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Buying a new laptop for work use

DRD

DRD

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Oct 26, 2014
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Are there any IT savvy folk on the forum who might be able to help here please ?

My wife is a freelance market researcher who works mainly from home. She also works on trains and takes her laptop to clients' offices

She is after a new work laptop. She mainly uses Word, Excel. Powerpoint. She does a lot of web browsing for background research. She also listens to a lot of digitally recorded interviews. No gaming. We have a wireless home network with repeaters to spread the signal throughout the house, wireless printer, fibre broadband

She is after a new laptop as her 6 yr old "backup" laptop has died, and she needs 2 on the go just in case 1 fails. Key things are:

Around 14" screen
Good keyboard
Fast startup
Fast web browsing
Reliable
Good battery life

Also,what is the best anti virus stuff nowadays ?, we have just used norton for years

She has never used apple software, so microsoft based would be better

Thank you
 
Have a read of the reviews of some of the machines listed here:

http://uk.pcmag.com/laptops/9842/guide/the-10-best-business-laptops-of-2015

Personally I think you can't got wrong with Macbook's. They're far and away the best laptops IMO but not cheap and there's the switch over to OSX to consider. They have the best keyboards, are super reliable and will outlast any Windows based laptop (I'm still using my 2010 Macbook Pro), have great batteries and if you spec one with an SSD and a good amount of RAM then they are fast as well. My recommendation would be the 13in Macbook Air:

http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air?product=MJVG2B/A&step=config#

Spec it with the 2.2Ghz CPU, 8Gb of RAM and whichever flash drive you'd need for storage and that is one sweet machine....it'll probably be around the £1500 mark though.

For Windows machines, Lenovo ThinkPads are good and tough but Mac levels of expensive. Also bear in mind that you'll be wanting a new Windows based laptop a lot sooner than you'd need to replace a Mac. I generally follow the rule of Windows for desktop machines and Mac for laptops :thumbs:
 
Aha. Thanks for this. Sounds like you are the man. Will have a chat when I see you this weekend.

D
 
Spending £1500 on a laptop for the basic tasks you have listed is just unnecessary/waste of money

The things that will make the laptop fast to start/responsive in use are an ssd drive, and a decent amount of ram.

Fast web browsing is mostly down to your internet connection, not the spec/make of laptop

15.4" laptops are the most common so there is plenty of choice in that size.

A Mac is just an Intel based PC in an expensive shell
 
I've got a MacBook Air - the reasons I got it were aesthetics, and that it has a really long battery life (8-11 hours depending on how it's being used). But having been a Windows user previously, I couldn't get on with the Mac software at all - it's very different to windows to the level that it becomes very unintuitive (I'm sure an experienced Mac user would say the same about a transition to windows). I've ended up putting Windows on it using a Mac feature called 'bootcamp', and now it's fine - a nice looking device that works quick enough with the sort of tasks you mentioned, with good battery performance. Personally I wouldn't recommend doing what I did though, unless you really like the look of the case. It's too much hassle and there are far cheaper alternatives that will do the job just as well for a lot less money, and some of them have touch screens too. My father-in-law has got a Thinkpad Yoga (see Rons' link) which is quite nice - it's heavier than my Macbook, and the case isn't as nice looking or durable, but you can use twist the screen and use it like a tablet (with touch screen), which is nice for web surfing.

With anti-virus, I don't bother now I'm on windows 10, I just use the Windows Defender application built in to windows.
 
We use lenovo i5's generally. I have an I7 as i'm a teccy geek, so need the extra processing power, despite the image being crap and killing the machine (I7, runs like an I3).

Used Dells before that, still quite good.

The HP elitebooks are supposed to be quite good for the £££ too

Bit defender is supposed to be the best anti virus/anti malware/anti ransomware out there this month - completely unnoticable and doesnt use too much in the way of system resources. d/l the demo, wait a few days and then buy it for £25 from the email offer you get through, instead of the ridiculous prices they advertise it for :)
 
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