Another "Help me pick a laptop" thread
 

I'm changing jobs and it's probably a good time to change laptops. This is what I'm looking for:

Quad core (AMD or Intel is fine)
USB 3.0 ports
Gigabit NIC
802.11 g/n WiFi
Full dock available as an accessory
Hard drive size doesn't matter, but I'll want to drop in an SSD
Stock memory doesn't matter, but I'll want to drop in 8 gig
HDMI would be nice
BlueTooth
Display at least 1366 x 768

Weight isn't critical, size isn't critical, i.e. I'm not looking for an ultra book
Decent battery life is desireable
I'd prefer Win7 to Win8
Audio doesn't matter -- I'll use headphones or an outboard USB sound card.
CD/DVD/BluRay drive doesn't matter -- I have a portable CD/DVD burner BluRay reader that I can if I need it.

This will be an office desktop replacement, but I'll also be using it for a variety of tasks, from recording audio on location, to editing in Photoshop and Premiere, to writing music with Finale, to watching my Slingbox in airports.

Now the kicker: I need to spend as little as possible.

I've had a number of Vaio laptops, but I find that they're not particularly rugged and tend to be WAY to pricey. I've got an HP dual-core now, and it does pretty well, but the HPs I've seen don't have full docking stations -- they use USB docks, which won't work for me because, in the office, I use dual monitors.

Any suggestions?

Define "as little as possible". What you're describing isn't going to be cheap.

For full docking capability, I'd suggest you start with looking at the business laptops from Lenovo and Toshiba.

Under $1k -- hopefully well under $1k.

That I shall do. Thanks.

AS mentioned in another thread, you may want to look into the lenovo u410/u510

I have the HP 2560p - that entire series have a full dock. You just have to ignore the first 'recommended' one which is the USB p-o-s.

If rugged is important feature, consider Lenovo Thinkpads - highly recommended by a friend of mine in the IT business for people who schlep their notebooks everywhere. Also heavily used by hospitals and clinics for electronic medical records, as carried/moved/mishandled/passed around all day long.

Along with Dell and HP.

Some of the best bang-for-the-buck deals are in the HP Outlet. Problem is that the inventory list is archaic and confusing, and you also have to order by phone. Pick up a used dock off eBay.

Absolutely, sir, right away. And we'll have Kate Upton deliver it. :)

The Dell Outlet is okay and you can order online. Scratch and Dents are a great buy as who really cares if there's a scratch on your laptop so long as everything works fine? Some of them even come with a 3 year warranty!! Sometimes they have coupon sales for 30% off on the outlet, so if you can wait, you can score a great deal.

If OP is going to go this route, I'd suggest an Inspiron 6510 or similar to give him everything he wants at a price <$800.

Didn't know about the HP Outlet, but will check it out sometime.

Edit: looks like there is actually a 30% off sale on Dell Outlet now. Grab it while it lasts!!!

I have been happy with the Vostro 3000 series,

I was looking at a Vostro as it's a no-frills low cost option.... but no docking port :td:

I'm starting to lean towards a couple of the HPs. They don't have a docking station, but I think one of the USB 3.0 port extenders that support dual monitors should do the trick. I need this for work, not for playing games or watching videos, so I think that may work out fine.

This is what I wound up getting:
 

It's a factory refurb in an HP-sealed box, $794, all in:

HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Select Edition 15.6-Inch Entertainment Notebook PC

It's got everything I needed, plus a few extras, e.g. back-lit keyboard and 1920 x 1080 display. I probably wont' drop an SSD in, given that the HD seems pretty efficient. This puppy is actually more powerful than my home desktop, which is 1.6 GHz Intel Quad-Core. No docking station, but I'll get this:

http://www.targus.com/us/productdeta...ing%20Stations

I've got a USB 2.0 docking station I've been using with an old Netbook running Win8 and it has no problem driving (and keeping up with) an HD display.

Specs:

SPECIFICATIONS


PROCESSOR
3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM Processor 2.30GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.30GHz

MEMORY
8GB DDR3 1600Mhz System Memory (2 Dimm) – 16GB Max

HARD DRIVE
750GB 7200 rpm Hybrid Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection

DISPLAY
15.6-inch diagonal Full HD Anti-glare LED-backlit Display (1920 x 1080)

MULTIMEDIA DRIVE
SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support

CHASSIS
Aluminum chassis in midnight black (metal)

VIDEO GRAPHICS
NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 630M Graphics with 1GB GDDR 3 memory [HDMI, VGA] w/webcam

DIGITAL MEDIA
Multi-Format Digital Media Card Reader
NETWORKING
External 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN RJ-45 connect

