Laptop buying advice.

[TPMB12]

I'm just curious as to what a decent laptop is these days. I have no idea what type of user I come under but I've had a few laptops and haven't been impressed. First off this is for personal use but it's also unofficial work use. By this I mean any work based training courses requiring computer use for coursework and online exams.  Apparently they're done with video enabled,  used through software I think, which isn't possible on work laptop. It  needs to be a decent specification to enable it to meet course requirements.  No idea what they are but I'm guessing midrange spec upwards.

My work laptop is elitebook Pro g8 I think.  It has almost full day battery use which is the best I've experienced. All my laptops end up needing to be used when plugged in or I get an hour at most.  In both cases they started off with about 4 to 6 hours at least. I think something m as good as my work laptop.

Summary,  decent / long battery life, video,  sound,  video conferencing,  complex spreadsheet use,  typical office apps, multitasking, decent screen as its all day use potentially. Preferably capable of heavy use without saying no and dumping battery charge! I might not be joking about that.  Work laptops have had good batteries, home use always poor after a brief period of happy!

Any advice? Any questions you have to give an opinion please let me know.

[TPMB12]

PS I saw Samsung galaxy books this weekend. Obviously the £3500 ones will be right up there but the £599 one seemed pretty good. Are they?

[Feanor]

I just recently inherited this Dell Precision something-or-other that was my work lapdog.
It's now my personal laptop at Feanor Outposts in Edinburgh.

Unless you have some special requirements, then any ex-corporate Dell or similar is just fine.
They would all meet your description, and not too expensive.

[Mr Larrington]

The only thing amiss with my £200 refurbished Dell is that it won’t install Win 11 unless I resort to Underhand Tactics.  So far even the boxes here that can run 11 don’t so I don’t know what I'm missing anyway

[TPMB12]

The only requirement really is handling large spreadsheets and having multiple files open. In my past job they got a decent gaming computer for this reason. No idea whether the features of a gaming device is particularly good for this or not. I do know my laptops running i5 processors were at their limit at times.

Work is 11th gen i5 with 16gb ram. Currently w10 but will go to w11 shortly I think. It goes well enough. Better than my i5 16gb ram lenovo laptop I think. Being work spec my g8 isn't having battery issues yet.

How much extra for work spec / grade laptops over home use ones?

[Kim]

The only thing amiss with my £200 refurbished Dell is that it won’t install Win 11 unless I resort to Underhand Tactics.  So far even the boxes here that can run 11 don’t so I don’t know what I'm missing anyway

In my limited experience, more annoying fondleslab-style shitvert guff in the UI, and that AI assistant thing that's only useful for telling you how to disable the AI assistant thing.

Of course at some point it will become compulsory, but that's what lunix is for.

[Mr Larrington]

Since the first thing I do to any new post-XP Windows installation is to try to make it look and feel as much like XP as possible…

[HTFB]

The difference between this week's brand new i5 Dell Latitude and the previous 6ishyo i7 Dell XPS is mostly that the Latitude can drive twin QHD monitors, a remote desktop connection and Microsoft Teams all at once without sweating. Teams being a teeming pile of steaming resource-hoggery this is very welcome. For mere spreadsheet models I haven't yet noticed a significant improvement.

[fd3]

The only thing amiss with my £200 refurbished Dell is that it won’t install Win 11 unless I resort to Underhand Tactics.  So far even the boxes here that can run 11 don’t so I don’t know what I'm missing anyway

In my limited experience, more annoying fondleslab-style shitvert guff in the UI, and that AI assistant thing that's only useful for telling you how to disable the AI assistant thing.

Of course at some point it will become compulsory, but that's what lunix is for.

There's a way you can turn that hit off???

[fd3]

HTFB, you mean something like this? Or even this?

[Mr Larrington]

The only thing amiss with my £200 refurbished Dell is that it won’t install Win 11 unless I resort to Underhand Tactics.  So far even the boxes here that can run 11 don’t so I don’t know what I'm missing anyway

In my limited experience, more annoying fondleslab-style shitvert guff in the UI, and that AI assistant thing that's only useful for telling you how to disable the AI assistant thing.

Of course at some point it will become compulsory, but that's what lunix is for.

There's a way you can turn that hit off???

Open Shell make modern Fisher-Price Windows interface look like Windows used to, make it all better.  Endorsed.

[fd3]

googles

[Mr Larrington]

Open Shell FTW by Mr Larrington, on Flickr.  Windows 10 on the Great Hall PC.  Note utter lack of fondleslab-stylee things to poke

[fd3]

That is good news, as I often do bad swears at the machine for popping up some new "news" or such because the mouse has had the temerity to head bottom left or right.
Sticking to the OP's post:
this is i7 and stupid amounts of RAM, but I understand it's an older i7, whereas this has been recommended as being a bit newer.
Any thoughts?

[fd3]

I have needed a new laptop for the past 3 years, for the past two I have been using a machine that doesn't have a working "s" key.
I utterly hate laptop shopping, as I have no idea what will run at least as fast as my old machine.
I hate that you can't just tell by looking at whether it is i5/7 and how much RAM it has.

[drossall]

I also use Open Shell - have done for years. And Classic Menu to get sensible menus in Office.