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Looking for a new ultrabook for work. Productivity-focussed, so no need for discrete graphics. Portability and durability important. Ideally looking for:
1. 14 inch screen, would be nice to have a QHD / 2.5k screen as that's what I'm using now. OLED not a priority.
2. AMD Ryzen 7 or Intel Ultra 7 and above. Seen a lot of good offers on 13th gen Intel Raptor / Meteor Lake laptops but I've read they run hot and aren't that efficient?
3. 16gb RAM.
4. Decent keyboard, as my job is primarily writing / editing stuff, although I will be plugging in to a desktop base station while working from home.
Been looking at the Asus Zenbook, Lenovo Yoga Slim / Thinkpad, and HP Pavilion Plus. Anything else I should be considering?
Not a Macbook.
Are you doing anything that really needs an i7 or AMD equivelent?
I have an 11th gen i5 and it's great...an Asus expertbook... its more 'business' oriented, in terms of battery , robust chassis etc.
EDIT this one: https://www.wholesale-office-supplies.co.uk/product_page?appvar=20152&PartID=369962&CatalogID=5&DOC=PDF
Its really nice, metal chassis, OLED, flip screen, touch screen, and the mouse pad can be toggled to a number pad which is really nifty.
@mattyfez occasionally need to to some light audio / video editing and video transcoding so nice to have that grunt available if needed. Also, correct me if I am wrong but I heard the newer Ryzen and Intel Ultra chips are much more efficient than 13th gen Intel (longer battery runtime).
Asus Expertbook - never heard of that series, will take a look.
This would fit your criteria, its not touch screen or flip screen, but tbh that's a bit of a gimmick IMO unles you'd really get use out of it.
Pricey though! Weighs 0.9kg, which is pretty impressive though!
I only bought mine for more general use so the cheaper i5 was an easy choice.
I can't comment on those specific models but if I were buying a business laptop it would be a Lenovo. Over the years I've looked after various brands of corporate fleets and hands down the Lenovo beat the lot. They were a joy to work on, maintenance manuals are freely available. The only failures I saw were user error (slamming the lid shut with a pen on the keyboard, or throwing it across the car park) and mechanical failure (system fan, traditional spinny hard disk, moving parts wear out). Any other failures were vanishingly rare. I have a T420 on my desk right now, its build date is 2011 and it's still going strong.
By turns, I'm a huge fan of HP Enterprise, I'm of the mind that there are "HPE servers" and "everything else," but every HP laptop I've ever worked on has been hateful. The pro range might be better, I don't know, but the consumer-grade stuff is nasty. My partner has one and I'd cheerfully drive a stake through it tomorrow if I could afford to replace it, it's been more of a pain in the arse than any other tech in the house, and I'm not short of tech in the house.
Have you looked at Dell?
How quick do you need it? I have a Surface Laptop which is not a bad device - prefer it to my work Dell. Got it with a few hundred quid off around last year's black friday. They're not cheap but ended up getting the 15" one as it was the same price as the 13". Quite like the Dell XPS machines but they also get quite pricey quite quickly.
That Asus ExpertBook looks nice and a good price. Only had 8GB of RAM though. Do you know if it can be upgraded?
That Asus ExpertBook looks nice and a good price. Only had 8GB of RAM though. Do you know if it can be upgraded?
Looks like it yes... partly why I bought it, but i've not really felt the need to add more ram for my usage.
I think there are several varients though, for example mine has a 512gb M.2 SSD...although looking at the video it looks like it has a second M.2 slot also...
I've had a few Lenovo Thinkpads, and an IBM before that, and they've been really good. On the other hand my son had a Lenovo IdeaPad and that was rubbish, broke pretty quickly (motherboard) and they couldn't reliably fix it so after 3 trys it went back and was replaced with a nice, sturdy Samsung
Thinkpads are ok but I find them a bit utilitarian, and also they give me PTSD from my last job, hahah!
@mattyfez that Expertbook does look nice. I was budgeting for around a grand to 1,200 so its a little bit over but I'm adding it to the list. No touchscreen / flip screen isn't an issue, don't need them.
@Cougar @wbo Huge Lenovo fanboy here - current one is a Lenovo IdeaPad which has been ok but the build quality is average. Would naturally gravitate towards a ThinkPad but I have heard the quality and reliability of those has slipped in recent years too?
I had a Lenovo T470 with work that was robust, but was upgraded to HP Elite Books. Nothing like as robust, mark easily and we've had loads of breakages.
My own HP Evny's keyboard is failing, so I bought a used I7 11th Gen, 16GB Lenovo Yoga and I've been happy with it. They have a really nice keyboard compared to HP.