COMMUNICATION
Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth + WIDI

SECURITY
Integrated Fingerprint Reader

KEYBOARD
Full size backlit keyboard with numeric keypad

POINTING DEVICE
TouchPad


EXTERNAL PORTS
3 SuperSpeed USB 3.0; 1 USB 2.0; 1 HDMI; 1 VGA; 1 headphone-out; 1 microphone-in

ADDITIONAL PORTS
RJ-45

SOUND
Beats(TM) audio + HP Triple Bass Reflex Subwoofer

POWER
6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery, 120W AC

OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit
SOFTWARE
HP Easy Setup
HP Advisor
HP Help & Support Center
HP MediaSmart puts Entertainment at your fingertips
Norton Internet Security 60-day subscription
MSN Live Messenger

WEIGHT
5.78 lbs

DIMENSIONS
14.88 x 9.71 x 1.22 in

THINNESS
1.22"

http://www.ebay.com/itm/360640132596...84.m1497.l2649

You still might consider dropping in a SSD - for 2 reasons. 1) The normal HDD seems fast now but will get sluggish over time, and 2) battery conservation.

What you described seems like it'll eat through the battery in no time. If battery life is still one of your criteria, then the SSD will extend it noticeably.

It's very easy to pop the 500 GB SSD out of my current laptop and drop it into the new one -- they're both HPs, and it's just a cover on the bottom with a single screw, so I guess that I will. Battery life is useful, but the least critical for what I'll be doing -- I should always be somewhere near an outlet. HP has a 9-cell replacement for the stock 6-cell which I can get later if I really need it. Right now, I'm looking for a desktop replacement that will work on the road in hotel rooms and at client sites, and will also keep me amused and occupied during those long, lonely nights on the road and the inevitable hours spent sitting at airport bars waiting for flights. That's why I sprang for the full HD screen (love my movies). I probably won't use it in the air -- it's a little to big for Y, and I have a tablet and my iPod for in-flight entertainment. There shouldn't be that many occasions when I'm dependent on battery power. I'll also be using it for remote recording sessions (my hobby), writing music, etc., and it's got more than enough power for that -- in fact, more power than the desktop that I currently use for all of this. And, finally, assuming I get to start taking vacations again at some point, the lighted keyboard will make it a lot easier to use without disturbing my sleeping wife. The idea of a subwoofer in a laptop is, frankly, laughable, but I always use headphones anyway.

At this point, I can't recall the difference between Win7 home premium and Win7 pro. As I recall, it primarily has to do with networking and joining a domain (or was that Vista?). That's the only upgrade that I'm planning, and then only if I need it to use at my new office. 8 gig of RAM is plenty (though I'm curious what 16 gig in a fastish quad core would be like on things like Photoshop and my music software).

OK, that pretty much limits you to the following machines:
Lenovo Thinkpad T/W/X series
Dell Latitude E6xxx series
Dell Precision Mobile Workstation Mxxxx
...plus a few business-line HPs I haven't looked at in years...
(eta: ...plus someone mentioned that Toshiba still had real docks... I had thought they'd abandoned the enterprise space, but if not, I used to have very good luck with their stuff.)

Quad core rules out the smaller models. So you pretty much have the following models to look at.

Dell Latitude E6430 (14.0") or E6530 (15.6")
Dell Precision Mobile Workstation M4700 (15.6") or M6700 (17.3")
Lenovo Thinkpad T530 or W530 (both 15.6")

Dells have it. Lenovos have Displayport, which is a $10 converter.

BTW, consider 16gb not 8gb. The price difference is about $40 ($89 for a kit, vs $50ish for a 8gb 2x4 kit or one 8gb DIMM) and if that price difference really matters, consider getting 1x 8gb and upgrading later so you don't have to throw the memory away.

Buy a 9-cell battery for any of the above, and you're good. Except for the Dell Precisions, you can put a 2nd battery in the bay, although it's a small 3-cell.

Readily doable on any of the business-line machines.

Audio doesn't matter -- I'll use headphones or an outboard USB sound card.
Unavoidable, but you can always use the bay slot for something else later, and except for the Dell Precisions, all of the above have a bay slot.

This will be an office desktop replacement, but I'll also be using it for a variety of tasks, from recording audio on location, to editing in Photoshop and Premiere, to writing music with Finale, to watching my Slingbox in airports.

What's as little as possible? The cheapest models there is the Dell E6430 although a Lenovo T530 might be close. I just priced it build-to-order on the Dell web site, and assuming you drop in the memory and SSD upgrades yourself, you're looking at $1110.96 plus tax and shipping.

