Laptop advice (for travelling)

[yorkie]

I'm looking to buy a new laptop, with the following requirements

• Lightweight and small, for travelling
• Good build quality (i.e. robust & durable))
• Reasonable battery life
• Power input must be USB-C

This is for travelling, and purely for work purposes, not for gaming, so my priority is that it needs to be compact enough for taking everywhere but also a good build quality, not flimsy like so many devices are these days.

I previously had an HP Spectre 17 (i.e. 17" display) which is the perfect size and weight but after 6 years it's had it.

No specific budget as such, I just need to be able to justify the expense, from a work perspective .

Any recommendations would be much appreciated

Given we are at transport forum, I am sure I am far from alone in having such requirements, so this thread could be useful to others too!

 

[matt]

Sounds like something like a Microsoft Surface might meet your needs

 

[Lewlew]

MacBook Air

 

[birchesgreen]

MacBook Air (like the one i am typing this on). Its wonderful.

 

[Dai Corner]

I may be out of touch now, having retired six years ago, but during my decades in IT my go to laptop brand was the ThinkPad. I must have purchased hundreds. Originally by IBM but they sold the business to Lenovo. They've got a reputation for ruggedness and reliability and my experience is that they've stood up to mistreatment by salespeople and schoolchildren alike.

 

[Bletchleyite]

MacBook Air (like the one i am typing this on). Its wonderful.

I went for a Pro in the end, largely because it cost about the same as speccing up an Air to what I wanted (16GB RAM and 1TB SSD) and that spec was available off the shelf rather than having to wait for it. However the Air is an excellent machine, very light and powerful, and you don't have to use the Magsafe power input, you can stick USB C in as well. The Pro is quite heavy but very robust and the battery easily lasts a full working day and some (about 9-10 hours of full use I think).

But Macs are quite pricey.

One to potentially avoid - I had a previous generation Dell XPS 13 which should have been good but in reality was a bit rubbish - poor battery life, poor quality display and terrible camera, plus the production quality of the case was poor so keys tended to stick (I had the upper case replaced under warranty and it was still an issue). The new one might be better though.

My work machine is a Surface Laptop and it is pretty good.

 

[birchesgreen]

They are pricy but you get what you pay for i've found. My work laptop is a "high end" Lenovo and its utter trash.

 

[yorkie]

Thanks for the advice so far. Not sure I would move to Apple products, having avoided them so far, so am more likely to consider a Windows option.

Also if anyone has good experience of a particular model that is still in production and can link to it that would be particularly useful

 

[Bletchleyite]

Also if anyone has good experience of a particular model that is still in production and can link to it that would be particularly useful

Surface Laptops are still on the market (though I'd not buy from M$ themselves, you'll get cheaper elsewhere):

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/d/surface-laptop-4/946627fb12t1?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

My advice would be at least 512GB SSD (1TB ideally, but depends what you keep on it) and 16GB RAM. Most things about them are good - very light, robust metal case, nice keyboard, very high quality screen (better than the Macbook which is a bit shadowy at the edges) etc. The touchpad is a bit rubbish but I think I've got a crumb or something stuck under it rather than it being a design issue.

 

[Intercity110]

MacBook Air

agree

 

[Ediswan]

This is for travelling, and purely for work purposes, not for gaming, so my priority is that it needs to be compact enough for taking everywhere but also a good build quality, not flimsy like so many devices are these days.

What sort of treatment do you want this to survive ? I would say that almost all modern laptops are so thin that they need to be handled with care to avoid damage.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What sort of treatment do you want this to survive ? I would say that almost all modern laptops are so thin that they need to be handled with care to avoid damage.

The Macbooks and Surface Laptops are built like the proverbial, very chunky. Though if you are literally going to throw it around you want some sort of ruggedised case (Macs probably better for these because they're so common so there are lots of case options), or a cheap plastic bodied laptop from Tesco for about £300 and expect to replace frequently.

The main thing vulnerable in a laptop was the hard drive, so definitely go SSD.

 

[dgl]

My MSI summit evo 13 has been alright, good battery life, fast charging and the newer model adds HDMI and replaces the USB-C 3.1 port with a standard USB A so you have two. Two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports which are also used for charging.
Admittedly mine is damaged but that's my own fault (spilt half a pint of water on it!), though it's only half the keyboard that doesn't work and the touchscreen means I have yet to be bothered to fix it.

 

[telstarbox]

My work one is a HP Probook, 15" with a number keypad. It's fairly robust and hasn't fallen apart after two years! It has a USB-C power supply.

 

[bangor-toad]

Hi there,
I write this on my Dell 7330 Rugged Extreme. Dell link

It completely fails in any definition of "lightweight and small".
It is possibly the most robust laptop you can buy. (It comes with it's own integral carrying handle and will take any amount of coffee / water / beer spillage.)
Battery life is great - all day thanks to two internal batteries.
USB-C power connectors on either side. (It's supposedly able to trickle charge from a phone charger but I've never tried that...)

