Recommend a laptop please? Circa £500 to £700

[Baldbloke]

Friend of mine works around the country in vehicle racing garages. Currently studying for a degree.
He has asked me for my opinions on laptops. I know next to nowt about laptops. So asking your advice so I can forward it to him. I'll send him this page link so he can correct my errors in his requirements.

It will be used mainly for Pdfs, office admin, web browsing, documents and such. Cad, probably not, he tells me. Definitely not gaming. So no need for fancy graphics capability.

There is a possibility it'll be left lying around a workshop on a workbench from time to time. Therefore he'd like the limit to be around five to seven hundred on it in case it gets physically damaged or goes missing. Nearer £500 would be better

Something that'll last him 4 or 5 years maybe. Decent manufacturer support would be advantageous.

He's asked me for an opinion on the Dell Inspiron 15. For £699.
Spec:
i7-1355U
Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics
2*8Gb ddr4
1Tb nvme
1920*1080 120hz antiglare screen

What do you think?

Edit: further info on requirements -
As an addition to my OP. He states this: "I think the Dell would be better as components easily come out of the dell whereas the Samsung [one he was previously considering] everything is soldered on."

So upgrade-ability looks to be important too.

 

[Snapshot]

I don't like the screen on that one - only 250nits and VA. I'd look for something that's at least 300nits, preferably 350 or more, and IPS.

 

[radderfire]

I've got a Dell Inspiron and I've been very happy with it. In general I am a fan of Dell Inspirons. Mines an i5 and it does me for stuff like Photoshop. Given his usage, I think he could probably get away with downgrading the processor to an i5, but there's no harm in getting something better. A while back some of the i7s were running hot and this degraded performance, but they've probably fixed that by now. In general the spec looks fine. If he was using it for CAD he'd need the i7 and maybe more memory.

 

[Baldbloke]

I don't like the screen on that one - only 250nits and VA. I'd look for something that's at least 300nits, preferably 350 or more, and IPS.

Thanks Snapshot.

 

[Baldbloke]

I've got a Dell Inspiron and I've been very happy with it. In general I am a fan of Dell Inspirons. Mines an i5 and it does me for stuff like Photoshop. Given his usage, I think he could probably get away with downgrading the processor to an i5, but there's no harm in getting something better. A while back some of the i7s were running hot and this degraded performance, but they've probably fixed that by now. In general the spec looks fine. If he was using it for CAD he'd need the i7 and maybe more memory.

Good advice. Thank you

So the Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics would be good enough if he needed to do a bit of Photoshop or something similar do you think?

 

[radderfire]

Good advice. Thank you

So the Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics would be good enough if he needed to do a bit of Photoshop or something similar do you think?

Absolutely fine for Photoshop. Not sure how quick CAD would be as that's more processor intensive. If you were doing a lot of CAD work you might want to check it would be fast enough, you might need to consider a graphics upgrade.

 

[djxput]

ASUS Zenbook 15 OLED (UM3504)​

I got my wife the above laptop a few months ago to replace her(my) older huawei laptop. I think the laptop is awesome - fits the bill on many fronts. 16 gigs of ram (so less slow downs if you like tabs or running more programs), great keyboard and mouse, absolutely gorgeous screen oled 2.8k, good webcam, 15" screen, decent ports and its not heavy for what it is.

cons I would say - the speakers are on the underside - not touch screen; although I think you can get a version that is a touch screen but more pricey.

For the price thou - Id def. recommend this laptop if you want a great screen laptop with 16 gigs of ram that is not expensive.

ASUS Zenbook 15 OLED (UM3504) review - has a stunning display and light chassis | LaptopMedia.com

In 2023, ASUS is offering a lot of laptops with OLED displays. One of them is the ASUS Zenbook 15 OLED (UM3504), a premium-looking device with a thin and light...

laptopmedia.com

a link for a detailed review.
btw got rid of the charger (too big) and just use a regular usb c (that has good wattage 65 I think) - oh I forgot I wanted a laptop that charges using a usb c (everything I use uses usb c to charge not some propriety charger (dell's might do this which is annoying to have to carry its own charger)