NewLaptopFilter: Which laptop should I buy?
October 30, 2014 2:53 AM   Subscribe

As my current laptop is (literally) falling to bits, I'm in the market for a new one. Very choice. So indecision. Please help me sift through the crazy amount of options out there and choose something awesome.

My budget is £600-£700-ish (in US terms this probably translates to $750-$900 as y'all have cheaper electronics). OS isn't important as I'll be wiping away whatever's there and installing Linux (with a small Windows partition for some light/medium gaming).

Quality of build is more important to me than raw power, particularly the keyboard (I spend a lot of time typing) and the screen (I spend a lot of time staring at text). My current laptop is 15.6" which feels about right. I used to have a 17.3" laptop, which felt a bit unweildy, but it was also pretty heavy and surprisingly flimsy, so maybe that was the issue. It would be nice for it to be quiet and not run too hot. Battery life isn't much of a concern as I'll mostly be using it at home. In terms of power, being able to run (e.g.) Skyrim at reasonable settings would be nice.

Any advice, Mefi?
posted by xchmp to Computers & Internet (12 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: you don't have the budget for a Mac so I would probably reccomend a Lenovo. However, they have a lot of different lines and you need to be careful as not all of them have high build quality

Performance wise - make sure you get an SSD drive, that is the biggest thing laptop makers still skimp on, and a decent amount of ram.

Unfortunately, I struggled to find anything with a decent SSD and a decent 15"+ screen in your price range, I would suggest maybe looking at the Lenovo u430 which has a 14" screen. Although you make sacrifices there for portability which sounds like it isn't that important to you.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 4:33 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Thinkpad. And you're fortunate, lenovo outlet exists in the UK.

Awesome linux support, awesome build quality, extremely quiet fans that are also high performance and keep the system really cold. Anything with a haswell/4000 series intel CPU will have a decent built in GPU that can handle moderate gaming like skyrim. And some of the more interesting models come with dedicated graphics. Oh, and while i haven't used the very latest models all the slightly aged ones i have used had dreamy keyboards. Like, going back to my macbook i almost wept at how crap the keyboard was in comparison.

Lenovo outlet seems to be pretty raided though, and doesn't seem to have as great of deals as the US version.

So, Honestly, in that price range i think you're hitting the awesomest part of the used/refurb market. It's like buying a used car, you're avoiding the "driving it off the lot" depreciation and a bit of the time depreciation as well since while these models are current, they've been out for a while. I'd start casually cruising through ebay for something like a t440p, basic w540, or a newer revision of the X1.(especially the awesome crazy high resolution version, which i've seen go for way cheaper than it should quite often)


Don't buy a non thinkpad lenovo, and don't buy a thinkpad that isn't one of those series' because a lot of the cheaper models just ride on the name. Other quality machines worth considering for what you want, that are readily available used from former corporate owners at good prices, would include dell precision models.

I also seriously don't even bother with consumer grade laptops anymore, and vaguely don't put apple in that category since their stuff is generally built like the nicer business laptops that are equivalent to the price range/specs of whatever model you're looking at. Thinkpads and precisions, never buy anything HP even though they try and play that game.
posted by emptythought at 4:56 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


Response by poster: Good answers, thanks. My budget is more of a guideline than a rule, so if it sounds too low for the kind of thing I'm after feel free to tell me to spend more.
posted by xchmp at 5:02 AM on October 30, 2014


As always, the Wirecutter has the answer.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:54 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


I am a linux user and own a pre-installed Linux laptop from System76. It wasn't the pre-installed bit that sold me on it, it was a) that there was no doubt about driver support (at work I wiped a macbook pro with arch linux, which now works fine, but there were significant headaches in the initial install with UEFI and wifi), and b) the configuration options were really great (top-rated SSD, superb matte 1080p screen, very fast CPU, 16GB RAM at a non-astronomical markup). System76 does ship to the UK.
posted by mcstayinskool at 7:25 AM on October 30, 2014


Best answer: Just want to echo the recommendation to avoid any Thinkpad that isn't a "proper" Thinkpad (i.e. in the X/L/T series). I've seen some really shoddy Lenovos out there and wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

As emptythought points out, you can dig into a fantastic used/refurb market here. My current and previous Thinkpads were eBay buys, both used. Here's the reason why I don't worry too much about buying Thinkpads on eBay - the warranties. The warranty travels with the machine and is anything from 1-3 years old. So many Thinkpads are being sold with a good chunk of remaining warranty.

The X230 I bought earlier this year had been sitting around being "used" for barely a few weeks, and came to me with very nearly a full 3 years of coverage. I picked it up for less than half of the retail price (at the time, about £900). Protip: many sellers aren't aware that their machines are still under warranty. Ask for the serial number and run it through Lenovo's warranty checker. Get the machine you want for much less money, and use what you save on a nice SSD or more RAM.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 7:34 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]




Response by poster: And the winner is a Thinkpad 440. Bit outside my initial budget for new, but looks like it's worth it if nothing suitable turns up on ebay. Thanks everyone.
posted by xchmp at 9:06 AM on October 30, 2014


Make sure you check the Lenovo outlet that emptythought linked, looks like theres some good deals on T440 for less than your price range, which you could then upgrade the ram/storage with the savings.
posted by czytm at 9:16 AM on October 30, 2014


If you get a Lenovo make sure you follow everyone's advice and get a Thinkpad, not an Ideapad. I have an Ideapad and while the price was very good the battery no longer holds a charge.
posted by exhilaration at 12:19 PM on October 30, 2014


Response by poster: So, just an update. I got my Thinkpad (T440p) and have been using it for a couple of weeks. I've been very happy with it so far. Build quality is exactly what I wanted - it feels like, in the event of some kind of zombie apocalypse, you could use it as a makeshift club and then check twitter to see if anyone else has noticed that the dead have begun to rise from their graves. Keyboard is excellent, although a couple of the key placements take a bit of getting used to (the Fn key and Ctrl key on the left and the Print Screen key and Ctrl key on the right). Doesn't bother me enough to actually mess around switching key bindings or anything, though.

Weirdly, when I first booted up and into Windows, there was a strange display issue where the vertical of the picture was slightly distorted so window borders would, in some places on the screen, be slightly bulged outwards or inwards. At first I thought this was a hardware problem with the screen itself (I've never seen a graphics driver screw up in such a subtle way before) , but it appears to have been a driver issue since everything looks fine in Linux. Speaking of which, installing Mint was slightly more effort than expected due to a graphics driver issue that would freeze the install. However, installing in recovery mode and then switching the driver from the default worked fine.

All pretty minor negatives, so all in all, another win for Ask MeFi.
posted by xchmp at 8:50 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Thx for the update, xchmp. I'm on the same trail as you and this is most helpful.
posted by LonnieK at 11:52 AM on January 1, 2015


« Older how do I deal with being utterly humiliated?   |   Suggestions for fans of In the Cut by Susanna... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.