I'd take a look at the latest Lenovo's - yes they are a bit utilitarian, but are well built.
Build quality was always Lenovo's USP, T-pads were bombproof. But if they've gone downhill in recent years, I couldn't say.
Son got a Zenbook i9 with OLED- £750 or something
ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402VA... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CLLSFPQP?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
That seems like a very good deal! Is it brand new?
T-series thinkpads are still extremely robust, we use HP z-books at work as well. Not cheap, but get a barely used refurb and you're quids in
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/405124587242
I’d avoid dell and asus in my experience.
try speccing up what you ideally want with pcspecialist.co.uk?
Mattyfez- yeah it arrived a couple of days ago
As a slight aside, I don't think we've had the usual yearly my son/daughter going to secondary school needs a laptop thread...
I seem to recall in previous years some recommendations of websites to pick up some cheaper stuff than the OP is looking at. Anyone got any recommendations where to start?
I had various Lenovo T series and X series. Currently on an X1 which is pretty nice. I do use the touch screen fwiw.
Had an hp z-book for a couple of years. Was heavy, ran hot and needed its own 150W power pack which I had to carry everywhere, as the battery was only good for an hour. With a new office move, I switched to a g10 13.3” screen portable Elitebook. It’s much lighter (a kilo including adaptor), charges off our work monitors via USBC and my own home monitor too, which also serves as a docking station for my keyboard, camera and DAC for hifi use. All with just one. USBC cable to plug in. Funny thing is, according to geekbench, the new Ryzen chip is as fast as the old z-book.
Build quality is excellent. Full metal chassis. So go small and portable and plug into a good USBC monitor when you are working properly. So I’d say avoid the z-book and prioritise portability, weight and battery life.
https://www.hp.com/gb-en/shop/product.aspx?id=8a476ea&opt=abu&sel=ntb
I've always had Dell Latitudes or Precisions as work laptops (and been happy with them), although if buying for myself I'd probably look at the higher end of the Insprion range to. Don't get a Precision unless you want a workout whilst carrying it any where (although they are really well put together). What's your budget, that will be a big part of any decision-making...
By turns, I’m a huge fan of HP Enterprise, I’m of the mind that there are “HPE servers” and “everything else,” but every HP laptop I’ve ever worked on has been hateful. The pro range might be better, I don’t know, but the consumer-grade stuff is nasty.
@cougar
We moved from 'whatever is cheap' approach to laptops to exclusively HP Pro book. We've 30ish of them now, and yet to have a complaint or failure. They have a lot of metal in them, no creaking or flexing, no dafty keyboard keys falling off, screens last. No failures in 4/5 years of buying them, and mine is the oldest and still going strong.
Someone pulled mine off a train luggage rack in my bag - it fell full height and has a slight dent in a corner.
The only downside is they are built like tanks and weigh as much.
My only PC is a 2015 ProBook with a fairly lowly AMD processor, integrated graphics, 8gb of ram, and a 500gb SSD fitted 8 years ago. One of its jobs is as a Plex server so it's on almost all the time and it's never missed a beat. Other than the SSD, it's had a new battery this year and the power supply failed a couple of months ago - replaced with a new o/s OEM one for about £13.
So based on that sample of one from 9 years ago I'd recommend a ProBook!
As an alternative approach you could look at a Framework laptop. https://frame.work/gb/en
You can spec it how you like and they are upgradeable and repairable. I've a 2 year old one for personal use and they are as easy to take apart and upgrade as Framework claim.
Big fan of Dell and Lenovo, very reliable and long lasting. Currently got a HP Z-Book. Heavy, don't like the keyboard, and it has a battery life better measured in minutes than hours.
To add, although we buy Surfaces as our go to device
if i was in charge i probably would still buy Lenovo, the cost/reliability is insane
The surfaces we have been buying since laptop 2? i think, a few 3's many many 5's and just started with the 6s when they became available, apart from theft/loss and an incident of water damage, we haven't had any failures or issues. As of writing we have 141 in the business, i think i decommissioned a 2 or 3 the the other week, mainly because the user is a mid tier employee and had had it since new , was ideal to be upgraded. the device itself was still functioning perfectly, i'm guessing it was 4-5 years old
I have a work provided Thinkpad, excellent bit of kit.
I have a personal Ideapad, bit less robust but honestly not bad if you treat it like a laptop and not a school book.
Potential wildcard, have you looked at the Snapdragon X Elite laptops? If you run off battery a lot they would be a good shout, Qualcomm have a list on their site but it boils down to MS Surface, Samsung, Lenovo, HP and Dell. LTT did a daily drive video recently.
dooosuk, always upgrade your own and pass old ones down, its the rules.