It is a stupidly expensive though and it's only due to a very particular set of circumstances and a good corporate discount that made it possible for me to get one.
Personally I love it and much prefer it over the very thin and delicate standard range of laptops. Others (including a few of my colleagues) may not be quite so appreciative of the rugged nature and wouldn't contemplate such an option!

Good luck with your choice,
Mr Toad

 

[coppercapped]

To the issue of Macs being a bit pricy, I'm still using a MacBook Pro I bought from the Refurbished section of the on-line Apple Store some eight years ago. It had a problem with the anti-reflection coating on the screen which Apple replaced for free without a murmur although the machine was a couple of years out of warranty.

It's still working flawlessly apart from the battery life. The are some useful reductions available, for example at the moment a 13-inch MacBook Air with an 8‑Core CPU and 8‑Core GPU M2 chip is listed at £1,119.00, a reduction of some £130 over the new price.

The link is https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/refurbished/mac

 

[najaB]

My work laptop is a Dell Latitude 5420. I think it ticks the boxes for being light, well-built and well-specified.

 

[yorkie]

Thanks all for the feedback

I found a 5530 on the Dell website for just under 1200 quid (or a 5520 on Amazon for just over that amount; seems better to buy direct from Dell!)

Latitude 5530 Laptop | Dell UK

Latitude 5530 Laptop. Dell offers similar products. Shop Similar Products and more at Dell

www.dell.com

Any thoughts on this one?

 

[Blindtraveler]

The Dell latitude was my my main driver when I was still doing mobile discos and functions. Presented a number of accessibility challenges as anything Windows related does to a blind user but what was an absolutely fabulous machine in all other respects.

It was certainly transportable and survived being humped on and off buses and trains when I was travelling home or somewhere else separately to a van load of sound equipment and lighting. This happened frequently.

 

[etr221]

I came across this: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/05/re...ite-iv-system76-darter-pro-entroware-proteus/ , which might be worth a look - reviewer paid half the price of a Dell, and was very happy (despite it coming with Windows that hadn't been ordered...

 

[Crossover]

Thanks all for the feedback

I found a 5530 on the Dell website for just under 1200 quid (or a 5520 on Amazon for just over that amount; seems better to buy direct from Dell!)

Latitude 5530 Laptop | Dell UK

Latitude 5530 Laptop. Dell offers similar products. Shop Similar Products and more at Dell

www.dell.com

Any thoughts on this one?

My daily driver at work is a Latitude 5520 (prior to which I had a 5580). From memory we have a couple of 5530’s as well. No qualms from me - the 5520 isn’t too bad on weight (certainly a lot better then the old 5580!). The only thing is the case can be scuffed up (black underneath) - one of my colleagues chucks theirs in their bag with a load of other stuff (not a laptop bag, so it is asking for trouble)

(Had this been the other week, you could have had a look as I had it with me at one the forum meals!)

 

[D365]

My work one is a HP Probook, 15" with a number keypad. It's fairly robust and hasn't fallen apart after two years! It has a USB-C power supply.

Same here. I'm not an experienced Windows user - my personal laptop is a MacBook Air (the 512GB/16GB, as recommended by @Bletchleyite) - but the HP Probook is well-built enough that I can lug it between offices, depots and forum meals every week.

No comment on Dell, other than their customer service (when I attempted to purchase through their website in 2019) was absolutely shocking.

 

[jon0844]

Thanks for the advice so far. Not sure I would move to Apple products, having avoided them so far, so am more likely to consider a Windows option.

Also if anyone has good experience of a particular model that is still in production and can link to it that would be particularly useful

I'd say you should be prepared to give one a go, as the new M1 (or M2) based MacBooks are fantastic. The Air has no fan, and as such won't slow down as laptops get dust build-up. They're also silent (or near silent on the ones with fans) and run very cool. Battery life is insane, as is the performance.

The higher cost is balanced by the fact you'll likely get 5-6 years of usage without problems and still find it has a resale value even after that time (although it might need a new battery).

I also have Ryzen 7 based Windows laptop which is great in many ways too, but the battery life is nothing like as good and the fan runs quite often. It feels like Windows is not going to really move on until more ARM based chips are introduced.

Incidentally, Windows 11 for ARM runs extremely well on a Mac through Parallels!

Alternatively, depending on your needs, a Chromebook is increasingly becoming something able to do just about everything except gaming or video editing. These come in Intel and ARM guises, and the latter offers a lot of bang for the buck (but you will want a recent MediaTek or Qualcomm SoC, as older ones were very underpowered).

 

[bspahh]

Thanks for the feedback

I found a 5530 on the Dell website for just under 1200 quid (or a 5520 on Amazon for just over that amount; seems better to buy direct from Dell!)

Latitude 5530 Laptop | Dell UK

Latitude 5530 Laptop. Dell offers similar products. Shop Similar Products and more at Dell

www.dell.com

Any thoughts on this one?

