Bottom line on laptops...

[tinpanalley]

Are Windows laptops at the point now where basically it doesn't matter at all what you pick as long as it meets your budget and feature needs? Or are some simply still better than others? Trying to find one that can last me as long as my last Lenovo did. It turns 10 this autumn (But the SSD and extra RAM cant fix the slow as poured molasses boot up times.)

[Crunchy Dragon]

I feel like the top 5(in no particular order) are HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Apple.

 

But yeah, for the most part, if you don't need macOS for something, then just pick whatever meets your various needs. I'm personally really picky when it comes to laptops, so I'll likely only be buying ThinkPads from now on if I'm buying a Windows laptop at all.

[BiotechBen]

Find one that has the specs you want, and if you want to have it last a long time, I'd recommend a Thinkpad, Pavilion, or XPS. Steer clear from Acer, once you are out of warranty you are screwed.

[BiotechBen]

5 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I feel like the top 5(in no particular order) are HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Apple.

 

But yeah, for the most part, if you don't need macOS for something, then just pick whatever meets your various needs. I'm personally really picky when it comes to laptops, so I'll likely only be buying ThinkPads from now on if I'm buying a Windows laptop at all.

I've been burned by a few brands now, mostly Acer, I'm an HP/Lenovo guy for life.

When I was in grade school it was HP cinderblock laptops for elementary, ThinkPads for middle, and then basically BYOL for highschool until they issued Chromebooks which I escaped.

[tinpanalley]

6 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

just pick whatever meets your various needs

2 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Find one that has the specs you want, and...

I tend to agree with both of you. I don't think I have particularly out of the norm needs (other than the fact that I'd personally prefer it to have an optical drive, just the way I work, but I understand reluctantly that that ship has sailed)

[bal723]

get a used ones.

if u dont need to play games, gtx 1050 will be enough

[tinpanalley]

5 minutes ago, bal723 said:

get a used ones.

if u dont need to play games, gtx 1050 will be enough

I don't NEED to, but I'd like to know that I can if I want to. But the games I'd play would run on anything to be honest so that's not an issue. I'm not playing Battlefront or Red Dead on a laptop, those level of games are what my desktop is for.

[bal723]

1 minute ago, tinpanalley said:

I don't NEED to, but I'd like to know that I can if I want to. But the games I'd play would run on anything to be honest so that's not an issue. I'm not playing Battlefront or Red Dead on a laptop, those level of games are what my desktop is for.

then get a new ryzen/athlon laptop with vega graphics

[BiotechBen]

17 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

I tend to agree with both of you. I don't think I have particularly out of the norm needs (other than the fact that I'd personally prefer it to have an optical drive, just the way I work, but I understand reluctantly that that ship has sailed)

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/ideapad/ideapad-gaming-laptops/ideapad-gaming-3i-gen-7-(15-inch-intel)/82s9003bus

Good value on this, my brother has the 5th gen (I think it's the 5th gen) with a 10750h and a 1650 and loves it. And you can hook up a USB optical drive for your optical drive needs and you should be able to upgrade the RAM fairly easily.

[powertoys]

Anything with 8 GB RAM + SSD + anything equal or better than an 8th gen i3 will be enough to last for more than a decade.

 

I've seen far worse laptops (spec-wise) that are still being used to this day. For basic tasks you really don't need much.

[tinpanalley]

56 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/ideapad/ideapad-gaming-laptops/ideapad-gaming-3i-gen-7-(15-inch-intel)/82s9003bus

Good value on this, my brother has the 5th gen (I think it's the 5th gen) with a 10750h and a 1650 and loves it. And you can hook up a USB optical drive for your optical drive needs and you should be able to upgrade the RAM fairly easily.

Pretty sweet deal on Newegg Canada for that...

[BiotechBen]

30 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

Pretty sweet deal on Newegg Canada for that...

The 11300H isn't a great value, very hot and power hungry for it's performance, if there is a Ryzen 5000 alternative I'd recommend that.

[tinpanalley]

2 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

The 11300H isn't a great value, very hot and power hungry for it's performance, if there is a Ryzen 5000 alternative I'd recommend that.

Oh, ok I thought it was the same one

[BiotechBen]

14 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

Oh, ok I thought it was the same one

https://www.newegg.ca/p/2WC-000J-01W67

 

https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/p/laptops/ideapad/ideapad-gaming-laptops/ideapad-gaming-3i-gen-7-(15-inch-intel)/82s9003bus?orgRef=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

[Crunchy Dragon]

2 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

I tend to agree with both of you. I don't think I have particularly out of the norm needs (other than the fact that I'd personally prefer it to have an optical drive, just the way I work, but I understand reluctantly that that ship has sailed)

I'm with you on that one. At this point, I just need enough ports(full size HDMI, RJ45, plenty of USB type A, and 3.5mm audio) with the ability to upgrade internal storage and RAM.

