I need a thin and light laptop under 1000 euros, any suggestions?

[Lennart van de Merwe]

Exactly as the title says. 

I'm starting my study of Veterinary Medicine at the uni this september, and I require a laptop for access to digital learning material on the go. I have a desktop for everything that requires more horsepower (ryzen 5 2600x, 16 gbs of ram, rtx 2060; so no worries there)

My wishes for a laptop that are slightly unrealistic given the price:

- Good build quality
- decent CPU performance (gpu can just be integrated) - everything that equals or beats an i7-6700HQ is decent in my opinion
- GOOD BATTERY LIFE REEEEEEEEEEE (I need to be able to get through an entire day on a single charge. There are no outlets in a stable after all...)

Optional:
- 2 in 1 laptop (this will be my main way of accessing books for my study, so I'd like to be able to use it as a book, if possible)


Stuff I've been considering:
- Macbook air (M1, 8 gbs ram, 256 gbs) - 969
- Surface Laptop GO (i5 1035G1, 8gbs ram, 128 gbs) - 800
          - has shitty battery from what I've heard
- Surface pro 7 (i5 1035G4, 8 gbs ram, 128 gbs) - 989
           - nvm, the keyboard is not included. Stoopid microsoft

Please help me out here... Thanks!

EDIT: I'm considering buying an HP envy X360 13-ay0930nd. From what I've heard it has good battery life, good performance (ryzen 7 4700u, 16 gbs ram) and decent build quality. It's available for 949.- 
There's also a cheaper variant with a ryzen 5 and 8gbs of ram, but I'm kinda uncomfortable with buying 8gbs of ram without the possibility of upgrading (it do be a lot cheaper for 750).

[PlayerLoler]

30 minutes ago, Lennart van de Merwe said:

Exactly as the title says. 

I'm starting my study of Veterinary Medicine at the uni this september, and I require a laptop for access to digital learning material on the go. I have a desktop for everything that requires more horsepower (ryzen 5 2600x, 16 gbs of ram, rtx 2060; so no worries there)

My wishes for a laptop that are slightly unrealistic given the price:

- Good build quality
- decent CPU performance (gpu can just be integrated) - everything that equals or beats an i7-6700HQ is decent in my opinion
- GOOD BATTERY LIFE REEEEEEEEEEE (I need to be able to get through an entire day on a single charge. There are no outlets in a stable after all...)

Optional:
- 2 in 1 laptop (this will be my main way of accessing books for my study, so I'd like to be able to use it as a book, if possible)


Stuff I've been considering:
- Macbook air (M1, 8 gbs ram, 256 gbs) - 969
- Surface Laptop GO (i5 1035G1, 8gbs ram, 128 gbs) - 800
          - has shitty battery from what I've heard
- Surface pro 7 (i5 1035G4, 8 gbs ram, 128 gbs) - 989
           - nvm, the keyboard is not included. Stoopid microsoft

Please help me out here... Thanks!

from what country are you?

[tikker]

24 minutes ago, Lennart van de Merwe said:

- decent CPU performance (gpu can just be integrated) - everything that equals or beats an i7-6700HQ is decent in my opinion

 

24 minutes ago, Lennart van de Merwe said:

- GOOD BATTERY LIFE REEEEEEEEEEE (I need to be able to get through an entire day on a single charge. There are no outlets in a stable after all...)

High performance usually excludes "good" battery life. If you do demanding tasks it simply will suck power. There's no way around it. Doing little these things can be quite efficient though. For digital learning (I presume note taking, reading some documents and that kind of light productivity) you also don't really need i7 level performance. What defines "entire day" for you? 6 hours? 8 hours? 10 hours? Macbooks are still among the king of battery life in my experience. My XPS 13 (out of your budet) with i5 10510U and 52 Wh battery comfortably gets me through 8 hours or so if I don't do much besides reading on it.

 

I don't know how well they'll survive in the wild in stables though. What kind of abuse will they be getting? Maybe a Thinkpad is worth looking at. The one's I've seen from colleagues you can practically throw in a volcano and they'll still work whereas the more luxury ones like Dell's XPS lineup spontaneously explode if you just look at it wrongly in the morning.

[ki8aras]

@Lennart van de Merwe how about the framework laptop that linus took a look at recently

[Noodle 1]

Look at ultrabooks such as the Dell XPS, Lenovo ThinkPad, and Framework laptop. The CPU performance will be there and if you need a GPU, there are some models with low to mid range discrete graphics. The XPS and Framework PC look the same but Lenovo has a dozen lines of their ThinkPad series so there's one for your need no matter how specialized. A late 2020 Dell XPS onward is pretty sweet but if you're on a budget, then a used ThinkPad or new Framework (DIY version) is your friend. Like someone else said, ThinkPads are basically mini tanks, NASA uses them  and they are (or were) iconic for professionals for a long time for good reason. 