I haven't got one to pass down 🙂
Hence starting to look at refurbs but it's a minefield of i5, i7, and gen 5,6,7,8,9,10,11 etc of each.
Screen size, RAM and storage I can work out. What's junk and what isn't on the processor for basic browsing and homework sites I'm confused on.
I have had the displeasure of using a dell precision and a dell lattitude in the last year. One for work one for personal use.
The both had the same issue - the CPU throttling was far too agressive to the point where the would flat out refuse to clock higher than 0.5 - 0.75ghz... For ages.
I shouldn't have to keep going into the thermal management application to change them from default just to wake the power management up so it realises there is work to be done.
Current thinkpad T14 is night and day better than the dell even though it is technically lower spec.
but it’s a minefield of i5, i7, and gen 5,6,7,8,9,10,11 etc of each.
Without going into boring and lengthy detail, gen 7 or older don't support windows 11 full stop.
And gen 10 i3's are pants... Only 2 cores!
So the fast easy answer is at least i5 or better, and gen 10 or newer.
It's a good example of how laptop chips are really cut down versions of desktop 'full fat' cpus.
For example my laptop gen 11 i5 is 4 cores.
My desktop 13th gen i5 has 6 performance cores an 8 'eco' cores.
@cougar
We moved from ‘whatever is cheap’ approach to laptops to exclusively HP Pro book. We’ve 30ish of them now, and yet to have a complaint or failure. They have a lot of metal in them, no creaking or flexing, no dafty keyboard keys falling off, screens last. No failures in 4/5 years of buying them, and mine is the oldest and still going strong.
Good to know, cheers.
Yeah I agree, I'd rather spend a bit more on an 'ultra book' type thing, metal case/chassis rather than plastic, light weight, slim, really portable, depending on screen size as that's pretty much the limiting factor.
They are just nice and sleek to use.
And unless you really need a dedicated GPU, just go with 'onboard' as that will add cost, weight, heat, battery performance, etc.
That i9 OLED is also touch screen
The nicest work laptop I ever had was an HP Spectre. When I retired and it was my own money I bought an Envy, which has also been great.
At work I sell a LOT of HP Probooks and Elitebooks. I have an Elitebook 840 and it’s lovely. Not had a single issue with any of them. Customers are moving from Dell to HP on account of build quality for a given price.
used to sell a fair bit of Lenovo, less so these days. Less so still surfaces.
At work (for Revit use) we used to get Lenovo P5x’s.
There was about a 30% motherboard failure rate across about 30-40 units in less that 3 years (most within a year). I’ve an older on (P52) which seems to be alright (not that heavy a Revit user), mostly just multiple Office files, heaps of pdf’s (at the same time) and autocad (plus outlook, Teams and edge always open…).
When someone leaves ICT take back and reallocate it for non-Revit work and replace new starts with HP Z-somethings for Engineers/Architectural staff….
I also have a personal P42 or 43 that I got 30% off on their offer pre-Covid which I rarely use as with hybrid/wfh, little point… but I got cause I liked my first (work) ThinkPad.
I have had loads of different laptops via work and customers, my preference would be a HP Elitebook or proper Thinkpad with 14” screen, WWAN module and the nipple. For HP’s I’d want to see the screen first, they used to sell some unusually dim screen configurations back in the day.
Only computer ever that has died on me unexpectedly during work day the was an Elitebook, the machine just went blank and at service center they couldn’t even save the SSD. No report was delivered but it unique issue on fleet of few hundred laptops.
I've just been 'upgraded' to a Surface and i'm not enjoying it. Seems slow and runs very hot, everything just feels like its slower. Hopefully work will let me keep the Lenovo Thinkpad and send this back!
My previous Thinkpads have never let me down and were only replaced when my employer sent me a new one.
Thanks for all the input everyone. Finally went with the "better the devil you know" option (another Lenovo IdeaPad).
IdeaPad Pro 14" with Ryzen 7 8845HS, Nvidia RTX 3050, 16gb DDR5, 512gb SSD, 120hz OLED (2880 x 1800 pixels / 2.8K?), WiFi 6E.
Just to be a nit-picker it sounds like the dedicated GPU is surplus to requirement so you might have been able to save a bit of money there depending on how much you paid for the laptop.
@mattyfez I got it on an offer for the same price as the standard one without dedicated graphics was going for on the Lenovo site, so essentially the GPU was a free upgrade - very happy!
Happy days then! it sounds like a good laptop.
Gwan then .. was it new or a refurb, and watcha pay for it?
Brand new, £999 reduced from £1,199.
We have HP elite books through our work, only had good experiences with them
Have a surface for home and I hate the bloody thing it's so underpowered