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Laptops

Hardwrkr13

Hardwrkr13

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My 12yr old Acer laptop keeps freezing so I might be in the market for a new one. It'll usually freeze once or twice a week for years now but it's doing it daily now. Might be time for a new one I'm thinking. I don't need a lot of processing power. I don't know much about specs. Use it mostly for trading stocks a couple hours a day and would like to stick with a 17" screen. I hate anything Apple so not going there.
Any recommendations on what to look for and places to shop? Figured with boxing day sales this might be a good time as well.
 
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Hardwrkr13 said:
My 12yr old Acer laptop keeps freezing so I might be in the market for a new one. It'll usually freeze once or twice a week for years now but it's doing it daily now. Might be time for a new one I'm thinking. I don't need a lot of processing power. Use it mostly for trading stocks a couple hours a day and would like to stick with a 17" screen. I hate anything Apple so not going there.
Any recommendations on what to look for and places to shop? Figured with boxing day sales this might be a good time as well.
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www.canadacomputers.com

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www.canadacomputers.com www.canadacomputers.com

usually have something on sale.

i'd say i5/amd equivilent and 8gb of ram at a minimum these days.

like this;

www.canadacomputers.com

HP Notebook 17.3

HP Consumer Notebook 17.3" FHD Intel i5-1335U Intel Iris Xe 8GB 1TB SSD Windows 11 Home, 17-cn3010ca
www.canadacomputers.com www.canadacomputers.com
 
I generally like Lenovo Thinkpad X, T & E series (particularly the E series). E Series 14" AMD models are on sale right now, but I can practically guarantee they will also have Boxing Week sales.

Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 (14″ AMD)

Meet the Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 (14″ AMD) business laptop, designed for an evolving workplace. Powerful, fast, and lightweight, with up to a beautiful WUXGA display.
www.lenovo.com

If you have access to the Lenovo employee pricing through Perkopolis or whatever, the discount stacks on top of the sale price.
 
Idk anything about computers, but if @Evoex likes the one they posted, then this might be a better option if you have a Costco membership



This is online price
If they have it in-store, then it may be cheaper


Someone with more knowledge please chime in
566443d69d87375f452a6dde6b4f1578.jpg


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I have a deep grudge against HP/Compaq laptops, but for all I know they make perfectly fine computers now lol

Edit: I can think of one semi-recent instance where AMD introduced an extremely aggressive power saving policy at the BIOS level for their mobile SKUs. Lenovo just implemented it without question, HP implemented a version where you could at least turn it off.

 
I like Lenovo T series personally. Not sure if they have 17" t series.

Refurb.io is a stupid name but a decent website. Off lease so they aren't the latest but cheap enough that it makes sense. I've bought a few from them and so have other family members.
 
I’m a huge fan of the Surface Pro line. My SP3 is slowly showing its age but I bought it used 7 years ago for $500. Got my moneys worth out of it.

Looking for used SP5-7 also.
 
I'm going to be the jackass to throw out a useless Apple recommendation, you can pick up a refurb 15" Macbook Air for $1500 plus tax. Apple refurb is essentially brand new, with full warranty, in a plain box.

The Air will give you actual portability, amazing battery life (easily 10+ hours), great keyboard and trackpad, decent screen, and all the other perks that go along with Apple products.

I use a brand new mid-level Dell for work and want to throw it against the wall anytime I'm using it in laptop mode.
 
I’m using an HP pro series right now , it replaced a Thinkpad , we used thinkpads for 20yrs at work , they are now so expensive new , we buy HP for less than half price and replace faster . 5-7yrs is all we get out of laptops . We have about 40 across the company .

I really want to try a Mac , the transition may be hard for me .


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crankcall said:
I really want to try a Mac , the transition may be hard for me .
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I used to buy Macbookpros. At the time, their trackpad and screens were miles better than everybody else. That gap has now closed to zero. I still have the last one I bought and it still works fine. It was a refurb (only way that makes sense to buy macs imo) that listed low five figures. The price to performance just made no sense anymore for me and I prefer the T series I have bought after. The biggest issue I had with OSX was if it goes wrong (which happened rarely) it was a spectacular pita to revive it. You basically needed another computer running OSX to get it back.

FWIW, I hate 17" laptops. They are miserable beasts to move around and battery life normally sucks. I either use smaller computers and external monitors or AIO for similar performance with a far bigger screen for computers that don't move often.
 
