Lightweight Laptop for Travel/Business - 2019 XPS 15 Alternatives?

DampCat · 12 Feb 2019 at 21:40

Hey

I'm looking at the current XPS 15 Current Gen, which comes it at around £1660. I don't absolutely need it to be the latest and greatest, since I will only be doing presentations, admin and watching some films while i travel. I mean i might put some super lightweight games like BG2 or Civ6 on it but nothing that needs SLI RTX.

Just wondering if it's worth looking at a slightly earlier model if there's not much in it. No point throwing money away if i dont need to?

The main thing is that it's got a good screen, useful ports and is lightweight. I've been carrying my 17" MBP and Asus ROG Gaming Laptop around for too long.

Any thoughts appreciated!

Vince · 12 Feb 2019 at 22:18

At that money Id throw a hp spectre x360 with the 8705g and Vega in the mix. I swapped to one with the same kind of requirements but also use a lot of photoshop, visual studio and sql management studio and its been a dream. It's light, can use any hp charger, I have the big one at home and smaller 65 or 40w ones that I use at work, it has two thunderbolts, hdmi etc. I normally replace my machines yearly but with this thing I just don't feel like I want to. I really like it.

DampCat · 12 Feb 2019 at 23:01

Vince said:
At that money Id throw a hp spectre x360 with the 8705g and Vega in the mix. I swapped to one with the same kind of requirements but also use a lot of photoshop, visual studio and sql management studio and its been a dream. It's light, can use any hp charger, I have the big one at home and smaller 65 or 40w ones that I use at work, it has two thunderbolts, hdmi etc. I normally replace my machines yearly but with this thing I just don't feel like I want to. I really like it.

Hows the battery, and is it upgradeable? Looks good

The any charger is useful to know about actually

Vince · 13 Feb 2019 at 00:31

DampCat said:
Hows the battery, and is it upgradeable? Looks good

The any charger is useful to know about actually

The battery is a genuine full 7/8 hours if you are working on it all day. I can do a day on battery and its only towards when i'm going home that it starts looking a bit low. Upgrade wise you can upgrade the memory and that's about it, you can throw 32gb in it if you required that, you can also change the nvme. Because it's got that hades canyon package it can get a bit warm under gaming loads but it does respond well to undervolting. Every time I take it to any sort of meeting people always comment how nice it is and frankly as a productivity and work machine I can't fault it. Hp have also thrown a few bios updates at it through windows updates which is always nice to see as well.

Also if you plug a hp charger like a 45w in (really small and nice to travel with) it pops up a lttle message about how it is compatible with all chargers and will change the performance of the machine accordingly. You can also charge it with a phone charger or one of those portable battery things through thunderbolt if you were really desperate.

Forgot to mention the screen is really lovely.

jonneymendoza · 13 Feb 2019 at 08:13

Lenovo thinkpad x1 extreme!

DampCat · 13 Feb 2019 at 16:12

jonneymendoza said:
Lenovo thinkpad x1 extreme!

It looks pretty much the same spec and price as the XPS 15, is there a reason you'd pick it instead?

Vince said:
The battery is a genuine full 7/8 hours if you are working on it all day. I can do a day on battery and its only towards when i'm going home that it starts looking a bit low. Upgrade wise you can upgrade the memory and that's about it, you can throw 32gb in it if you required that, you can also change the nvme. Because it's got that hades canyon package it can get a bit warm under gaming loads but it does respond well to undervolting. Every time I take it to any sort of meeting people always comment how nice it is and frankly as a productivity and work machine I can't fault it. Hp have also thrown a few bios updates at it through windows updates which is always nice to see as well.

Also if you plug a hp charger like a 45w in (really small and nice to travel with) it pops up a lttle message about how it is compatible with all chargers and will change the performance of the machine accordingly. You can also charge it with a phone charger or one of those portable battery things through thunderbolt if you were really desperate.

Forgot to mention the screen is really lovely.

That does sound great. Did you wipe yours with a clean install? My only experience with HP is from eons ago and it was full of bloatware. Would it lose any functionality?

Vince · 13 Feb 2019 at 16:27

DampCat said:
It looks pretty much the same spec and price as the XPS 15, is there a reason you'd pick it instead?

