Best laptop for office+multitasking under 900CAD?

[Mahir Istehad]

Hello, I am looking for a light-weight, portable and professional looking laptop under 900CAD. Open box and resell are not preferred but will be considered given price-to-performance. Any preferences? Thankyou

[Bombastinator]

49 minutes ago, Mahir Istehad said:

Hello, I am looking for a light-weight, portable and professional looking laptop under 900CAD. Open box and resell are not preferred but will be considered given price-to-performance. Any preferences? Thankyou

Not sure how much that is in USD, but there are machines under $800USD that would do that.  Most of office is potato, though there are things that can be done with excel that aren’t. So unless you know how to use a pivot table power isn’t terribly important.  It’s screen and build quality that matter.  An iGP would be fine, which reduces cost a good bit.  You don’t have to have the power of a gaming machine. Even a Chromebook would probably do it though those things start to become stupid after about $500. Dell Lenovo and HP all do a lot of business stuff.  Fleet machines literally built for stuff like that.  If you’re willing to get weird an intel mac without a butterfly keyboard is also an option.  That would have to be used though. A case mostly of finding something you like to type on and that doesn’t give you a headache.  I understand windows hello (or whatever they call their facial recognition thing) is well liked.  I don’t know if you actually need massive battery life or not.

[Mahir Istehad]

On 12/11/2022 at 6:36 PM, Bombastinator said:

Not sure how much that is in USD, but there are machines under $800USD that would do that.  Most of office is potato, though there are things that can be done with excel that aren’t. So unless you know how to use a pivot table power isn’t terribly important.  It’s screen and build quality that matter.  An iGP would be fine, which reduces cost a good bit.  You don’t have to have the power of a gaming machine. Even a Chromebook would probably do it though those things start to become stupid after about $500. Dell Lenovo and HP all do a lot of business stuff.  Fleet machines literally built for stuff like that.  If you’re willing to get weird an intel mac without a butterfly keyboard is also an option.  That would have to be used though. A case mostly of finding something you like to type on and that doesn’t give you a headache.  I understand windows hello (or whatever they call their facial recognition thing) is well liked.  I don’t know if you actually need massive battery life or not.

Don't necessarily need Windows Hello, and yes, big battery. Also no Mac or Dell. Any series I should particularly look into of Lenovo and HP?

[Commodus]

On 12/11/2022 at 6:36 AM, Mahir Istehad said:

Hello, I am looking for a light-weight, portable and professional looking laptop under 900CAD. Open box and resell are not preferred but will be considered given price-to-performance. Any preferences? Thankyou

Might be worth looking at the ASUS Zenbook 14 (non-OLED), although you may have to find an open box to hit your price target. It's thin and light, looks slick and remains speedy even in slightly older configs. Lenovo currently has the IdeaPad 5 and Yoga 6 on sale for under $900; I don't know if they're stellar, but they're at least solid.

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, Mahir Istehad said:

Don't necessarily need Windows Hello, and yes, big battery. Also no Mac or Dell. Any series I should particularly look into of Lenovo and HP?

Probably, but I don’t know what they are.  The very best battery life devices are going to have no gpu, which I can see you going for.  That’s some loong battery life though.  All it takes to do good battery life is a not-so-strong processor, a low power screen, thickness, and a big ass battery.  The actual leader may command a price premium but it’s possible that someone going for that but getting beat out may be a better buy.

 

you actually might be a shoe-in for an m1 air on sale.  Maybe things that try to compete with it.

[ahuckphin]

Maybe can consider an Acer Swift 3 

[rikitikitavi]

Used or (maybe) a discounted refurbished M1 MacBook Air.

Checked local craigslist - they go for ~1k. Add some negotiation and CAD900 seems like an achievable price.

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, rikitikitavi said:

Used or (maybe) a discounted refurbished M1 MacBook Air.

Checked local craigslist - they go for ~1k. Add some negotiation and CAD900 seems like an achievable price.

One of his requirements was “no MacOS” though.  Maybe stuff that attempts to compete with mbAirs might cover it.  I agree though.  The air leads at basically everything he wants except the MacOS part.  

Edited December 13, 2022 by Bombastinator

[rikitikitavi]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

One of his requirements was “no MacOS” though.  Maybe stuff that attempts to compete with mbAirs might cover it.  I agree though.  The air leads at basically everything he wants except the MacOS part.  

My bad, missed that

 

17 hours ago, Mahir Istehad said:

no Mac

Are you using a specific software that is incompatible with macOS (even with vm)? Because if not - you probably won't find a better bang-for-the-buck device.

[seanondemand]

Went ahead and googled that for you.

 

Looks like there's some good open box options with 11th gen intel chips like HP Envy, Asus Zenbooks. Open box, but you still get a full warranty, so that's what matters.