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I have a Lenovo X1 and a MacBook Pro right now. My work gives me an allowance to get tech equipment and I usually max it out on the specs. I’ve had a bunch of stuff in the past and always keep coming back to Lenovo. Their higher end machines are built very well. The MacBook Pro is also built incredibly well but it will cost twice the price at least. Spend a tiny bit more to get something futureproof and better build. Some friends really like Dell machines too.

Edit: get a smaller screen laptop and a larger supplementary display. Best of both worlds.

Edit #2. Contact the official supplier of wherever you went to school and mention you’re an alumni. Their prices can’t be beaten usually and I’m not that sure they really care who they sell to. I got a Dell monitor for a steal from mine.
 
I would say Lenovo business line is the only laptop you would want. Anything else is junk.

The Carbon are nice but limited in terms of upgrading as the RAM is soldered on. Cannot be upgraded or replaced if failing.

I don't like laptop with big screens as they are more like a mobile desktop. Get a 14 inch screen and a monitor of whatever size.

The Microsoft Surface line is also great. I have had several over the year/generations and I would recommend one.

Do you want new? If you are OK with off lease, I can help you you. Great price with lots of life left in them. Just PM me.

As for specs.
minimum would be i5 and 8GB ram with SSD/NVME drive for storage.
Try to find something with a physical LAN port as well as USB C.
 
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Lenovos for me. I have an Lenovo X1 laptop for work, an a $150 Lenovo Chromebook for the garage.

The Chromebook is good for everything I need, fast, cheap and dependable. It is dependent on a decent internet connection.
 
Get a hub monitor. It’s life changing, One cord powers everything and sorts out the extended display and sound and you plug whatever you need into ports on the monitor rather than the laptop. Mouse, keyboard dongles, hard drive thumb drive etc. If you need to grab and go it’s one cord that gets unplugged and off you pop. This is if you have a thunderbolt or latest USB C with power delivery machine. Also try to match the resolution of your display to your laptop somewhat otherwise you’ll need to mess about with settings a bit.
 
I'm typing this on a Lenovo Ideapad. I have two of them, both originally started as work computers then I kept them after work was done with them. The older one can't run windows 11, and now serves to play video to my TV. The newer one has windows 11.

I don't know what's inside computers. I sit in front of them and type at them, and historically I used them for work until something broke, usually a couple of years. We've had Acers, we've had other brands. The older Lenovo was the first one that survived long enough for its software to become out of date before either the battery life became unacceptably short, or keys stopped working. I'm typing this, on that older Lenovo. The newer one is having windows 11 problems ... the computer is fine (as far as I can tell), it's windows that's acting up.
 
Lenovo, for the longest time was the recipient of the "best keyboard" award.
They have changed it a little over the years but I find it to be the easiest to type on. Unless you are are single finger hacker.
 
Wife has the office and I'm not redoing it so there's a spot for me and a laptop and additional screen and hub etc. An hour or two on the laptop at the dining table is all I need and then it goes away. I use a mouse and not the touchpad.
Thanks I'll look at the HP and Lenovo units. I see a lot of similar basic specs so I don't know what model would be more future-proof over another.
 
Hardwrkr13 said:
Wife has the office and I'm not redoing it so there's a spot for me and a laptop and additional screen and hub etc. An hour or two on the laptop at the dining table is all I need and then it goes away. I use a mouse and not the touchpad.
Thanks I'll look at the HP and Lenovo units. I see a lot of similar basic specs so I don't know what model would be more future-proof over another.
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there's no really future proofing laptops as most of the hardware cannot be replaced.
 
Hardwrkr13 said:
Wife has the office and I'm not redoing it so there's a spot for me and a laptop and additional screen and hub etc. An hour or two on the laptop at the dining table is all I need and then it goes away. I use a mouse and not the touchpad.
Thanks I'll look at the HP and Lenovo units. I see a lot of similar basic specs so I don't know what model would be more future-proof over another.
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If you're buying refurbished check for the original release date and pick recent. Refurb.io has some that are 10 years old. They are cheap but not what I would choose for your situation.

I wouldnt be too concerned about the viability of any recent business warrior machine (Lenovo, hp pro, etc). Hp consumer models suck donkey balls imo. Fwiw, most of the crap computers seem to come with 15.6" screens.

Costco return policy is great. You could look there and take one for a 30 day test drive. Mostly consumer focused models but they don't all suck.
 
Evoex said:
there's no really future proofing laptops as most of the hardware cannot be replaced.
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Agreed. Buy something decent and expect to replace it more often than a desktop. Fwiw, I still use a t450s as a backup laptop and it still works well. It is about 8 years old.
 
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