Laptop or 2 in 1 advice

[AndrewSt]

I have about £1000 to spend, give or take and looking for a new laptop or 2 in 1. Must be windows and not a mac.

Mostly for email, work, office and streaming media through Netflix etc. Unlikely to edit much on it as I have my desktop for that.

Initial research suggests a Del XPS, HP 360 Spectre or Lenovo yoga 720 or 910.

I have probably ruled out a Surface pro as I think it might not be the best to type on if sitting on my lap....might be wrong.

Any suggestions?

 

[redhed17]

If you are not going to do much editing on it, then for what else you describe as the probable usage, you don't need to spend anywhere near £1000 imho.

That said, you need to decide what size screen you want. An SSD would make things work a bit nifty. If you are streaming, you may want to connect it to a TV, so an HDMI socket, though most new laptops have one.

I wanted a replacement laptop with a smaller 14" screen, for less size and weight last year, but also wanted a bit of oomph to edit when needed. I paid a bit of a premium because of the smaller screen size, but I got;

Intel Core i5-6200U Processor Up to 2.8GHz
Samsung SSD 850 EVO M.2 250GB SSD
1TB 7mm 2.5" Internal Hard Drive SATA 6gbs
8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 1600Mhz Memory
Intel HD Graphics 520
No Optical Drive

All that was £585, but a 15.6" screen with the same specs would be cheaper. A 17" screen may be a similar price. It handles Photoshop and LR with no problems. If I would have bought a 15.6" screen I would have got a large SSD drive as 2nd drive, because the one I have is a slower 5400rpm HD, and it is really noticeably slower when the main drive is lightning fast. If I was just getting one drive, then I would get a larger SSD. It depends on how much data you would be putting on the computer.

Nothing stopping you spending on a nice and shiny high end model though if that is what you want, if as it seems, you have the money.

Hope that's of some help.

Oh, and I should have added, that I customised with a larger SSD and 2nd HD, which added a bit to the price. An off the shelf one with the specs you want would be a bit cheaper as there wouldn't be extra charges for changing bits. And it came without an OS, because I already had Win10.

 

[GTG]

This is higher spec than a £1429 Dell XPS 15 and is £1060 from Scan PC.

It shared almost all the same parts but this has a 17" screen instead of 15" of the Dell.

However both are way too powerful for what you want and I would advise a £300 laptop instead.


3XS LG17 Performance GTX


17.3" 60Hz Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS screen

• 4GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

• Intel Core i7 7700HQ Quad Core

• 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 2400MHz

• 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD

• Microsoft Windows 10 64bit & 2 Year Premium Warranty

• 418.5 x 288.7 x 27.4mm, 3.1kg

 

[KMPhoto]

I wanted a replacement laptop with a smaller 14" screen, for less size and weight last year, but also wanted a bit of oomph to edit when needed. I paid a bit of a premium because of the smaller screen size, but I got;

Intel Core i5-6200U Processor Up to 2.8GHz
Samsung SSD 850 EVO M.2 250GB SSD
1TB 7mm 2.5" Internal Hard Drive SATA 6gbs
8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 1600Mhz Memory
Intel HD Graphics 520
No Optical Drive

...

Can I ask where this is from?

Thanks

 

[redhed17]

Can I ask where this is from?

Thanks

I got it from Novatech. I went with them as they offer the option to customise, and I wanted/needed a 14" with a VGA socket. I think I made the SSD and internal HD larger capacities. They seem to make up their own models, and the 14" they have on there now with pretty similar specs to mine. They have only had i7 processors in their 14" models for the last few months. But like I said, you can change things if you want something specific. Once I'd ordered I think it was done in about a week.

What I would say about their 14" case is that it is bit plasticy and easily marked. Also, the when closed the the keys seemed to leave a bit of a mark on the screen, but I just put a cleaning cloth between keys and screen when closed which is the perfect size. I think my having the laptop in sometimes a very full bag may have created a problems marking and the key/screen which most people may not have. The screen is very good quality though.

 

[KMPhoto]

Thanks for that, I'm a great fan of Novatech.

Your evaluation is very helpful too, much appreciated.