Laptop for work

[MrBaker89]

Hi all,

 

I am looking for a decent laptop for work for £1,000 or less.

 

This laptop will replace my desktop so will need to be able to run 2 1080p monitors, adobe illustrator, indesign.

 

Torn between Intel 12th gen or Ryzen 6000 series.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations?

[venomtail]

£1000 is a very small budget in the laptop world. You might get a decent one without a dedicated GPU. I bought myself an Acer Swift 3 a few years ago at a heavy discount to £700 from £900. Ryzen 7 4000U was a pretty good choice as it lasted longer than same intel variants. I would still suggest the Swift 3.

[manikyath]

illustrator and indesign are that kind of software that "runs everywhere" but might not run equally well everywhere.

 

for that budget, there's a choice to make:

- buy a well built, but otherwise "uninspiring" office critter laptop

- buy a cheapskate "unapologetically plastic" option, that had much better specs.

 

depends how much you're gonna be on the go, if you're gonna be using the laptop where your customers can see it (yes.. that matters, because earth is an incredibly shallow orb), and how heavy the projects you're gonna work on are.

[MrBaker89]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

illustrator and indesign are that kind of software that "runs everywhere" but might not run equally well everywhere.

 

for that budget, there's a choice to make:

- buy a well built, but otherwise "uninspiring" office critter laptop

- buy a cheapskate "unapologetically plastic" option, that had much better specs.

 

depends how much you're gonna be on the go, if you're gonna be using the laptop where your customers can see it (yes.. that matters, because earth is an incredibly shallow orb), and how heavy the projects you're gonna work on are.

Thank you for your input.

 

Customers will never see my laptop.

 

I will probably be out of the office 2-3 times a month approximately.

 

Illustrator will just be things like posters nothing huge.

Indesign will be light work like an office plan or floor plan etc.

 

 

[powertoys]

4 hours ago, venomtail said:

£1000 is a very small budget in the laptop world.

this has to be sarcasm

[venomtail]

14 hours ago, unnerfed cthun said:

this has to be sarcasm

Remember, we're all enthusiasts here who look for deals only and we won't settle.

That being said, prices are extremely high for brand new laptops. Sure for £400 you can buy a brand new laptop with 4GB of RAM, 256GB SSD and some Pentium CPU but I'd rather just not have a laptop then or buy used. Used market is a landmine because for some reason many users torture their laptops. Never clean the, filled with gunk, spills, negligent and so on. People who do take good care of their laptops rarely sell them.

 

Then going back to buying new again, not only is pricing extremely high, because most people can't afford to pay upfront over £1000+ for a decent laptop so they'll look towards finance, multiple payments. And guess what... most big brand computer sellers have these laptops on finance available with 20-60% interest. You pick up your £1000 laptop and after 2-3 years you've overpaid by £300-800 after your 2 years are up. That's a huge sum.

[MrBaker89]

I've found this laptop:

 

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/medion-deputy-p30-i5-12500h-16gb-512-rtx-3060-15.6-inch-fhd-144hz-300-nit-w-30034001/version.asp#!#specs

 

Wondering if Medion are half decent? They're part of Lenovo I think.

 

 

[powertoys]

7 hours ago, venomtail said:

Sure for £400 you can buy a brand new laptop with 4GB of RAM, 256GB SSD and some Pentium CPU but I'd rather just not have a laptop then or buy used.

Laptops in the this price range have gotten shockingly good. Gone are the days of having to spend 4 digits to get something decent. Here are some examples.

 

For £599 you can get 1880p OLED screen / Ryzen 5 5600H / 16 GB RAM / 512 GB NVMe SSD:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Vivobook-OLED-M3401QA-Inch/dp/B09GKNC8Q9

 

This one for £499 is also pretty decent. 1080p IPS / 11th gen i5 / 16 GB RAM / 512 GB NVMe SSD:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-VivoBook-X515EA-i5-1135G7-Keyboard/dp/B09F6LCV9N

 

If you can live with 8 GB soldered RAM, for £399 this also has decent specs. 1080p IPS / Ryzen 5 5500U / 8 GB RAM / 256 GB NVMe SSD

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-IdeaPad-15-6-inch-Laptop/dp/B09S3YPSL2

 

 

 

[venomtail]

5 minutes ago, unnerfed cthun said:

Laptops in the this price range have gotten shockingly good. Gone are the days of having to spend 4 digits to get something decent. Here are some examples.