That's with the 1366x768 screen; I'd recommend the small extra cost for the 1600x900.

If you need cheaper, you could look at refurbs. I've had great luck with Dell refurbs, and they run sales very very frequently. Finding the higher configs with the quad core isn't hard; finding the better screens are trickier.

I run a E6430 myself in a roughly similar configuration, bought as a refurb, and am very happy with it. I've upgraded the hard drive to an SSD, and the memory to 16gb.

We run a ton of W530s at work because our technical consultants say they need 32gb, and it's easier to get the same model as tech consulting for the minority of developers who want laptops rather than desktops. Other than 2 more memory slots and a bigger GPU, the T530 is essentially the same machine.

Agree with what you have to say man - very detailed post. Looks like the 30% off coupon I just posted expired - too bad for the OP.

A recommended setup for OP would be to get the 6000 series inspiron and buy a CD-ROM HDD dock from ebay. Put in a small cheap SSD as the main OS Drive and then throw in a 750GB-1TB drive as the storage drive in the dock.

I have a ThinkPad X1 Carbon (great laptop but doesn't meet your inexpensive requirement) that I use with a USB 3.0 port extender at home. Works great with a pair of 23" monitors at 1920x1080.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/itemdetail...BAF06F8726DA3E

I was skeptical at first but there's no lag, no jitter, nothing -- it's no different from my work desktop with the same monitors.

Thanks, Blort. I checked reviews and the Lenovo seems the best. I just bought one on eBay (used, but in good condition) for $99.

It came! Mini-review
 

This machine is wonderful! Fantastic display, full keyboard with numeric keyboard and lightning fast! It's got a 750 Gb hard drive that seems pretty fast. Still, I'm prepping an SSD now. Seems a shame to waste 3/4s of a TB and the SSD is only 55 Gb, but the Windows Performance Index shows that the hard drive is the weakest link, so I'll pop it into a portable carrier and use it as an external. I love the i7 quad -- it's hyper-threaded, so it shows up to the OS as 8 cores.

More bucks than I wanted to spend, but my New Best Friend should be good for a few years, particularly given that it's the fastest machine I now own.

How much was this unit?
 

Looking for something similar....what was the final cost you think?

There was no tax and free shipping, so it came to just under $800. I paid $99 for a 2-year warranty (the refurb has a 90-day HP warranty). I swapped in an SSD that I had in another machine, so there was no cost for that. However, this machine is plenty fast with the stock HD. The Windows Performance Index for the stock HD is 5.6, for the SSD 7.3. As a bonus this machine came with the 9-cell battery, instead of the 6-cell that was listed in the eBay add. It was factory sealed, HP-refurbished. I definitely recommend this eBay seller.

Thanks
 

Sounds perfect! Who was the ebay seller? I'd like to follow up with them if possible.

The ebay name is "colocomputer." It's Colorado Computer. Their eBay page is here:

http://myworld.ebay.com/colocomputer...p2047675.l2559

It contains a link to their eBay store. If you buy from them, please let them know it's because I said good things about them on another website. I think good merchants like to know they're getting word-of-mouth.

Careful with that docking station - I have a client who has one that gives her a lot of odd video problems.

Way too late to the party I now see. :)

Update on the Lenovo USB 3.0 Docking Station
 

I've got two of these -- one for home and one for work. When I first set them up, they seemed okay, but only just okay. This morning, I noticed during boot-up that Windows was giving me the, "This device can run faster if plugged into a SuperSpeed 3.0 USB port" message. After a little poking around, I realized that I had plugged the Lenovo into the ONLY USB 2.0 port on my laptop -- it has 3-3.0 USB ports and 1-2.0 USB port. Amazingly, the Lenovo was providing my LAN connection AND running two monitors, one 1920x1200 and one 1920x1080, from a USB port and I though performance was "okay." Now it's plugged into a proper 3.0 port and this thing is absolutely amazing. Both monitors' displays are smooth and rock-solid, my LAN speed is the full gigabit that I expected (I did notice the LAN seemed a tad slow, but not terribly so).

I definitely recommend this docking station. I cannot detect any difference between running with the docking station or running with everything plugged individually into the laptop. Amazing!

A Post-Script: I'm a Happy Camper!
 

I've now had my new HP dv6t-7000 laptop for more than a month and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!

