2 in 1 thin and light laptop recommendations?

[T_Dawg]

Hey all,

 

I'm a computer engineering college student and my laptop just got destroyed. I was using the Lenovo L380 Yoga and now I'm looking for a new 2 in 1 laptop and well it's been a few years since I've really shopped around for PCs and thought you guys on this forum would probably have a lot more knowledge than me and might be able to help me out. My budget is $1000-1500

 

Here are some of the things I'm looking for in a laptop:

 

Thin and light form factor, I would like to use this thing to take notes with a digital pen during class or use for written homework so don't want anything too bulky to the point that it's difficult to use as a notebook/writing tablet. The lighter the better, probably don't want anything above a 14" display, currently have a 13.3'' display, doesn't feel too small or anything to me. The lighter the better.

 

Battery life is my next concern. My current laptop has a 45Wh battery and well, let's just say I would really appreciate more battery life, I'd say it's one of the biggest quality of life things I'm looking to improve with this new purchase. I guess while we're talking battery I've heard that the newer Ryzen chips are much faster and much more power efficient than Intel laptop chips ATM. If that's the case then a AMD chip would be preferable i5 or R5 would be the power level I'm looking for. Also I'm fine with just a FHD ips display, at this size it's sharp enough for me and I appreciate the extra battery life compared to laptops with nicer displays. The panel in my laptop goes up to 300 nits, I personally can only think of a very small number of times I've ever wanted more brightness than that in the 3 years that I've owned the laptop, and even then it wasn't that big a deal when I did, so 300-400 nits is probably good nuff for me(maybe I don't know what I'm missing???). To be honest I'm not really too sure what else goes into a good panel vs a bad panel, but I know that there's often more subtleties than a spec sheet can tell you. I just want a good FHD display with reasonable color accuracy and viewing angles.

 

The last things that are important to me are having a backlit keyboard and just having a good keyboard and trackpad. Doesn't need to be massive like apple's or anything, obviously it's nice if there's more room but yeah.

 

Nice to haves but not dealbreakers:

-USB A port(s)

-USB C charger

-pen included (probably biggest one here)

-Thunderbolt 4

-nice terrible mic and webcam

-upgradable ram

 

I know this is a lot and I really appreciate anyone willing to help, it's just that there's so many 2 in 1 models to consider that I feel like my head is spinning and was hoping some of you guys who are probably more knowledgeable might be able to help me out. I see a lot of models like the Lenovo Yoga 9i, the HP Spectre or Envy x360 versions, and the Dell XPS 2 in 1s. Then there's also the Acer Spin, the Dell Inspiron 2 in 1 and the LG Gram but for some reason it seems like almost no one is talking about those on youtube. There's also Samsungs new 2 in 1 laptop. Anyway, my point is, I've looked but there's just so much to evaluate that I felt like I really needed to enlist the help of the LTT forum. I really appreciate ya'lls time in reading this and would really appreciate any recommendations or guidance. Questions are welcome.

[KohanaCoyote]

For many 2 in 1 form factors nowadays, good luck finding ram that is not soldered to the motherboard so I am glad that is not a deal breaker. Even now, they are also soldering the storage too. I'd be keen on the XPS line-up for a 2 in 1, because I have had very good luck on those compared to HP. I love the Lenovo as well, but I feel that they need to upgrade their options for 16GB

 

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebooks/new-xps-13-2-in-1/spd/xps-13-9310-2-in-1-laptop/

 

With this, you have a nice 13" light design, FHD and a good display 

 

For your use, I would suggest 16GB upgrade, and if you are fine with just a 512GB NVMe (Onboard, which may mean soldered), then it comes with a power efficient 11th gen i5 that fits right under $1400

 

 

 Annoyingly, if you need 1TB of NVMe, it FORCES the i7 on you. Thanks, DELL: See cost below with that config:

 

 

 

Honestly, I would go for the first option, as you can get an external SSD if you need more space, for WELL under the $350 markup

 

[Darkseth]

If the XPS 2in1 is too expensive, take a look into a Thinkpad L13 Yoga G2, or Thinkbook 14s.