What should I recommand for durability?

[ChuckMaurice]

I try to always be up-to-date on laptop and computer hardware so I always find myself to be the go-to guy for laptop recommandation. I even drew a 20-point questionnaire to help people chose a laptop based on what they answer and what I know of the market at the time.
 

The problem is that I find myself more and more dealing with people who only do basic tasks on a computer and don't have other needs than durability. I'm talking about a 5 to 7 years life expectancy, where obsolescence meets component degradation! These people mostly buy cheap laptops cause they don't know much and the price tag meets their needs, but cheap laptops last 2-3 years before dying of mysterious causes (but mostly power malfunction).
 

If I can estimate build quality from pictures and in-deep analysis like LTT or notebookcheck.net, I can't "quantify" durability as a parameter for recommandations. I used to have a list of models like Dell's Vostros, IBM/Lenovo's Thinkpads or some Asus models which I knew for a fact lasted long and weren't packing expensive hardware, but now they have gone or aren't that appealing. I also feel that gaming stuff, while being very durable, may be unappealing to them cause of the price and look they won't appreciate.

What range/products can I recommand for people whose main need is "I want this laptop to last forever"? 

[RadiatingLight]

tell them it's better to buy a cheap laptop every 2-3 years than an expensive one that will last 5-6 years.

nothing lasts forever.

[Jay_JWLH]

Durability should take into consideration price and/or any claims (or features) made about the product. Now that you are loosing anything that makes the claim that it will last for whatever reason, you've only got price left. Unless they do something like put them in cases, have passive cooling, or use a SSD over a HDD, there isn't much you can do. Maybe tablets would be a better choice? In terms of comparing to a cheaper laptop, mid range tablets are probably not bad, and can come with some heavy duty cases as well.

[Streetguru]

24 minutes ago, jldjul said:

I try to always be up-to-date on laptop and computer hardware so I always find myself to be the go-to guy for laptop recommandation. I even drew a 20-point questionnaire to help people chose a laptop based on what they answer and what I know of the market at the time.
 

The problem is that I find myself more and more dealing with people who only do basic tasks on a computer and don't have other needs than durability. I'm talking about a 5 to 7 years life expectancy, where obsolescence meets component degradation! These people mostly buy cheap laptops cause they don't know much and the price tag meets their needs, but cheap laptops last 2-3 years before dying of mysterious causes (but mostly power malfunction).
 

If I can estimate build quality from pictures and in-deep analysis like LTT or notebookcheck.net, I can't "quantify" durability as a parameter for recommandations. I used to have a list of models like Dell's Vostros, IBM/Lenovo's Thinkpads or some Asus models which I knew for a fact lasted long and weren't packing expensive hardware, but now they have gone or aren't that appealing. I also feel that gaming stuff, while being very durable, may be unappealing to them cause of the price and look they won't appreciate.

What range/products can I recommand for people whose main need is "I want this laptop to last forever"? 

Just tell them they need a $3000 tough book in that case

really though most laptops use the same hardware, being an i5 or i7, all you'd really want to worry about is how well the laptops handle cooling, and what kind of display they have, 1080p IPS is pretty much all you'd need

Or just recommend thinkpads, they seem to be fairly reliable.

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

I'd get a Dell latitude. Something like a e5470 is a good buy. 

[ChuckMaurice]

The problem is that in France the Latitude and Thinkpad models are uneasy to find. They are limited to companies and the only models available on the market are obsolete ones (320 Go HDD, 1366x720 displays, 4 GB RAM...).

 

Sure they are unkillable, but what the point if my laptop of 2011 was more powerful than them?

Maybe I'm not looking at the right stores, but I can't find any recommandable Latitude/Thinkpad models. But this would be my top pick for this use case as my dad's Latitude is like 6 years old and with a new SSD, still great.

[NA_NotAvailable]

2 hours ago, RadiatingLight said:

tell them it's better to buy a cheap laptop every 2-3 years than an expensive one that will last 5-6 years.

nothing lasts forever.

except a Macbook. A Macbook from 2010 still cost like $400 to $500 depending on the quality. Macbooks lasts for ever.... Well the OSX does Macbooks are fragile. OSX ages really well with time, that's why Apple can use last years parts for this years Macbook Pro.

 

Apple:

WHAT you want a kaby lake? you mental bro, look how well final cut pro works on LAST years skylake

 

What you want a Nvidia GTX 1070? you mental bro, Look at AMD running 2 5k displays.

[ChuckMaurice]

52 minutes ago, NA_NotAvailable said:

except a Macbook. A Macbook from 2010 still cost like $400 to $500 depending on the quality. Macbooks lasts for ever.... Well the OSX does Macbooks are fragile. OSX ages really well with time, that's why Apple can use last years parts for this years Macbook Pro.

 

Apple:

WHAT you want a kaby lake? you mental bro, look how well final cut pro works on LAST years skylake

 

What you want a Nvidia GTX 1070? you mental bro, Look at AMD running 2 5k displays.

I totally hear you, I myself have a Macbook Pro Retina from 2013, and man, just two phrases : Final Cut Pro in 4K editing. Without a graphics card. Damn!

But most people I guide into buying a new laptop want, well, a new laptop. I actually had much fun lately with an non-profit organisation using plain old Macbook Pros and iMacs from 2011 and before, really easy to upgrade with SSD and memory (well, if you count out the difficulty of opening the iMacs). I gave them a refreshed fleet of computers for the fraction of what they should have payed for new ones.

But this is only a fraction of the people I encountered. The others don't know (or don't want to hear about) MacOS, and they sees Apple as a demon company who sucks the soul of their customers (ironic, you should see how Google sucks their data).

Other thing : if I come to them proposing a computer that is roughly the same age of the one they just fried, that's gonna be hard to sell.

 

TLDR: most people I deal with don't want Apple or want a new computer.

 

All this for saying that I'm totally on team Apple for this use case, used to be a fanboy, kinda going back to the Windows world, but Macbooks aren't suitable for most people I deal with, and will become less attractive when they'll ditch the lower-end Macbook lines. Also, I think Macbooks, Latitude and Thinkpads have a comparable lifespan, right?

[Pendragon]

I like the 2012 non retina macbooks. Anything tx20 and below. And anything tx60 and above. The 30,40,50 series are not to my personal liking. 

 

@op you should probably recommend low end x260s or x270s or whatever the x series generation is at.

[Dackzy]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

I like the 2012 non retina macbooks. Anything tx20 and below. And anything tx60 and above. The 30,40,50 series are not to my personal liking. 

 

@op you should probably recommend low end x260s or x270s or whatever the x series generation is at.

Lenovo is coming out with the 7th gen now, they follow intels CPU gens.

 

@OP I would look at two things. 1. build quality, 2. good cooling. A P70 from lenovo would check both of those things, but you might need to buy it from lenovo's own site. A 7k precision series laptops is also a good option, but both of those options aren't the most portable, if you want portable then maybe a T460s or the T470s when Lenovo releases it. Ofc a toughbook would wreck them all in build quality