It went with me on a 4-day business trip to Canada. In addition to the usual business-type tasks (email, reviewing and revising documents, etc.), I used it to:

- Watch my Slingbox in the airport bar
- Watch an HD movie on the plane (I had one of the magic Y exit row window seats with no seat in front of it)
- Watch ripped BluRay movies on the SSD and programs via the Slingbox in the hotel room by connecting it via HDMI to the room television (I nice 42" LCD)
- Use it with MagicJack to call home
- Skype with video to my writing partner

I've dropped a 500g SSD into it, and blown out the memory to maximum 16g that it can handle. I'm also in the process of replacing the DVD drive with a BluRay (darn Amazon vendor sent me the wrong one, so I have to exchange it). Note, too, that these options would raise the price from HP by $800 or more. However, I got the memory for $120, already had the SSD (and it was only $300 when I bought it), and the BluRay drive (R/W) was $114.

It also supports WiDi. With a $22 receiver from Amazon, I can stream from the living room DVR via the Slingbox to the bedroom TV, with all connections wireless. Even with all this wireless activity, after watching an hour of television, the battery showed it was down only by about 10% (mine came with the 9-cell battery).

The machine is super fast -- the most powerful computer I've owned, and runs rings around my 4-year old quad core desktop at home. Though a bit on the heavy side, it's beautiful 1920 x 1080 screen, full lighted keyboard with numeric keypad, and USB 3.0 ports more than make up for the extra weight. The battery seems to last forever.
It feels sturdy and solid, has great fit-and-finish and, as you can guess from above, upgrading it is very, very easy.

Not only the best machine I've ever owned, but the best value, too.

New laptop suggestions
 

Good afternoon everyone,

I am shopping for a new laptop to tote around for work. My company just completely locked down their provided laptop so looking for a replacement that would allow me to do personal and work related items while in the hotel.

Basic needs:
Be able to run Citrix client in a Windows or Apple environment (can't use Chromebook with my company security settings).
Basic internet work outside of Citrix.
Under $300.
Lightweight
VGA Port

Any suggestions? Am open to new or used.

Thanks!

Used, a Lenovo X200s would be about perfect, and probably in your price range. If you don't care about speed, the Dell D420 or D430 would also probably be in that price range, and even lighter but they are seriously slow.

If you can tolerate the 10" screen, undersize keyboard, and super-slow speed, there are still a few 10" netbooks on the market. This one comes with Ubuntu but could be reformatted with Winodows:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834231067
This one has the very limited windows 7 starter:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...biclehermit-20
Windows 8 Non-Pro, and 11.6":
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...biclehermit-20

(All of the above will be slower than the used Dells I'd find too slow, and WAY slower than the Lenovo X200s, itself way slower than most new ultrabooks let alone a full power machine. Personally, the X200s with a Core 2 Duo ULV at 1.8ghz is pretty much my benchmark for the minimum that's tolerable for moderate MS Office use and web browsing, but others' mileage will vary.)

If you can go up to $380+tax/shipping, Dell has a thin-and-light 14" (the Inspiron 14z) on refurb sale: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/22/c...delphi:gr=true
which will be way faster than any of the above (it's a midrange ultrabook processor) and have a bigger screen, but you're giving up quite a bit of extra weight -- it's a thin-and-light around 4.5lbs, so not super, but it's the cheapest thing Dell has with a decent processor that isn't a full weight (5lb+) model with a 15" screen

There are quite a few models between $300-$400 with a netbook class processor and an 11.6" screen.

This one has a slightly better CPU, just under $400:
ASUS X202E - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834231119
(also on Amazon)
or a similar specs open box:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16834230706R

Thank you nkedel! Very much appreciated. Guess I have some shopping to do now :)

Very glad to validate specs if you see something you're interested in.

BTW for benchmarks, while there are not a lot of good CPU benchmarks on low-end CPUs out there, http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ (aka Passmark) is a good quick reference site. I'd aim for a Passmark of about 1200 minimum these days, although more patient folks will probably tolerate anything reasonably close to 1000.

Sadly, the really nice crop of 13" ultrabooks and 12.5" subnotebooks tend to start at around $600 even on sale or sold as refurb (with warranty.) The Asus UX31 or the Dell XPS 13 are good examples of the former, and the Lenovo X220/X230 and Dell E6220/E6230 of the latter.

For Dell, I tend to buy refurb, and wait for 20-25% on their outlet site; https://twitter.com/delloutlet lists the sales and the warranty is same-as-new. Lenovo has an outlet as well, but doesn't seem to run sales as frequently; the best prices I've seen on them are surplus new models (e.g. if someone still has an X220 in stock, or the X230 once the newer model comes out this fall).

