I am currently in the market for a new laptop at around 1400 - 1700 USD (so a little over 1000 USD in the US due to EU duties). As I'll be moving to the UK for uni, I don't care in what country I buy the laptop (whether UK or Czechia)
I don't really plan to game on it and most heavy machine learning tasks can be done over cloud computing (all heil google collab), so I believe quadcore U-type intel chips should be fine for my needs.
Expectations:
To last me a couple of years (3-4) without becoming sluggish.
i5/i7-u quad-core processors should suffice for whatever I wish to do 8+ gigs of ram, ideally upgradable, but I guess 8 could do the job.
256+GB ssd
good battery life
not too sure about weight, but anything under 1.5kg seems reasonable.
Love using split-screen in windows, so 14-inch display would be really cool after struggling with split-screen on 13.3" laptop, though I could do with a 13" laptop if it had something to extra to offer. a backlit keyboard is a must after my current laptop without it.
Currently, I'm considering the following ones though I am open to recommendations: Thinkpad T490 - godlike keyboard, seems to be quite resilient, 14", upgradable ram/SSD Huawei matebook x Pro - 14" glory, though I don't seem to be able to purchase the 2019 model and don't want to buy an outdated one at this price.
huawei matebook 13 - pretty decent value I suppose Surface laptop 2 - 3:2 14" screen is beautiful, the keyboard seems alright, miss USB-C/thunderbolt 3, but I guess I can embrace the dongle life with it's USB 3.0 dell XPS 13 - Everyone seems to love this one, but it just doesn't attract me. I/O is great and love thunderbolt 3 support, but the keyboard seemed to have a really weird spacing. (9380 is very expensive here, i5, 8GB ram and 256GB ssd comes to 1760 USD)
I've also thought about the surface pro 6, but I pretty much haven't taken any notes throughout highschool (IB) and preferred learning from online materials/study guides, so I guess this trend will follow at uni.
