Whats a good laptop for working from home?

Mallers

Mallers

Mallers

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16 Apr 2015
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173
Hi, my girlfriends company have finally bitten the bullet and started telling people to work from home in case of viral outbreaks. Shes asked me to look at laptops for her, but I don't know whats good or not,esp in the world of processors. The provisos I have are:

1) 2-300 pound budget (she doesn't want to overspend as she never wanted one anyway, feeling pushed into it by work but its better than commuting to Leatherhead disaster recovery site!) I imagine I can push her up a little if theres something great just over budget
2) She doesn't want a desktop or tablet, has to be a laptop
3) Back to budget - rules out an Apple
4) This will be just for work. She works for a financial institution, I used to work for the same one and when I worked from home accessed their servers through Citrix, so assume she will do the same. There will be (once connected to work) excel, word, emails (lots!) and bespoke financial systems and number crunching. Shes said the laptop wont be used for home use,only work
5) Shes got a good BT broadband speed

Any ideas? I've no idea what processors are good ones at the moment, nor how they all rank against each other. If I did, I would look for best processor in budget, followed by most RAM, followed by best hard drvie (as shes connecting to work anything saved goes on work drives. In theory the only thing she needs saved to laptop is the client access software to remotely log in)
 
Does she not have an external monitor you can hook up to? I have a L380 Lenovo laptop that I use which is ok for most things. Bit out of budget mind that, Anything in the £300 range is going to be OK. It won't be a workhorse though, but you shouldn't need it since you'll be connecting to a Citrix session.
 
rhysduck said:
Does she not have an external monitor you can hook up to? I have a L380 Lenovo laptop that I use which is ok for most things. Bit out of budget mind that, Anything in the £300 range is going to be OK. It won't be a workhorse though, but you shouldn't need it since you'll be connecting to a Citrix session.
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Hi, no, no external monitor. I could lend her one of my 2, but im using them both for Warhammer ;-)

Am I right in thinking on processors (at least on intel I suppose) an I-x is better than a lower value of x, eg i5 better than i4, i6 better than i5 etc, and within each group the second set of numbers, the higher the better, eg i5-8300 is better than i5-8265?
 
Mallers said:
Hi, no, no external monitor. I could lend her one of my 2, but im using them both for Warhammer ;-)

Am I right in thinking on processors (at least on intel I suppose) an I-x is better than a lower value of x, eg i5 better than i4, i6 better than i5 etc, and within each group the second set of numbers, the higher the better, eg i5-8300 is better than i5-8265?
Click to expand...
Yes :)
 
If it was me I would be telling the Financial Institute that they need to be providing me with a device to allow me to work from home, I would not be buying it out of my own pocket, even the small company I work for has ensured all staff have a company device to work from home with.
 
Hi, there were some laptops available through work but they had been nabbed already. Shes been given choice of work from home (central London) or start commuting to Leatherhead (disaster recovery site). Work is in Canary Wharf so travel costs would have shot from zone 1+2 to zones 1+7 I think, but a lot more in any event. The last she told me was there was discussion over who pays for the travel. Shes taken path of least resistance and said she'd work from home, but to do that needs to provide own computer. Why specifically a laptop, its whats shes decided and I don't have enough dynamite to shift the idea! Having said that I will look at those small pc (small form?) and see if I can persuade her.
 
If that's the case, which is extremely poor from the employers side(!) then I'd be looking on FB or eBay for a a cheap half decent laptop to get her by until this blows over and then sell it on.

Edit: Trust msg incoming - you've not got it configured :)
 
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