 

For £599 you can get 1880p OLED screen / Ryzen 5 5600H / 16 GB RAM / 512 GB NVMe SSD:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Vivobook-OLED-M3401QA-Inch/dp/B09GKNC8Q9

 

This one for £499 is also pretty decent. 1080p IPS / 11th gen i5 / 16 GB RAM / 512 GB NVMe SSD:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-VivoBook-X515EA-i5-1135G7-Keyboard/dp/B09F6LCV9N

 

If you can live with 8 GB soldered RAM, for £399 this also has decent specs. 1080p IPS / Ryzen 5 5500U / 8 GB RAM / 256 GB NVMe SSD

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-IdeaPad-15-6-inch-Laptop/dp/B09S3YPSL2

 

 

 

The first one's a really solid option and close to my £700 one I bought 2 years ago. Prices have clearly come down since I bought my laptop, at least from just these links. I'm mostly advocating against £700-800 laptops with GPU's that start appearing but those monstrosities shouldn't be classed as laptops, more like carrying bricks.

[MrBaker89]

18 minutes ago, unnerfed cthun said:

Laptops in the this price range have gotten shockingly good. Gone are the days of having to spend 4 digits to get something decent. Here are some examples.

 

For £599 you can get 1880p OLED screen / Ryzen 5 5600H / 16 GB RAM / 512 GB NVMe SSD:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Vivobook-OLED-M3401QA-Inch/dp/B09GKNC8Q9

 

This one for £499 is also pretty decent. 1080p IPS / 11th gen i5 / 16 GB RAM / 512 GB NVMe SSD:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-VivoBook-X515EA-i5-1135G7-Keyboard/dp/B09F6LCV9N

 

If you can live with 8 GB soldered RAM, for £399 this also has decent specs. 1080p IPS / Ryzen 5 5500U / 8 GB RAM / 256 GB NVMe SSD

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-IdeaPad-15-6-inch-Laptop/dp/B09S3YPSL2

 

 

 

My budget is £1000 + vat.

 

I've been looking at the Lenovo Ideapad 3i laptops as well.

 

Would I notice much of a difference between 16GB DDR4 3200mhz vs 16GB DDR5 4800mhz?

[powertoys]

11 minutes ago, MrBaker89 said:

Would I notice much of a difference between 16GB DDR4 3200mhz vs 16GB DDR5 4800mhz?

Performance-wise, this is heavily dependant on your workload, but DDR5 is more efficient (lower voltages).

 

It seems you are in doubt between 12th gen Intel or 6000-series Ryzen CPUs.

 

From reviews I've seen, Intel is currently better for performance but Ryzen will be more efficient (longer battery life). It's a lot easier to find Intel than Ryzen, though, and judging by the Medion laptop you linked, you are not that much concerned about efficiency anyways (or even looks, for that matter - most "gaming laptops" have really over-the-top designs).

 

The thing is, you want to drive 2 monitors. You will have to search for a laptop with Thunderbolt ports or 2 display outputs (some USB-C ports can do video but the only way to reliably know this is by testing).

 

That Medion laptop does have 2 display outputs, has good specs and it seems to have thunderbolt as well, but I am concerned about the brand. They don't look sketchy but I'm worried about support... I really don't know much about this one. I hope someone with more knowledge answers this.

[MrBaker89]

14 hours ago, unnerfed cthun said:

Performance-wise, this is heavily dependant on your workload, but DDR5 is more efficient (lower voltages).

 

It seems you are in doubt between 12th gen Intel or 6000-series Ryzen CPUs.

 

From reviews I've seen, Intel is currently better for performance but Ryzen will be more efficient (longer battery life). It's a lot easier to find Intel than Ryzen, though, and judging by the Medion laptop you linked, you are not that much concerned about efficiency anyways (or even looks, for that matter - most "gaming laptops" have really over-the-top designs).

 

The thing is, you want to drive 2 monitors. You will have to search for a laptop with Thunderbolt ports or 2 display outputs (some USB-C ports can do video but the only way to reliably know this is by testing).

 

That Medion laptop does have 2 display outputs, has good specs and it seems to have thunderbolt as well, but I am concerned about the brand. They don't look sketchy but I'm worried about support... I really don't know much about this one. I hope someone with more knowledge answers this.

Thank you for your reply.

 

You are right I'm not too fussed about efficiency as I will rarely be running it on battery.

 

I am torn between 12th gen Intel and Ryzen 6000 series.

 

But the third wheel is the fact that Lenovo currently have a good sale on some of their Legion 3 & Legion 5 previous gen 6 laptops with Ryzen 5800 chips in them.

 

I don't want to spend nearly £1000 on a laptop only for it to last me 2/3 years.

