What's your method for shopping for laptops?
Just wondering how other technically inclined individuals go about this.
For my daily driver machines I usually buy Macs and build towers, which are simple enough — on the Mac, figure out needs and slightly overbuy, and on towers put some research into parts to find those with the best reviews and bang for buck. Pretty straightforward.
I also keep around a generic x86 laptop though, and I might be replacing the one I have currently in the coming months. Shopping for its replacement unfortunately is not so clean and simple. There is to my knowledge no laptop-shopper analogue of PCPartPicker for laptops for instance and retailer search tools are terrible (especially Amazon's), which makes filtering out the noise practically impossible. It gets even harder if you're looking for certain features and especially less tangible things like build quality, QC, and battery life. Review sites often aren't of much help, with skin-deep reviews that frequently miss major points and pay little mind to things that may become issues in long-term usage.
And yet clearly, plenty of people are buying laptops, which brings me back to the topic question. How does everybody go about their laptop shopping?
Used business laptops.
As far as what brand to get, I've had great experiences with both Lenovo Thinkpads and HP EliteBooks.
Dell Latitudes are also good, so are Dell Precisions and HP Zbooks if you're looking for a bit more performance.
Ebay is littered with $1500 laptops less than 2 years old being sold for $400. With consumer brands this is a bit of a gamble, but with business machines you're pretty much guaranteed they'll be working fine. Also often these came with 3yr warranties that aren't even expired yet.
The last laptop I bought was a HP Zbook Studio G3, which originally cost $4000. I got it for $900, with 30 months left on its 36mo warranty (with accidental damage, worldwide on-site repair, etc). It had an accident shortly before the warranty ran out so they sent me a brand new $4000 Zbook Studio X360 G6 (with another 3yr warranty which I never used) and it's still going strong after 3 years of abuse. I throw the thing around a lot and have lived on the road for a couple years during that time. Lots of dust, water exposure, and just general scratches and dents from being in luggage and thrown around, etc.
Business laptops are generally where I look first as well when needing an x86 laptop, at least if it doesn't need to game well. If on a budget, also agree with buying used.
Where used doesn't shine as well is in the battery life department. Up until the last couple of generations of Intel and AMD CPUs, that had a strong tendency to be somewhere between bad and lackluster.
+1 for this. I normally buy a ~4-5 year old Lenovo Thinkpad and then absolutely run it into the ground for like 5 years. I actually just set my brother up with a new (old) laptop this weekend. He was looking at all these low to mid level laptops and I found one on Facebook marketplace refurbished with similar specs for about half the price.
This is especially great advice is you run Linux. You can breathe new life into old machines by running a lighter weight OS. I have Arch installed on an old Thinkpad and it runs like it was brand new. You know... except for all the dings and scratches.
It seems like the business market might leave you wanting in the customization end though. My experience is that companies buy machines with garbage screens and underspec’d memory. The nice thing about a thinkpad is there should be options to upgrade it yourself, but that should be budgeted in
I like the in house reviews at NotebookCheck. They provide info on storage performance, battery life, noise, and heat. For my last two laptops I've thought about my requirements and used their reviews to build my shortlist of models.
I agree. I was looking for a cheap laptop that had a good amount of ports, a good keyboard, and acceptable battery life as it was mostly going to be for the odd work item but mostly just an extra one to have around. I eyed a few and notebookcheck pointed out some flaws in the ones I was looking at that no other review sites mentioned. Instead I used their reviews to find a Lenovo (yes, I know some of their products can be flawed) yoga that normally was a chrome book but they also made it in an i5 windows laptop. The hdmi out (that many companies are nixing) became extremely useful as my main desktop has had more problems recently so I was able to use it for watching stuff when I had to do some debugging. They keyboard is excellent as notebookcheck pointed out. Their review was 100% accurate in that they said it was a little heavy and the screen wasn't the best, but for the price it is a fast laptop that is well built and easily upgradeable.
Giving support to Notebookcheck was exactly what I clicked here for.
