Buying myself a laptop

[Tragic Carl]

As a birthday present to myself, I'm going to be buying myself a laptop / ultrabook. My current carry around laptop is a cheap $200 Lenovo Ideapad 100S, which to be honest, is a fantastic computer for its price, but it just doesn't have enough oomph for what I'm trying to do. When you have to wait about 1 minute for my Rust code to compile, when it takes 6 seconds on my home desktop, that's when I realised I really need to upgrade.

 

This is a laptop that I want to keep in my backpack at pretty much all times, which I can take out wherever and do work, read up on stuff or watch videos.

My current main considerations are:

1. Razer Blade Stealth (New) :- the 512GB version with 1440p screen. Looks fantastic for the price with really solid specs.
2. Microsoft Surface Book :- a little bit pricier but with more features such as the detachable. This looks amazing but seemed to be more for those in creative fields, which I'm not.

My price range is all the way up to $2500 AUD. I'm not looking to game on this as I do have my desktop at home. Are there any other machines that I should be looking into or are there any reviews from you guys for these products? Definitely keen on a recommendation!

[Electronics Wizardy]

macbook pro 2016. look into it.

[Zackhockey6]

The Razer Blade Stealth is a hell of a machine... I would definitely go with that

 

[Tragic Carl]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

macbook pro 2016. look into it.

I'm not really keen on switching to MacOS. Would prefer to continue using Windows.

[PCGeek]

I personally like the Surface Book but for decent specs it gets pricey but the same applies to the Razer Stealth albeit slightly less.  Both are great devices.  Another great device is the business class devices from HP.  The HP EliteBook 1040 are nice ultrabooks but you don't get a dGPU.

[Tragic Carl]

5 minutes ago, PCGeek said:

I personally like the Surface Book but for decent specs it gets pricey but the same applies to the Razer Stealth albeit slightly less.  Both are great devices.  Another great device is the business class devices from HP.  The HP EliteBook 1040 are nice ultrabooks but you don't get a dGPU.

I don't think I mind not having the dGPU as that's extra weight I don't really need. Since most of my work will be software development it's not super necessary but I think if I were to choose between HP and Razer, I'd go with Razer.

[shermantanker]

I'm personally going to be getting the late 2016 refresh of the HP Spectre x360, it is like 1,300 USD and I'm going to be swapping out to a faster SSD later.

[Tragic Carl]

3 minutes ago, shermantanker said:

I'm personally going to be getting the late 2016 refresh of the HP Spectre x360, it is like 1,300 USD and I'm going to be swapping out to a faster SSD later.

From what I see, it looks like slightly worse specs and a worse screen than the Blade Stealth, although with the ability to go all Yoga like. Interesting, but probably not my choice.

[PCGeek]

1 hour ago, Tragic Carl said:

I don't think I mind not having the dGPU as that's extra weight I don't really need. Since most of my work will be software development it's not super necessary but I think if I were to choose between HP and Razer, I'd go with Razer.

I would as well.  The Razer is higher spec'd which obviously comes with a higher price.  The HP EliteBooks are nice but the Razer Blades are just badass.

[shermantanker]

4 hours ago, Tragic Carl said:

From what I see, it looks like slightly worse specs and a worse screen than the Blade Stealth, although with the ability to go all Yoga like. Interesting, but probably not my choice.

from what I have seen the screen quality is excellent, but with a lower resolution. I personally see no need for anything higher then 1080p on sub 14" devices. And I think the HP gets a slightly longer lasting battery. But both machines are similar.