The Lenovo X201 is a pretty sweet system (a little heavier/thicker than the X200s, but still very light) and it's a full-power laptop (1st-generation-for-laptops Core i5, still quite quick by today's standards) and they're very durable. Not likely to be many under $300, but the first one to come up on eBay is $300 even: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Think...item4ac6c4d1f7

BTW what model is your work laptop? If you have something relatively standard like a Dell Latitude or Lenovo Thinkpad, getting another model of sufficiently close relation might be worthwhile -- then you only need to haul around one power cord for both. :)

Thank you again!

I actually have the Lenovo X201 for a work computer. I like the idea of the same (or similar model). I would probably travel with just the one and remote into my virtual machine in the evenings. At most of my office locations I have access to a networked desktop.

I'm very fond of the X200s/X201-220-230.

Depending on how locked-down it is, one other super-cheap option* would be to buy your own hard drive (or small SSD) and swap it into the work-provided X201 for personal stuff.

(* sub-$100 for the HDD, around $100-120 for the SSD, plus a little bit on ebay for a drive caddy. After that, if I recall the machine right, it's one screw to take out.)

That's an interesting idea. I think I like it! Would also need to buy Win 7, right? Or is there a way to copy the OS boot from the default HD to the personal one?

You probably don't need to buy Windows 7. The license is typically tied to the machine, or for some corporate licenses, to the user. Either way, if you have Win7 on there from your work, you're legal; depending on the type of license it has, it may or may not be practical -- but it probably is.

If the machine came with it, and has a Certificate of Authenticity on the bottom where the serial number is still legible, then you're definitely good.

You will need to get a Windows 7 DVD of the right edition (a free, legal download from Microsoft's digital delivery partner -- the key being that you need your own legit serial number), then reinstall it on the new hard drive.

If your machine came with an earlier version of Windows (as shown on the CoA), you know the Windows 7 license provided by your work will be some other sort of corporate license. Some of these activate against Microsoft (in which case, the identical machine should do just fine) and some against a corporate server in house (in which case a clean install you do won't activate, and you're out of luck.) I'm not aware of any practical way to check what product key type it is (there is a Microsoft tool to do so, but it's somewhat esoteric) ... so really the thing to do is to run a key recovery program (like NirSoft's -- assuming the machine is not too locked down to do so) and try the key on the fresh install.

If your machine does not have a legible CoA, it's similarly basically a matter of recovering the key and reinstalling and seeing if it will activate -- although the odds are better, since a lot of companies do keep the machine's basic license.

(If, however, the edition provided is Windows 7 Enterprise then you know it's a corporate license and it will not be practical to reinstall it yourself.)

The legit downloads for Windows 7 are linked to from here (and many other places!)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/wind...languages.html

Make sure the site being downloaded from is "msft.digitalrivercontent.net"

Also, you will need to make sure the edition (Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate) matches the edition on your CoA sticker (or what's already installed if doing key recovery.) The binary version (32-bit x86 or 64-bit x64) does not have to match what was already installed.

This does assume you are comfortable reinstalling Windows yourself.

It IS possible to make a clone of one hard drive onto another hard drive/SSD to move the Windows install; it's not very hard -- CloneZilla is one good free tool to do it. But if the original is a locked-down install from work, that may either (A) prevent cloning, or (B) subverting the locked-down-ness after doing the clone may prove a pain in the neck.

Note also that there are some forms of locked down (including, notably, bitlocker encryption, some other kinds of preboot authentication/encryption, and some forms of BIOS password) that might make it difficult to do the HD swap -- or at least to swap back to the work-provided disk and have it work.

I just bought a used Lenovo X200s (with a 9-cell battery and an ultrabay, without the HD) for $200 shipped from the marketplace on the ThinkPads.com forums. I already had a 64Gb SSD that I installed, put Windows 7 on it and am very pleased with this laptop - heckuva value for a very usable, compact and lightweight machine with a nice 1440x900 display.

Lenovo leaked some info on the upcoming ThinkPad T440s - it's 14" instead of the 13" I'd prefer, but it is (finally) 1920x1080 IPS and it'll be Haswell. I'll likely be able to keep my 20-year streak of ThinkPad purchases going.

i recently bought a new levono laptop. it no do win 7. no drivers. cheap machine., so don't just say load win 7 in a win 8 machine. i cannot run the machine, and am sufficiently brain damaged that i cannot learn win 8. i understand win 8.1 is a great improvement, but i'm going to move on. see next post.

i cannot get started on win 8. so i have decided to buy a mac laptop. if one gets a macbookair, how does one enhance 256gb HD. does one use something for external additional storage, or is one just extremely judicious with garbage collection? cloud storage maybe?