Business Laptop Help

chrismscotland · 3 Jan 2012 at 23:12

Hi folks,

Basically I'm being made redundant later this month and I'm going into a Project Support contracting role, and while I know that the ciient will supply their own laptop for security reasons I'd like to pick something fairly mobile and lightweight that I can use for anything else I need to do i.e filing timesheets, expenses, etc and possibly some work depending on how long it takes to get a company laptop!!

I've had Business Dell's before (Latitude E6400) and while it was alright it was a bit of a brick!

I'd even been thinking of something smaller like the 11.6" Lenovo x121e (with the Intel i3) or possibly the HP DM1 but I wasn't sure if these would be powerful enough.

I'm not too bothered about price but don't want to spend a fortune on something if i don't need to!!!

edscdk · 3 Jan 2012 at 23:22

I3, not powerful enough for excel?

As long as you don't fill down 50,000 rows and start making pivot tables out of them left rit and centre I think it will handle it...

For what you say you wan to do you would not tell if it was an i7 or an i3

Just make sure it's not a 2gb ram machine make sure its ideally 4 and 64bit windows..

chrismscotland · 4 Jan 2012 at 10:16

edscdk said:
I3, not powerful enough for excel?

As long as you don't fill down 50,000 rows and start making pivot tables out of them left rit and centre I think it will handle it...

For what you say you wan to do you would not tell if it was an i7 or an i3

Just make sure it's not a 2gb ram machine make sure its ideally 4 and 64bit windows..

Cheers mate, it was more I was worried about the i3 in the x121e being a low powered one rather than a full power i3, I'm going to take a look around, there seems to be a lack of decent laptops with a 13" screen unless I want to pickup a Macbook...

neoboy · 5 Jan 2012 at 02:21

Doesn't HP Probook range have some 13" models?

chrismscotland · 5 Jan 2012 at 09:36

neoboy said:
Doesn't HP Probook range have some 13" models?

Thanks mate, taken a look and they do have a load! Also came across some Samsung and Lenovo's with a 12.5" screen which seems a good size too.

martynbez · 5 Jan 2012 at 09:41

Have a look at the hp elitebook 2540p.

I've got the i5 non ssd model and use it for pretty much what you say. Picked one up for £450.

chrismscotland · 5 Jan 2012 at 12:02

martynbez said:
Have a look at the hp elitebook 2540p.

I've got the i5 non ssd model and use it for pretty much what you say. Picked one up for £450.

Cheers mate, will take a look - sounds a good price!

martynbez · 5 Jan 2012 at 12:08

Yeah it's a great little laptop. Metal case, battery life is good and very portable.

chrismscotland · 5 Jan 2012 at 23:25

martynbez said:
Yeah it's a great little laptop. Metal case, battery life is good and very portable.

Cool, will have a ponder, spotted a couple of nice Lenovo's (X121e and X220) also the Toshiba Satellite R830 looks good and theres a couple of decent Dells (XPS 14z and the Vostro)

Mattius · 6 Jan 2012 at 17:50

I have the HP Probook 4320s as my own laptop and a Samsung NP400B as a work laptop.

The samsung is really badly made feels cheap and horrible and strangely runs slower than the HP despite originally being exactly the same spec.

I really rate the HP's, i used to only use dell's but im now a convert. Although its not the lightest 13" laptop its certainly one of the best made laptops i've used, and i go through a lot of them.

chrismscotland · 6 Jan 2012 at 19:07

Cheers mate, good to know they're so well regarded!

Scrutinize · 6 Jan 2012 at 22:12

I have an HP ProBook 4320s, been awesome so far. Imo, there are three options for business laptops if you are spending £300-£800, the HP ProBook, HP Elitebook or Lenovo Thinkpad Series. All of which deliver on quality, reliability and proper pro business styling (never underestimate the value of this last one if you want to be taken seriously)

Also HP Business laptops build and support is far better than the home ones.