 

Optical drive would be really nice, but almost no laptops these days are shipping with one.

[tinpanalley]

40 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

https://www.newegg.ca/p/2WC-000J-01W67

 

https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/p/laptops/ideapad/ideapad-gaming-laptops/ideapad-gaming-3i-gen-7-(15-inch-intel)/82s9003bus?orgRef=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

This comparison makes it rather self-evident which is better.

[tinpanalley]

10 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

At this point, I just need enough ports(full size HDMI, RJ45, plenty of USB type A, and 3.5mm audio) with the ability to upgrade internal storage and RAM.

Crap, I need to check if this Lenovo has a mini-jack audio out.

[Imbadatnames]

Depends what you want and your budget really. For most people an M1 base MacBook Air will be all they will need until it breaks and you just swap it out for the next one

[tinpanalley]

11 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Depends what you want and your budget really. For most people an M1 base MacBook Air will be all they will need until it breaks and you just swap it out for the next one

I'm not looking for Mac.

[Imbadatnames]

10 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

I'm not looking for Mac.

Just a generalisation. For most people a max makes the most sense. Free office suite, best in class battery, trackpad and supports things like H265 and HEIC out of the box. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 hour ago, Imbadatnames said:

Just a generalisation. For most people a max makes the most sense. Free office suite, best in class battery, trackpad and supports things like H265 and HEIC out of the box. 

MacBooks have such nice trackpads

 

Half the reason I like ThinkPads is because I've used Mac trackpads before, and no Windows trackpad even comes close to the quality. The benefit of the ThinkPad is that I get to ignore the trackpad entirely.

[BiotechBen]

4 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

This comparison makes it rather self-evident which is better.

While the comparison is fundamentally true, userbenchmark is unreliable and at best, only good for exact comparisons. I would steer you toward Passmark.

For example: R7 3700U has Vega 10 graphics, which coincidentally is the codename for Vega 56 and 64, so UB reports the graphics as defective because it reports as Vega 10. For that mobile gen, everything started as a 3700U (4c/8t) with 10gpu cores, and then imperfect 3700U became the 3500U (4c/8t, 8gpu cores), and basically defective 3700U chips became 3300U (4c/4t, 3 GPU cores)

[tinpanalley]

55 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

While the comparison is fundamentally true, userbenchmark is unreliable and at best, only good for exact comparisons. I would steer you toward Passmark.

For example: R7 3700U has Vega 10 graphics, which coincidentally is the codename for Vega 56 and 64, so UB reports the graphics as defective because it reports as Vega 10. For that mobile gen, everything started as a 3700U (4c/8t) with 10gpu cores, and then imperfect 3700U became the 3500U (4c/8t, 8gpu cores), and basically defective 3700U chips became 3300U (4c/4t, 3 GPU cores)

Ok, fine I was just saying it does show that the 12500 is better. I like Lenovo I can trust the name but I'd be willing to look at other brands if they could be recommended.
Somebody recommended this GIGABYTE G5 GD to me. I don't think I could buy a Gigabyte laptop. My last mobo was Gigabyte, but a laptop? Maybe in a few years if they prove themselves as laptop manufacturers.

[BiotechBen]

15 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

Ok, fine I was just saying it does show that the 12500 is better. I like Lenovo I can trust the name but I'd be willing to look at other brands if they could be recommended.
Somebody recommended this GIGABYTE G5 GD to me. I don't think I could buy a Gigabyte laptop. My last mobo was Gigabyte, but a laptop? Maybe in a few years if they prove themselves as laptop manufacturers.

Yeah, I'm hesitant on gigabyte for a while. For me, when then can go 5 years without a data breach I'll give them a chance, and when an RMA doesn't take 6 months to process. If you were in the US, microcenter is running a great deal on a Victus by HP laptop that would suit you pretty well (5600H and 1650 4gb) with 8gb of upgradeable ram.

[tinpanalley]

15 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Yeah, I'm hesitant on gigabyte for a while. For me, when then can go 5 years without a data breach I'll give them a chance, and when an RMA doesn't take 6 months to process. If you were in the US, microcenter is running a great deal on a Victus by HP laptop that would suit you pretty well (5600H and 1650 4gb) with 8gb of upgradeable ram.

Likewise. 

This Lenovo though looks better and better the more I think about it. I can always upgrade the RAM to 16GB and SSDs are easy to replace. Anything else you would consider in the price range? Even a little above?