Specifically their thoroughness about every detail, including going past "Does the screen look good? Y/N" that most other reviewers leave it at.
Lots of other outlets won't even mention PWM screen dimming tech as a thing, which you can believe for yourself about how big of an issue PWM really is.
I personally have to look at screens for long portions of my day and I'd simply prefer if they weren't microflickering all the time while I do so.
I needed a laptop but nothing high-end, just enough to browse the web/do some lazy streaming. I built a PC for gaming purposes. Instead of buying a brand new laptop I tried dell refurbished: https://www.dellrefurbished.com/
I was able to buy a newer gen i5 with 8 gigs of ram on a touchscreen for about $400. I upgraded the ssd and replaced the battery myself. I suites my needs perfectly.
The inventory fluctuates so you can find some really nice deals if you're patient enough.
I’ve been applying for remote, cleared contractor positions, so my main criteria has been a Trade Agreements Act (TAA) compliant model. (Basically, it can only be made in certain US-aligned countries.) Additionally, I would need a smart card reader (e.g., for a CAC), so I’m looking for one built-in (to minimize peripherals while on the go), which basically limits me to Dell Latitudes and Precisions. Won’t buy it until I actually get the job. If I wasn’t limited by those criteria, I’d honestly probably just consult with Rtings.
My last "generic x86" laptop buy was a $250 enterprise refurb. I've had it for four years now, and it's ended up being my favorite laptop I've ever owned.
Runs Debian XFCE flawlessly OOTB, types smoothly, and miraculously still holds a decent charge. The only things I run on it are Firefox, VLC, VS Code, and a terminal, so despite the shit specs, I've never once felt limited by hardware (speaking as an absolute hardware fiend, btw).
Unless you have specific business requirements, my advice is to buy a dumb shell with an SSD and a keyboard you like - then call it a day. You'll have cash to try again if you don't like it, and the cloud is at your beck and call if you need the storage or compute... but you probably won't.
For me it tends to be pretty simple. I have two use cases, gaming and home office type stuff, so it boils down to two ways of looking for things.
For gaming - GPU First. I look for a specific GPU, and then look at the rest of the configuration within those results. Usually the rest of the system is configured in line with how well that GPU performs, though not always. So the goal is to filter out sub-optimal configurations. Finally with what remains, I'll check out review material to see how the build quality and maintenance are.
For productivity, I tend to drop a lot of the focus on specific components and instead look for a nice screen (since that is what I'm going to be engaging with all the time). So for that, it's similar to the gaming machine, just focused on a different component - what's the cheapest 120hz OLED I can grab, basically. The rest doesn't matter because any halfway modern machine is going to do this job just fine. It mostly just needs to be compact/easy to carry, and nondescript.
In general I'm brand agnostic - if you put out a machine that aligns with what I'm looking for I will look at it. But there are a couple where I almost always do additional research. MSI seems to be kinda shit at designing cooling systems (at least in my limited experience), so I'll almost always doublecheck one if it makes it into the list. It's rare to see Dell or HP because they tend to overcharge for high end stuff. Lenovo I personally try to avoid but they also tend not to make it into the list for the same reason as Dell/HP. Acer almost always makes it into the list, but gets passed up when I check out reviews - sometimes they just go a little too hard on being cheap. But mostly I just follow that process and see what comes of it.
The last MSI I bought literally melted the laptop feet lol. The aluminum frame would get so hot you couldn't rest your arms on it to type.
For laptops I look for a device that has good Linux support AND good performance running virtual machines/containers and that's it.
So often this just turns into a numbers game with I look for a model ~1 years old (Linux probably supported then) for not more then 1200 euro with 1TB of diskspace and minimum 16gig of ram.
I generally look for Laptops that aren’t meant for performance, cause Laptops are usually such a pain to maintain(replace paste, do other things) and use a Desktop for more powerful tasks(Gaming, if I ever need to do editing that can’t be done on the Laptop).