 

As for frame.work, get the DIY config with a base CPU and wifi card (it's actually a good deal compared to US Amazon prices) and buy your own used (or on sale) RAM, SSD, and bootleg Windows 10 license and that should keep you under $1000. It's under $800 USD for the laptop plus $60 for 16gb of used RAM and another $100-120 for an nvme SSD and $15 or so for a bootleg Windows 10 license.

 

https://frame.work/products/laptop-diy-edition/configuration/edit

[Lennart van de Merwe]

On 8/9/2021 at 4:11 AM, Noodle 1 said:

Look at ultrabooks such as the Dell XPS, Lenovo ThinkPad, and Framework laptop. The CPU performance will be there and if you need a GPU, there are some models with low to mid range discrete graphics. The XPS and Framework PC look the same but Lenovo has a dozen lines of their ThinkPad series so there's one for your need no matter how specialized. A late 2020 Dell XPS onward is pretty sweet but if you're on a budget, then a used ThinkPad or new Framework (DIY version) is your friend. Like someone else said, ThinkPads are basically mini tanks, NASA uses them  and they are (or were) iconic for professionals for a long time for good reason. 

 

As for frame.work, get the DIY config with a base CPU and wifi card (it's actually a good deal compared to US Amazon prices) and buy your own used (or on sale) RAM, SSD, and bootleg Windows 10 license and that should keep you under $1000. It's under $800 USD for the laptop plus $60 for 16gb of used RAM and another $100-120 for an nvme SSD and $15 or so for a bootleg Windows 10 license.

 

https://frame.work/products/laptop-diy-edition/configuration/edit

Right I forgot to tell, but I'm in the Netherlands, and Framework doesn't really ship there yet, but it's a good suggestion aside from that.

I'll start looking for a ThinkPad ig

[Lennart van de Merwe]

On 8/5/2021 at 7:12 PM, PlayerLoler said:

from what country are you?

Netherlands

[Darkseth]

On 8/5/2021 at 6:41 PM, Lennart van de Merwe said:

- GOOD BATTERY LIFE REEEEEEEEEEE (I need to be able to get through an entire day on a single charge. There are no outlets in a stable after all...)

Optional:
- 2 in 1 laptop (this will be my main way of accessing books for my study, so I'd like to be able to use it as a book, if possible)


Stuff I've been considering:
- Macbook air (M1, 8 gbs ram, 256 gbs) - 969
- Surface Laptop GO (i5 1035G1, 8gbs ram, 128 gbs) - 800
          - has shitty battery from what I've heard
- Surface pro 7 (i5 1035G4, 8 gbs ram, 128 gbs) - 989
           - nvm, the keyboard is not included. Stoopid microsoft

M1 Macbook Air destroys both of those in terms of performance and battery life both. Battery life alone is like at least 2x longer than those 2 surface computer. That's not even exaggerated. On daily normal stuff like Office, webbrowsing, you can expect up to 16 hours real world usage with a single battery. So you can comfortably leave the charger at home. Batterylife is also very consistently long, even if you do random stuff.

Performance is also like double~.

Oh yea, fanless, so it will be silent forever.

 

Surface Pro 7 is a bit different, since it's a Tablet, that can be used as a Notebook sometimes. Do NOT get this, if your main usage is not the Tablet-mode with Pen.

 

The Macbook Air M1 even blows a Surface Laptop 4 (Go is like the cheap lite version) out of the water.

 

Not in a single Device and more expensive, but a Base iPad is a very great companion to a Macbook Air. Continuity will get better this Fall, and you can use the Tablet as a secondary Screen with just a Button.

 

 

If it has to be a convertible, i'd maybe look into a HP Envy x360, HP ProBook x360, Lenovo Thinkbook 14s, Lenovo Thinkpad L13 Yoga G2 maybe.

But nothing else right now comes close to the M1 Macbooks Batterylife, while keeping a remotely compareable Performance.

 

 

If it doesn't has to be a Convertible, and you do not "need" x86 Windows for certain applications, the Macbook Air M1 is the best "thin and light" in this pricerange.

That M1 chip can ruin other Notebooks for you...

I personally use the M1 Macbook Pro, and i have a Thinkpad T480s from Work (and also had a T490 1 1/2 years ago). The Macbook is better in almost every single Aspect, even ignoring the Performance difference.

But i can't argue against the Thinkpad beeing so rugged, it feels like a Workhorse. But the Macbook is a MUCH greater Joy to use.