 

Design I'm really not that bothered about.

 

Medion are a Lenovo company and they seem pretty well reviewed online but apparently the cooling in their laptops isn't very good.

[venomtail]

16 hours ago, MrBaker89 said:

My budget is £1000 + vat.

 

I've been looking at the Lenovo Ideapad 3i laptops as well.

 

Would I notice much of a difference between 16GB DDR4 3200mhz vs 16GB DDR5 4800mhz?

DDR5 vs DDR4 performance right now is negligible outside of some pure instruction program outliers. DDR5 isn't worth it for games. DDR5 isn't worth it for photo/video editing. DDR5 for programming and compiling? Maybe.

 

 

35 minutes ago, MrBaker89 said:

I am torn between 12th gen Intel and Ryzen 6000 series.

I'd go with Ryzen. Based on the fact that often it gets x2 the battery life that Intel can. That being said that you don't really care about battery life, because intel is so power hungry it does perform slightly better when plugged in with its higher power draw. That being said, it's only at the higher TDP models. Lower TDP models might as well go Ryzen again cause they both perform the same just Intel has half the battery again. Might come in handy one day.

[powertoys]

6 hours ago, MrBaker89 said:

But the third wheel is the fact that Lenovo currently have a good sale on some of their Legion 3 & Legion 5 previous gen 6 laptops with Ryzen 5800 chips in them.

 

I don't want to spend nearly £1000 on a laptop only for it to last me 2/3 years.

Oh don't worry about that. Performance-wise, a Ryzen 5800H will last as long as the laptop itself.

[MrBaker89]

What do people recon to these 2?

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-vivobook-s-15-k3502-15.6-laptop-intel-core-i5-512-gb-ssd-grey-10240522.html

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/lenovo-ideapad-5i-pro-16-laptop-intel-core-i5-512-gb-ssd-grey-10240541.html

[venomtail]

8 minutes ago, MrBaker89 said:

What do people recon to these 2?

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-vivobook-s-15-k3502-15.6-laptop-intel-core-i5-512-gb-ssd-grey-10240522.html

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/lenovo-ideapad-5i-pro-16-laptop-intel-core-i5-512-gb-ssd-grey-10240541.html

For productivity the Lenovo. Has a better resolution for productivity and at that a higher resolution. Viewing experience might be better on the Oled Asus but it's entirely subjective. My laptops screen is pretty shitty but not a dealbreaker as I rarely have to use it outdoors.

 

God laptops have come far in the last few years. Got buyers remorse for something I bought 3 years ago...

[MrBaker89]

Just now, venomtail said:

For productivity the Lenovo. Has a better resolution for productivity and at that a higher resolution. Viewing experience might be better on the Oled Asus but it's entirely subjective. My laptops screen is pretty shitty but not a dealbreaker as I rarely have to use it outdoors.

I'm leaning a bit more towards the Lenovo as that seems to possibly have a better cooling solution?

[venomtail]

Just now, MrBaker89 said:

I'm leaning a bit more towards the Lenovo as that seems to possibly have a better cooling solution?

Cooling is shit on pretty much all laptops. Certain parts will get hot to the touch regardless of how big or loud its fans are. Just make sure the bottom isn't covered and has enough airflow.

 

[MrBaker89]

3 minutes ago, venomtail said:

Cooling is shit on pretty much all laptops. Certain parts will get hot to the touch regardless of how big or loud its fans are. Just make sure the bottom isn't covered and has enough airflow.

 

My apologies, the Asus has the Icecool Technology so I might do some research on that as well.

[MrBaker89]

Think I'm going to go for the Asus with the i5-12500H? There is a i7-12700H variant but can't find it in stock.

[Darkseth]

50 minutes ago, MrBaker89 said:

My apologies, the Asus has the Icecool Technology so I might do some research on that as well.

A Marketing Name to make it sound cool. It means less than the Bit needed to storage the Letters in the Internet. Less, than the piece of Paper you need, to write the Name down.

Even if the Slides claim it, i promise you: The CPU willabsolutely NOT stay "nice and cool". Not in high Load like Benchmarks, Rendering etc. Office? Maybe. But i guess, without throttling (Anything below Max Performance Plan is throttling by Hand)

 

There are so many products with "nice marketing Words", that are pure Ass. But pure Ass with a nice sounding Word on it.

 

Maybe it's quiet, maybe it's loud. But this will not be defined by a marketing Word

[MrBaker89]

I decided to go for the Asus vivobook s16 with the i5-12500H. The screen is amazing. 
 

I’m going to buy a external GPU enclosure  for when I need more GPU power.