Advice for a work laptop

[ashic]

I'm looking for a laptop for my mum. She's a retired professor and her use would mainly be around Word, Excel, and a browser to do research, write papers, etc. Gaming is absolutely not a concern. She'd like something that lasts and has good battery life, and just works (within what she'd be using it for). It does have to be Windows - she's too set in her ways to switch to a Mac. I've narrowed it down to:

 

1. Surface Laptop 7 (Snapdragon X Plus, 16GB ram, 512GB SSD)

2. Zenbook S14 (core ultra 5 series 200, 226V, 16GB ram, 512GB SSD)

 

The first has a decent screen, nice build, 3:2 aspect ratio (I guess it's better for work?), and fiddly surface charging port though USB-C can also be used. 

The latter has a gorgeous 3K oled screen but in 16:10 (she won't really use it for watching movies). 

 

Due to black friday deals, I'm getting both at the same exact price. Given the use case, which would you recommend for her?

[Tortugues]

Hey, I'd say the Surface would be practical, but the Snapdragon CPUs aren't fully up to date on compatibility. If your mother is only going to do office work, then the Surface is, in my opinion, the better choice. Maybe she has a preference of her own... At that point, we might as well choose on aesthetics, but maybe someone knows the Snapdragons better than me and might tell you what they think of it.

[Bogica]

Hi,
I would stay away from anything that has ARM and Windows, I feel like if the market does not pick up fast that MS will just abandon things and move forward. This is not the first attempt of Windows on ARM. Also, I am afraid she will use some older software and it will simply not run on the Surface. At the end I would play it safe and go with the second option, but that is just me and for my family I prefer safe, hassle free choices, while I would not mind the Surface for myself. Hope this helps!

[ashic]

4 minutes ago, Tortugues said:

Hey, I'd say the Surface would be practical, but the Snapdragon CPUs aren't fully up to date on compatibility. If your mother is only going to do office work, then the Surface is, in my opinion, the better choice. Maybe she has a preference of her own... At that point, we might as well choose on aesthetics, but maybe someone knows the Snapdragons better than me and might tell you what they think of it.

Thanks for the response. Yeah, for her, it's just Office and a browser. I went into a brick and mortar and tried out both a bit. Both (as expected) run Word rather well. Aesthetics wise, both probably fit the bill (her current machine is a 10+ year old packard bell that's rather ugly!). The surface trackpad is a bit better than the zenbook, but then the latter's trackpad is a lot larger. So most of it is even.

 

I think battery life is the key thing I'm worried about. I think last gen, core ultras had a major problem of performance falling off a cliff when battery went below 20%. And I'm also curious about the battery drain on the core ultra 226V when the lid is closed (this is one thing my macbook pro M1 Max is amazing at). I understand the Surface will have similar lid-closed battery life. Has the Core Ultra 200 series improved enough in this regard? 

[ashic]

4 minutes ago, Bogica said:

Hi,
I would stay away from anything that has ARM and Windows, I feel like if the market does not pick up fast that MS will just abandon things and move forward. This is not the first attempt of Windows on ARM. Also, I am afraid she will use some older software and it will simply not run on the Surface. At the end I would play it safe and go with the second option, but that is just me and for my family I prefer safe, hassle free choices, while I would not mind the Surface for myself. Hope this helps!

Yup... and of course, I'm the free tech support guy! I'm just wary of whether I'll start getting calls about the laptop performing slowly at below 20% battery or just losing charge with the lid closed (i.e. Intel of old!). The Surface would be good in this regard, but wondering if the 200 series intel chips have improved in these two aspects. 

[Bogica]

11 minutes ago, ashic said:

Yup... and of course, I'm the free tech support guy! I'm just wary of whether I'll start getting calls about the laptop performing slowly at below 20% battery or just losing charge with the lid closed (i.e. Intel of old!). The Surface would be good in this regard, but wondering if the 200 series intel chips have improved in these two aspects. 

The 200 series does address this, you can look it up online, it essentially doubles the battery life of the 100 series and places it up there where the Macs are. However, not sure on the lid closed performance, I would not expect Mac levels of battery drain simply because Windows. However, unless it is days with lid closed, I would say it would be fine.

 

[Tridefender]

5 hours ago, ashic said:

Surface Laptop 7 (Snapdragon X Plus, 16GB ram, 512GB SSD)

Absolute no, just to be clear, you won't want to run into compatibility issue.