Laptop for Working from Home

Associate
Joined
26 Jul 2011
Posts
114
Location
Peterborough, UK
Need a laptop for working from home 85% of the time, will travel abroad with me 6-8 weeks of the year.
Main use is heavy spreadsheets with multiple browsers, all with many, many tabs, youtube videos, spotify
While having its own screen on will also need to drive two monitors (HDMI and DisplayPort) - Maybe a converter for DP->USB-C would help? Not sure if I do this with my Dell U2414M?

3-4 USB ports - At home will need to connect usb keyboard, mouse, webcam and Bluetooth headphones
Laptop will have to have a full keyboard and numpad for use while travelling, nice to type on would be a bonus
Needs to have Gigabit Ethernet connection, Wifi and Bluetooth
Ideally Wifi 6 & Bluetooth 5.2

As it's for WFH I'm not worried about keeping it small or lightweight, battery life isn't too much of a concern, graphics enough to drive the 3 screens properly

512GB SSD storage
12th generation processor or newer, fastest possible with budget - either i5 or i7 would be fine
RAM I need 16GB - I think should be aiming for LPDDR5 correct?
Spec enough to handle Windows 11, doesn't have to come with OS work can provide this
Quality 1080 webcam for work zoom calls would be a huge plus

15-17" screen size - IPS or other high quality display - (16:10 would be a bonus but I'm not even sure possible?)
Preferably NOT a TN or OLED panel (it's going to show the exact same image majority of the time at home, so burn-in risk pretty high)
I would prefer Intel and Nvidia, but this isn't important

Ideally all self-contained so I have all the options when travelling but could also get a docking station and a usb hub if this is gonna make things better overall
Budget £550-£700 all-in
I like the look of Lenovo, prefer black/grey

Appreciate any advice!
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
11 Oct 2006
Posts
4,980
Location
Wiltshire
I think your budget it too tight to get all your specs. DDR5 means Gen13 Intel CPUs and this pushes the price up. There's a nice Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5i 16 with Gen13 i5 available for just over £1000 at the moment and that really is a typical price. Of course, AMD CPUs save a little money and are better on battery life than Intel and a similar spec to the one above is available for £900 with an AMD R7 6000 series CPU.
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Sep 2007
Posts
4,623
I'm currently looking at a ‎Dell Inspiron 16 i5630-5102SLV-PGB for £620
Doesn't have the full keyboard but with a hub I think this will cover the rest of my needs.

Any input on this model?

All I can say is I've got a Dell Inspiron laptop and I've been very happy with it. It's nicely made and it's got a nice screen.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
29,533
Location
Surrey
I'm currently looking at a ‎Dell Inspiron 16 i5630-5102SLV-PGB for £620
Doesn't have the full keyboard but with a hub I think this will cover the rest of my needs.

Any input on this model?
So you mean it doesn't have the numpad? You can get usb or Bluetooth numpads if that is important for your work.
 
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