Looking for a new laptop
Hi,
I've been thinking about a new laptop for general use and development work, not so much gaming, but maybe a little bit and was looking at the HP Omen for £600 at John Lewis (2 year guarentee). It seems to be a lot of power for the price, but I'm thinking that maybe the GFX card is a bit overkill for me.
I also saw this MSI GL62 7GF, also £600, which is similar but with a less powerful GFX card, but apparently better build quality, but only comes with a 1 year warranty.
I'm looking for something to last me a long time (6+ years) so am thinking the build quality of the MSI would be more important for me?
Finally, Dell are doing £100 off their Inspiron 15 5000 which brings it to £478.99 including VAT, delivered. I know the processor is not as good (and only two cores) and the graphics chip is not even in the same solar system, but i's £120 cheaper and I don't really need the graphics power...
What would people recommend? Money isn't really an issue, but I want something powerful for development and good bang for my buck. I think I'm leaning towards the Omen, but would welcome some opinions from people who know more about hardware.
I've been thinking about a new laptop for general use and development work, not so much gaming, but maybe a little bit and was looking at the HP Omen for £600 at John Lewis (2 year guarentee). It seems to be a lot of power for the price, but I'm thinking that maybe the GFX card is a bit overkill for me.
I also saw this MSI GL62 7GF, also £600, which is similar but with a less powerful GFX card, but apparently better build quality, but only comes with a 1 year warranty.
I'm looking for something to last me a long time (6+ years) so am thinking the build quality of the MSI would be more important for me?
Finally, Dell are doing £100 off their Inspiron 15 5000 which brings it to £478.99 including VAT, delivered. I know the processor is not as good (and only two cores) and the graphics chip is not even in the same solar system, but i's £120 cheaper and I don't really need the graphics power...
What would people recommend? Money isn't really an issue, but I want something powerful for development and good bang for my buck. I think I'm leaning towards the Omen, but would welcome some opinions from people who know more about hardware.
Development work? I assume you are a Computer Scientist/Programmer then and comfortable with cracking open a laptop up and doing upgrades?
I highly recommend a used/refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad from the T420 series upwards. They're old machines, but built like a tank and have wonderful keyboards with plenty of travel. Like I said, they're old, but they use the fully powered Intel processors from the 2nd Gen onwards rather than the crappy, low voltage versions that most laptops have these days. You can get one for about £300 max. Just chuck in an SSD, another RAM module and change the display out for an IPS one.
I also notice that you care about build quality. If that is your #1 priority then NOTHING beats a ThinkPad. The keyboard is spill-proof with drainage holes for water, and they have an internal rollcage for max. protection. I know some devs who still use ThinkPads from the old IBM days. Sort of shows how reliable/resilient they are.
I personally use a ThinkPad T440p and added in an SSD with Archlinux running on it. I also have a Dell Inspiron 17 5000 (the one that came out November 2016, so fairly new) and my ThinkPad T440p from 2014 smashes the Dell in terms of real-world performance.
Check out the /r/ThinkPad subreddit if you're interested.
I highly recommend a used/refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad from the T420 series upwards. They're old machines, but built like a tank and have wonderful keyboards with plenty of travel. Like I said, they're old, but they use the fully powered Intel processors from the 2nd Gen onwards rather than the crappy, low voltage versions that most laptops have these days. You can get one for about £300 max. Just chuck in an SSD, another RAM module and change the display out for an IPS one.
I also notice that you care about build quality. If that is your #1 priority then NOTHING beats a ThinkPad. The keyboard is spill-proof with drainage holes for water, and they have an internal rollcage for max. protection. I know some devs who still use ThinkPads from the old IBM days. Sort of shows how reliable/resilient they are.
I personally use a ThinkPad T440p and added in an SSD with Archlinux running on it. I also have a Dell Inspiron 17 5000 (the one that came out November 2016, so fairly new) and my ThinkPad T440p from 2014 smashes the Dell in terms of real-world performance.
Check out the /r/ThinkPad subreddit if you're interested.
(edited 6 years ago)
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