Yes.

You also need to google "dell voucher code". This week, you'll get 10% off XPS over £699
 
Dale_d3100 said:
arad - That laptop is currently £983 exc VAT:( Does the i7 in laptops still feature hyperthreading?
Click to expand...
You're not doing it right ;) Dell make it really hard for you to find the cheapest price unless you know what you're doing!

Start here: http://www.dell.com/uk/p/popular-la...lapsed=false&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn and configure from the second system there. I added 8G memory (although you could do this yourself for less), backlit keyboard and upgraded wi-fi as well as full HD and it came to 1093 INC VAT. Less 10% at checkout and you're under £1000 delivered. And that's with a more powerful processor than mine...

The only alternatives when I looked (June) were either more expensive or had a worse screen.
 
I can't say enough good things about Lenovo's business grade machines! Excellent - the build is superb compared to consumer laptops!

That said, we just received three Samsungs at work and they are very nicely built too!
 
Moos3h said:
I can't say enough good things about Lenovo's business grade machines! Excellent - the build is superb compared to consumer laptops!

That said, we just received three Samsungs at work and they are very nicely built too!
Click to expand...

My current T500 is great, the new T520 doesn't seem to offer much more, apart from upgrading the processor internally, changing the appearance of some of the buttons and adding an e-sata port.

It also appears that resolutions on most laptops is less than my current 3 year old laptop. My laptop is 1680 x 1050 on a 15" screen, they seem to have standardised on 720p (768) or for a premium the 1080p resolution.

Samsung is an unknown brand to me, I've seen some of their stuff and it looks nice, no idea how long it will last though.
 
I've just found a 15% discount code that runs out tomorrow, looks like an early Xmas pressie for me.

arad - its the xps 15z I'm looking at :)
 
Although it is a nice fast processor compared to the quad cores...
 
I was just checking the quad core of the xps 15 and the dual core of the xps 15z.

The quadcore comes out about 50% higher than the dualcore (6000 odd vs 4000 odd).

Its got hyperthreading so can still handle 4 threads, I think its enough for a laptop.

The other downside is its only a DVDRW and not a bluray
 
As long as you're aware ;) The faster clock speed will help for general day to day stuff tho...
 
Just ordered it, found a 15% discount code so got it for £1000 :)

i7-2640M at 2.8Ghz, 8Gb RAM, 2Gb Graphics in a very lightweight chassis :)

I can't wait
 
Cool. Will be interesting to find out your impressions. It will be faster than mine for most things at a guess...
 
Dell say 2 days delivery, so hopefully by Friday I will have a new laptop :)

The processor comes out in the 3d benchmark just below my i7-920 I have as my desktop, so it will fly to me :)
 
It is here :D

Will take some photos later, but it is a very sezy laptop and the packaging was also very nice :)

Win 7 rating

Processor - 7.1
RAM - 7.5
Graphics - 6.6
Gaming Graphics - 6.6
Hard Disk - 5.9

My desktop i7-860 quadcore with HT and 16Gb of RAM only beats it on the Processor by .4, RAM is the same.

I am very impressed by the size and performance :)
 
I'll install Elements tonight and see how it goes :)

have you got a link to your build log or is it recent?
 
2 photos showing the thinness of the laptop...

New laptop compared to my IBM T series....

laptop2.jpg


New laptop compared to my HTC desire....

laptop1.jpg


I am absolutely loving this laptop
 
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