Right, I really need a new laptop. Was set on getting one during that Amazon Prime sale but, as it was megashit, it never happened. I've borrowed one this past year but I'd better give it back soon. I really like it to be quick; battery doesn't matter so much as I'm going to be using it at home and work - not commuting much. It's going to be used for lots of office stuff and presentation things - not bothered about gaming. So what should I go for? Budget is flexible; ideally not a fortune I suppose, unless it's really justified. Probably looking to buy from amazon in the UK; mainly for ease and a bit of peace of mind. Any advice welcome!
13 inch retina macbook pro, IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon Touch, or the 13 inch Dell XPS with the infinity display. Those are pretty much the best notebooks out now for most people. I really like my X1 Carbon. Best notebook I've ever owned. It's very sturdy and has a good keyboard and a nice display. http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-carbon/
What screen size do you want? 15" is pretty average. 17" is good if you never plan to move it. The 13" are obviously great for portability. Do you need a built in DVD drive? Many don't come with it anymore.
Wait for Skylake to release…you'll be able to run three 4K monitors from your laptop. Don't try to deny that's necessary.
Hmm, not sure on size. As it'll be used a lot then I guess 15" may be better, especially as ultraportable isn't a necessity. Looked at the X11 carbon but it was £1500. How's this one? http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00S6DPWYC/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?qid=1440017263&sr=8-5&pi=AC_SX110_SY165&keywords=Lenovo&dpPl=1&dpID=418gPjxLJPL&ref=plSrch
Non Thinkpad Lenovos are junk. The Thinkpads also have way better support. It's still handled by IBM.
I'd second the Skylake recommendation, it's so close now there is no point being a generation behind with Broadwell. It all gets messed up after this anyway, Intel can't get the next manufacturing process down so we're getting an extra tock.
Build quality. The Thinkpads have very tankish build quality. It rivals the Macbooks on some of the models. The X1 Carbon is made of carbon fiber and magnesium alloy. The keyboards are also the best you will find on a laptop. They have better keyboards than Macs. Also, not sure how it is in the UK, but any problems here and you talk to an American at IBM headquarters in Atlanta. Repairs are handled fast and if you're not satisfied they may even upgrade you to a better model free of charge. IBM support is superior to Apple support in my personal experience. No crappy outsourced Indian or Chinese tech support with the Thinkpads.
I think Monkey is going a bit over the top, if you don't need this thing 24/7 and just for casual use with the odd bit of serious here and there you don't need a £1000+ laptop. I've had a £500 Dell Inspiron for 5+ years and it still works perfectly (with SSD upgrade). Boots to Windows 10 and ready to go in a few seconds. Just make sure it has an Intel Core i5 (i3 at a push), 8GB and an SSD (no less than 250GB). O and don't buy an Acer, that really will die after 12 months. You'll know its a Skylake CPU as it will start with a 6.. Broadwell is 5xxx.
What's sky lake? New series of processors? If so, should I go for a cheap but ok one for now? Need it sooner rather than later. There's this as a deal of the day on amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00S6DPAGM/ref=gbms_mob_m-3_1007_c6525164?m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&dealid=c6525164&pf_rd_p=672501007&pf_rd_s=mobile-hybrid-3&pf_rd_t=30901&pf_rd_i=590987031&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=1J91PM07Q7AVBWSN4SY8
That's a Haswell, 4xxx, will be 2 generations old when Skylake comes out. At least go with a Broadwell 5xxx as they are more power efficient and give a small performance boost. Also that has a hard drive, you really should try to get one with an SSD, the speed difference will be huge. The difference between booting in 5-10 seconds and 30-60 seconds for example. Over time that HDD will get slower and slower too whereas an SSD will just stay fast.
Anyway you can have a look at amazon and see what fits that criteria? I'll have a look too but I'm a bit shit at this.
I've just looked on Amazon, Dell and ebuyer and they all add on a premium to add a SSD and its always a crappy 128GB drive which will be slow compared to a bigger drive. Do you know anyone who is tech savvy? You'll be better off buying a £400-£500 laptop with a decent CPU and RAM amount and then buy a £80 250GB Samsung evo 850 SSD and fit that yourself. All OEMs add a stupid premium for SSDs. I assumed they would have stopped by now but it seems they can fleece customers who don't realise its cheaper to swap it yourself. Or they worry it will stay so quick no one will either buy another one.
SSDs are still a bit of a luxury. HDDs are the way to go if you have a tight budget. You can always add an SSD later for a lower price.
Hmmm, know someone quite reliable who's quite good at basic PC stuff - is it easy to do? Or quite fiddly? And why don't YOU do it, thinking about it. I'm sure you owe me.
This is middle of the road for example. http://m.ebuyer.com/708891 Lenovo thinkpad but SSD is only 128GB http://m.ebuyer.com/700301 The Lenovo has a higher res screen and the SSD, whether that is enough to justify the £200 extra I don't know. As is said before you can get a 250GB SSD for £80 off the shelf in PCworld. Other than those 2 things they are the same spec*. * The build quality may be better on the thinkpad and add some to cost.
Obviously there are no laptop benchmarks yet but from what I've seen Broadwell beats Skylake in the GPU department. Something about more cache. Maybe that doesn't even matter.