I think I’d look mainly into MSI or Asus(though I think Asus is under fire recently?), Haven’t looked into business laptops because the used market here is quite different than the US. But I hear they’re often a good choice and actually durable/long lasting unlike most laptops you’d find in stores.
I buy the best Thinkpad I can afford. There's nothing else around that hits the repairability/power-per-£/build quality/keyboard excellence/linux-friendliness mark for me. Last purchase I actually specced my own which was nice because I could only have the things I want and not the things I didn't, previous purchases have been more along the lines of "what's on sale" but I had a little more budget last time. Even better, I bought just a few months before the chip shortage hit and prices went a little crazy.
Other people often ask me for buying advice and I tell them to go to John Lewis (UK department store with excellent customer service and a reputation for quality) and buy whatever they like the look of that fits their budget, with a strong suggestion to make it a Lenovo. If you're asking me for buying advice you have no specific technical requirements and everything John Lewis sell is good. Also if it's not, people can take it back within a month for a full refund, no questions asked.
Usually I just go with brand/company that I somehow trust,
then filter by necessary parameters - for me its a big screen, fullsize keyboard, count of USB ports
(yet I always use external display, external keyboard and USB hub),
and then just choose laptop with best parameters (RAM, GPU, SDD/HDD size, etc).
Thats all.
I can't complain about my last 5 or 6 laptops... so.... for me it works.
I haen't bought laptop in like... 15 years probably.
But I help pick laptops for relatives and friends. Since all of them are on the cheap side (many prefer the cheapest possible actually), I'm kinda steering them towards something usable.
In my eyes, usable laptop should have at the very least Core i3 or Ryzen 2 with i5/Ryzen 5 being the better option if a but of money is not a concern.
It should have at the very least 8GB of RAM, but I look for 16GB variants first. Preferably slotted or with one slot free for expansion.
SSD of any kind (removable though) with size not being the concern or selected by end user.
I like smaller laptops like 14" more, so I tend to pick those, it should have FullHD resolution LCD (IPS at least, no TFT if someone still makes and uses them). Backlit keyboard is always a nice bonus.
I don't look at the brand as there is always some HP, Lenovo, Acer or similar which may not be the best, but all of them are long established manufacturers (even though they all have their share of problems). Such laptop comes out at around 500€ from my experience, which is actually the first thing I say to anyone who wants me to pick something for him/her. I always go with "It will be 500€ minimum, you know?" If the user doesn't like the price, I tell him/her to buy whatever they want then, as I know there is nothing actually usable and long term viable under this threshold.
I tend to keep my hardware running as long as possible so I don't regularly have to purchase anything, but I did in the last year purchase a new laptop to replace my aging hardware that wasn't able to do even the light gaming I like to do from time to time.
All I really did was just wait until Black Friday, look at some of the better deals on various websites, then waited a few days for returns to come in on units I was interested in so I could get open box products for even cheaper. I was able to get a $1000+ laptop for around $600.
I think a bigger thing is that generally I keep abreast of what hardware is available and so I know roughly what level I'm looking for. That also helps me get my budget down before I even start looking and often you can filter for specific hardware.
Apple refurbished MacBooks seem to be a great value.
apple.com > macbook pro m2 > buy now
repeat again in 7 years.
Macs are genuinely overpriced though.
But if you can stomach the price and them being unrepairable/not Windows, I’d probably recommend them. Air does most of what everyone would need provided you go with 16GB of RAM.
There is nothing comparable to the M series MacBooks. Every other laptop sacrifices one of battery, portability, performance, build quality, screen.
The M1 MacBook Air performances way better than anything else in its size class and weight class. For that $1000 range, anything with better performance is a chonky plastic rgb laden brick with a mediocre screen and unusable trackpad that runs for 3 hours on battery.
Although the $999 model only has 8GB of RAM.
I would recommend getting an Apple refurbished laptop. They will come looking brand new in new original packaging with a warranty.
Here you can get a 16GB M2 Macbook Air for $1099.