You can get a refurbished 5530 from the Dell Outlet for ~£930. I have bought a couple of laptops from the Dell Outlet before, and they were fine. Personally, I would pay extra for a 3 year on site warranty. Once a laptop is 3 years old, then you can buy a used replacement for the cost of major repairs.

I would also check the reviews at https://www.notebookcheck.net/ The reviews go into a lot of detail, some of which will not be of interest, but it will have things like the battery life and noise with more detail that some other reviews.

I would go for the CPU, size, screen, keyboard and battery life. If the memory and SSD are soldered, then you also need to get enough of those. If they memory and SSD are replaceable, then check at https://uk.crucial.com/ as it is often cheaper to buy a low spec machine and upgrade them. With a 15" laptop you might also be able to add a second SSD and keep the original one as well.

In the last few years, computer CPUs have not got much faster, but they have extra cores which may or may not make it run faster for the things you want to do. If you want a thin and light laptop, then there is a limit on the real world performance, as a fast CPU will get hot, and then the performance will be throttled and the battery life will be poor. Macs do particularly well if you want high performance with good battery life.

My son has an Acer Swift X SFX14-41G, which has an AMD Ryzen CPU and NVIDIA graphics. Its quick and compact. My daughter bought a Dell XPS 13 9365 about 5 years ago. It is really compact 2 in one. She just bought the modern equivalent as a replacement, and its basically the same specification.

I got a Dell XPS 15 9520 last year, which is the same weight and size as a "thin and light" Lenovo T440S from 2014, but considerably quicker.

I wanted an NVIDIA graphics card and a 12th generation Intel CPU, which weren't available from Lenovo at the time. I'm not a big fan of the Dell keyboard (the key travel isn't as good as an old Lenovo, and you need to press the Fn key for the Page Up and Page Down). Most of the time I have a docking station with a nice Lenovo external keyboard, so its not a big problem.

My Dell XPS 15 only has 3 USB C ports and an SD card slot. For HDMI, USB A and a network, you need an adaptor. Its a bit of a pain, but not too bad in practice. I wanted at least 2TB of storage, and that ruled out as Mac, as the SSD is not replaceable, and a 2TB one was ~ £1000 extra, instead of £200 for the SSD and £20 for an extra heat sink.

With my last Lenovo order, the order tracking updated every few hours for the journey from Shanghai, via Kazakhstan, Cologne and Coventry. With my Dell order, delivery was originally given as 3 weeks. There was then an email saying there would be a delay and it would be 6 weeks. A few days after that it was shipped, and it ended up being delivered after 3 1/2 weeks, but there was a gap of 2 weeks with absolutely no updates between "it has shipped" and "we are delivering it tomorrow".

 

[dgl]

One thing to make not of if you want a thin/light intel based windows laptop is to look for one marked Intel Evo, that's their new name for what was called an Ultrabook, it guarantees a minimum battery life, charging speed and maximum weight.

 

[Yew]

MacBook Air (like the one i am typing this on). Its wonderful.

The build quality on MacBooks certainly leads to hardware that can last a long time, I still regularly develop software on a 2017

Whilst I could certainly support and have a desire to rashly spend all my money on an M2 MacBook Pro, there may be some issues with the prices of the more expensive 15/17" Macbooks, and your employer may prefer a windows machine for the management solution.

If a windows solution is desired, then Wirecutter has evaluated some 13/14" machines suggests a few machines, and their 16" cousins are the HP SPECTRE X360 16", or the HP ELITEBOOK 865.


EDIT: I've just seen the Dell, they're reasonable enough machines and our IT department are fond of the 13" versions (and they're usally right about a lot of these sorts of things), but I did find the design a little uninspired.

 

[Parjon]

LG Gram 16 or 17"

LG gram 16'' laptop | ultra-lightweight with 16:10 IPS anti glare display and Intel® Evo 12th Gen. Processor - 16Z90Q-K.AA78A1 | LG UK

Discover LG 16Z90Q-K.AA78A1. Click for pictures, reviews, and tech specs for the LG LG gram 16'' laptop | ultra-lightweight with 16:10 IPS anti glare display and Intel® Evo 12th Gen. Processor.

www.lg.com

1.2kg (for 16/17"), massive battery life, decent machine, strong build.

 

[najaB]

but I did find the design a little uninspired.

Boring design usually means that they spent most of their time getting it to work right, instead of making it look good.

 

[Yew]

Boring design usually means that they spent most of their time getting it to work right, instead of making it look good.

Maybe, but I think the (other, older model) Dells I had always felt a little like the plastic would crack if I looked at them wrong (perhaps I should have said "design and build quality"). Whereas I think the budget Yorkie has could stretch to something more in the "Ultrabook" space, with the build quality to go with it.

 

[najaB]

Maybe, but I think the (other, older model) Dells I had always felt a little like the plastic would crack if I looked at them wrong (perhaps I should have said "design and build quality"). Whereas I think the budget Yorkie has could stretch to something more in the "Ultrabook" space, with the build quality to go with it.

My previous Dell Latitude survived more than a few drops. Never had the issue with the hinges that I've seen on more than one HP.