Oh and an i3 will be more than enough for pretty much anything, just buy an extra 4gb mem for £20 as most come with 2-4gb, unless you end up with the ulv versions in the 11.6" x121e you were considering which perform a lot worse.

chrismscotland · 6 Jan 2012 at 23:50

Scrutinize said:
I have an HP ProBook 4320s, been awesome so far. Imo, there are three options for business laptops if you are spending £300-£800, the HP ProBook, HP Elitebook or Lenovo Thinkpad Series. All of which deliver on quality, reliability and proper pro business styling (never underestimate the value of this last one if you want to be taken seriously)

Also HP Business laptops build and support is far better than the home ones.

Oh and an i3 will be more than enough for pretty much anything, just buy an extra 4gb mem for £20 as most come with 2-4gb, unless you end up with the ulv versions in the 11.6" x121e you were considering which perform a lot worse.

Thanks for this, I've narrowed my choice to either an HP Business Lappy or a Lenovo Thinkpad, I do like the x121e but I'd rather have a bit more grunt and it seems that I can get a decent HP for not an awful lot more than the x121e really!

Amp34 · 7 Jan 2012 at 01:51

I have an HP Elitebook 2540p at work (12.5" screen) and it's a tough little device. Only issue I have with it is the trackpad is a little small. Very well built and can be specced insanely powerful (we have i5s, 8GB RAM and SSDs, probably a little overkill for excel though).

http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=4156286

Amp34 · 7 Jan 2012 at 01:53

chrismscotland said:
Cheers mate, it was more I was worried about the i3 in the x121e being a low powered one rather than a full power i3, I'm going to take a look around, there seems to be a lack of decent laptops with a 13" screen unless I want to pickup a Macbook...

I agree there...

I ended up getting a MBA a few weeks ago for this very reason, the 13" market seems to have vanished recently, or at least the non business high spec market. Most seem to be low resolution cheap things. Couple of ultra books but the decent ones are same price as the Airs anyway...

Scrutinize · 7 Jan 2012 at 18:11

Amp34 said:
I agree there...

I ended up getting a MBA a few weeks ago for this very reason, the 13" market seems to have vanished recently, or at least the non business high spec market. Most seem to be low resolution cheap things. Couple of ultra books but the decent ones are same price as the Airs anyway...

Thing is an MBA costs upwards of £1000 and it really isn't a business laptop.

If you need a windows machine, which for most business use you will, and you actually want to spend more than £500-£1000 then £1k gets you a Thinkpad X1, which whilst not as pretty as the MBA is many times more functional in the productivity and corporate stakes (everything from docking station ports, 10 hour battery life, nuke proof build etc).

The reason there aren’t many 13” machines is because for business use, that can be a tad bit too small.

There are plenty of 14" business laptops which tick every box going and are hardly noticeably bigger than the 13" especially where they just narrow the bezels around the screen so the chassis may only be a few mm wider and no deeper.

Amp34 · 7 Jan 2012 at 21:46

No it's not really, but he did mention a macbook. It was also a continuation of the issue of a lack of 13" laptops, not a recommendation for a business laptop. Following that he appears interested in 2540p which is the same or more than the Air (not sure where the guy got one for £450, I assume a used low spec one).

Oh and as for windows laptop, that's the beauty of a modern day macbook... they are just standard laptops, wipe OSX and stick windows on.. Ta Da!

I also disagree about 13" being too small for business. Most businesses have desks for desktops, the laptops are for portability, which is why you'll rarely see any business folk on the train with a laptop over 13". The 14" laptops generally have the issue of being bigger in all dimensions but still being the same resolution as the 13" and smaller models.

As I said before I recommend the HP Elitebook 2540p as I use that for work, it'll be in the region of £1k-1500 new though.

chrismscotland · 7 Jan 2012 at 23:02

Thanks again folks, I've been looking again and I've noticed that there are a lot of 14" laptops, particularly HP and Dell, I've heard good things about the Dell Vostro range, which have 13.3" or 14" screens on them.

PhillyDee · 8 Jan 2012 at 01:09

I'm keeping an eye on this thread. I'm in the market for a new laptop, and at the moment leaning toward the HP ThinkPad edge with 4gb and 9 cell batter.

chrismscotland · 8 Jan 2012 at 11:46

Anyone know if Acer business laptops are still decent? I had the very popular Timeline 8371 for a while and loved it but wasn't sure if build quality is still the same as I know a lot of folk avoid consumer Acer Laptops.