That does sound great. Did you wipe yours with a clean install? My only experience with HP is from eons ago and it was full of bloatware. Would it lose any functionality?

No it's fairly clear of junk to be honest, i've seen machines with a lot worse on them. I removed all of the crap and everything seems to still work fine so no worries from that point of view. I would recommend trying to have a look at one and having a little play if you can. I know it is silly but another thing that made me smile is that the packaging and whats included was really impressive as well, you get a nice leather case, pen with a bunch of extra nibs, and the boxes and presentation was top notch. Really felt like i was unboxing something a bit special! It's a little thing but showed me that hp class this as a premium product.

sHo0sH · 14 Feb 2019 at 08:50

I am very surprised that nobody has mentioned the Matebook X Pro - this thing looks like amazing bang for the buck.

jonneymendoza · 14 Feb 2019 at 09:29

DampCat said:
It looks pretty much the same spec and price as the XPS 15, is there a reason you'd pick it instead?

That does sound great. Did you wipe yours with a clean install? My only experience with HP is from eons ago and it was full of bloatware. Would it lose any functionality?

Dual m. 2 hdd slots Better positioned front facing camera

B1scu1T · 14 Feb 2019 at 09:43

I'm personally a thinkpad person myself (using a T480s at the moment).

Having already spilled a whole glass of orange juice on it and dismantled, cleaned and replaced the keyboard myself, I can say that I would happily buy another one. Very well built, yet servicable laptops.

The X models are awesome machines, but I would look a bit further down the product line at the P and T series models if you really don't need it to be wafer thin, or you're not bothered about touchscreen. T series especially are still very portable machines and you can shave a few quid off the cost if the sacrifices are insignificant to you. Coming from a 17" MBP, I would probably say the T580 is the place to look.

Lenovo have a pretty flexible range of modifications you can make, but just bare in mind they will take an age to ship if you do a full custom machine. Bit of a shame we haven't got the high end Ryzen models in the UK yet

jonneymendoza · 14 Feb 2019 at 14:07

B1scu1T said:
I'm personally a thinkpad person myself (using a T480s at the moment).

Having already spilled a whole glass of orange juice on it and dismantled, cleaned and replaced the keyboard myself, I can say that I would happily buy another one. Very well built, yet servicable laptops.

The X models are awesome machines, but I would look a bit further down the product line at the P and T series models if you really don't need it to be wafer thin, or you're not bothered about touchscreen. T series especially are still very portable machines and you can shave a few quid off the cost if the sacrifices are insignificant to you. Coming from a 17" MBP, I would probably say the T580 is the place to look.

Lenovo have a pretty flexible range of modifications you can make, but just bare in mind they will take an age to ship if you do a full custom machine. Bit of a shame we haven't got the high end Ryzen models in the UK yet

yea i ordered an x1 extreme and its taking a month!

Conanius · 14 Feb 2019 at 21:46

I've just received an XPS 15 9870 - i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 1050ti and 4K screen - and I'm delighted with it. Highly recommended.

martink · 26 Feb 2019 at 22:50

Conanius said:
I've just received an XPS 15 9870 - i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 1050ti and 4K screen - and I'm delighted with it. Highly recommended.

What’s the damage on that?

jonneymendoza · 27 Feb 2019 at 07:07

martink said:
What’s the damage on that?

My X1 extreme coming within the next few days

dessimpson · 2 Mar 2019 at 09:43

I got the XPS-15 9570 on Wednesday with the i9 and 32Gb RAM.
Love it. I think I've finally found a windows laptop with a trackpad that I like!

jonneymendoza · 2 Mar 2019 at 09:58

X1 extreme coming on Monday !

Conanius · 2 Mar 2019 at 18:08

martink said:
What’s the damage on that?

I think it was about £1700 through the outlet. Someone had ordered it and then cancelled before delivery.

Hades · 2 Mar 2019 at 18:42

ThinkPad X1
ThinkPad X1 Extreme
ThinkPad T480s

jonneymendoza · 2 Mar 2019 at 19:42

Hades said:
ThinkPad X1
ThinkPad X1 Extreme
ThinkPad T480s

Exactly !

jonneymendoza · 5 Mar 2019 at 07:11

My x1 extreme arrived yesterday and what a beast of a laptop it is!