Right now I'm planning to get the refurbished maxed out M2 Air for $1700. 24GB of RAM, 2TB SSD, upgraded SOC. And with crazy battery life, something like (actual, not a BS marketing number) 12 hours of WiFi + Video Streaming, or 18 hours with WiFi off.
The Mac is really the only laptop I would use at the moment, because it's not just a PC packed into a chassis; it is designed to be portable and has unmatched battery life!
I'm going to have disagree. I've had so so many laptops in my life, and the M1 Air and Thinkpad X270 are the only ones I've felt zero regrets. I bought my Air used, but would happily have bought new. Admittedly at the education union price 🙂
The only thing missing (IMHO) is dual monitor support. Which is admittedly a pretty big one for a lot of people.
I don't think they're that overpriced once you factor in longevity. I know a lot of people who are using MacBook Airs/Pros that are nearly a decade old and still chugging along fine. I don't know anyone with a PC laptop that is doing the same. A few hundred dollars more for that kind of longevity (even if you consider the cost of a battery replacement) is worth it.
Regarding repairability, it's unfortunate but not limited to Apple. Almost all thin and light models have either partially or totally soldiered RAM and storage these days. Apple started the trend, but it has spread throughout the industry. Unless you're buying a gaming laptop, you're probably stuck with the RAM you bought at the time of purchase. And even then, some of those have taken to providing only a single SO-DIMM slot and soldiering some of the RAM to the board.
My wife has an 8GB M2 Air and honestly, I can't tell the difference between that and my M2 Max with 64GB of RAM in every day use. Obviously when I'm doing 6K video editing, there will be a difference, but the SSDs and interconnects are so fast on these that having only 8GB isn't as bad as it was on the Intel models. I will admit that the storage upgrade prices are absolutely insane.
I do wish that their laptops were more repairable, especially given their potential to last so long. The thing I dislike the most is that they've taken to pairing all of the different parts together, making third party repairs much more difficult or even impossible without their blessing.
I'm no stranger to Apple products(relatively at least), I use iPhones on and off(currently on) and I decided to give an M1BA a try(which I'm typing this on), cause I wanted to try an ARM Laptop with a CPU that can actually have a good experience with a Desktop OS.
I went with a 16/512GB model because I tend to multitask a lot, Memory Pressure hit the yellow parts several times, for a base model, sure, you mainly pay for the processor but selling an expensive Laptop or a computer post 2020 with only 8GB RAM should be a crime. The base model should be 16/512, not 8/256. If it works for you, it's good, if it doesn't, then you're paying a serious Apple Tax on that laptop. So perhaps for the base model I'd agree, but with a just few upgrades, I'm questioning how much "Mac is better than what you can get with Windows" is true for higher end models. I guess it would depend on what you want from a Laptop.
I'm not sure if SSD speeds justify being
1-Soldered.
2-Hilariously overpriced, either.
Especially considering than SSD is a consumable part just like the battery(though whether it will die during use or not, seems to be random)
The repairability bit being on par with most if not all slim Windows Laptops is an argument that gets brought up often, I can't think of any Laptop I've seen recently that has upgradeable RAM though, but at least they have upgradeable storage. The last Windows Laptop I seriously used was a Dell one, which had both replaceable RAM and storage (2015 ish Laptop iirc). Never touching a device with Dell on it again, even though it still works.
As far as longevity though, all my Windows Laptops still work, they aren't flawless of course, at worst having a broken hinge or part of the case is broken, my oldest Laptop, a 2006 Sony is still running with a LMDE Install with Navidrome on it. Longevity isn't exactly exclusive to Macs.
I agree with almost all of your points. I think we just differ on whether or not the price Apple charges is worth it. I think it is (though I'd love if they were cheaper).
Regarding Windows laptop longevity, I agree that there are definitely non-Apple laptops that will last just as long. I've just noticed a larger proportion of Macs still in use after a few years than other laptops.
Easy. I buy Apple.