Halp me buy a new laptop that doesn't stink
September 21, 2024 1:20 AM Subscribe
I want this laptop primarily for word processing and hopefully for video editing (which would be new to me). I need to spend under $1000, diamond hard limit, and would prefer to spend less.
I understand I'm not going to get top-of-the-line for that price, but I'm sure I can do better than the HP Envy 17t-cw100 currently stinking up my desk.
More details below, or you can just make suggestions based on the above.
I used to like HP, but my recent experience was bad in multiple different ways, from shipping to customer service to the quality of the actual product. I am open to any brand suggestions.
This is a laptop marketed as being usable for gaming and video editing, so the sound should have been excellent. But listening to a video of a person speaking (which is mainly what the type of videos I plan to create will consist of), it sounds like they were gagged and stuffed inside a suitcase that has then been sunk underwater. It is so so terribly bad.
I hate the fact that this machine wants to keep me in the Microsoft ghetto. They literally wouldn't even allow me to proceed with setup without entering a Microsoft account, or creating one. I am more Google oriented, but really I don't want to be forced into anything. I have enough stress in my life and don't want to fight my laptop to get it to do what I want it to do.
This machine is slow. I know I can probably make some modifications that speed it up, but really? Brand new laptop and it's already dragging? And they even put the power button in a ridiculous place, just hidden in the top row of keys. This laptop is like a bad date; I don't want to stick around to find out what else I hate about it.
Obviously I want decent RAM. I've priced the external RAM and hoo boy it's expensive, but I'm willing to go there if the total price stays under 1k. I know I'm not going to get a dedicated graphics card at this price point, but I want the graphics to be good enough that I don't hate creating videos because of it.
I don't care much about battery life or weight because I don't plan to be moving the laptop around much, it will mostly stay plugged in at my desk. I like backlit keys because I am a creature of darkness, but that's just a nice to have.
I understand I'm not going to get top-of-the-line for that price, but I'm sure I can do better than the HP Envy 17t-cw100 currently stinking up my desk.
More details below, or you can just make suggestions based on the above.
I used to like HP, but my recent experience was bad in multiple different ways, from shipping to customer service to the quality of the actual product. I am open to any brand suggestions.
This is a laptop marketed as being usable for gaming and video editing, so the sound should have been excellent. But listening to a video of a person speaking (which is mainly what the type of videos I plan to create will consist of), it sounds like they were gagged and stuffed inside a suitcase that has then been sunk underwater. It is so so terribly bad.
I hate the fact that this machine wants to keep me in the Microsoft ghetto. They literally wouldn't even allow me to proceed with setup without entering a Microsoft account, or creating one. I am more Google oriented, but really I don't want to be forced into anything. I have enough stress in my life and don't want to fight my laptop to get it to do what I want it to do.
This machine is slow. I know I can probably make some modifications that speed it up, but really? Brand new laptop and it's already dragging? And they even put the power button in a ridiculous place, just hidden in the top row of keys. This laptop is like a bad date; I don't want to stick around to find out what else I hate about it.
Obviously I want decent RAM. I've priced the external RAM and hoo boy it's expensive, but I'm willing to go there if the total price stays under 1k. I know I'm not going to get a dedicated graphics card at this price point, but I want the graphics to be good enough that I don't hate creating videos because of it.
I don't care much about battery life or weight because I don't plan to be moving the laptop around much, it will mostly stay plugged in at my desk. I like backlit keys because I am a creature of darkness, but that's just a nice to have.
Get a super top of the line used Thinkpad or other good editing laptop on ebay. On google et al you can search for editing laptop recommendations and then use search tools to limit the results to earlier than some year, in order to see recommendations for older models.
But listening to a video of a person speaking (which is mainly what the type of videos I plan to create will consist of), it sounds like they were gagged and stuffed inside a suitcase that has then been sunk underwater. It is so so terribly bad.
To be clear are you listening through the built-in speakers or through external speakers/headphones? Because I wouldn't expect great built-in speakers from any machine. Also you've probably done this but if not it might be worth making sure the audio drivers are up to date and that the problem isn't with the video.
posted by trig at 2:39 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
But listening to a video of a person speaking (which is mainly what the type of videos I plan to create will consist of), it sounds like they were gagged and stuffed inside a suitcase that has then been sunk underwater. It is so so terribly bad.
To be clear are you listening through the built-in speakers or through external speakers/headphones? Because I wouldn't expect great built-in speakers from any machine. Also you've probably done this but if not it might be worth making sure the audio drivers are up to date and that the problem isn't with the video.
posted by trig at 2:39 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
Last time I did a Windows 11 installation, which was a nuke and pave using MS's downloadable installer ISO, I was able to get it done without the MS account nonsense simply by not having an Ethernet cable plugged in, refusing to select any of the available wireless networks, and keeping an eye out for dark-pattern options hidden in the ensuing dialog boxes.
Having now read that Tom's Hardware article (for which thanks, BungaDunga) it sounds like MS has bumped the difficulty up a notch. So if I have to do it again I will certainly be going the Rufus route described in the second half, mainly for all those other lovely checkbox options.
I always recommend doing your own clean Windows installation if you intend to run Windows. There is no need to put up with any of the affiliate-marketed third-party bloatware with which pretty much every OEM routinely encumbers its default Windows installation, and doing your own Windows install from known-clean official MS media is a lot easier and more reliable than having to spend forever ripping up invasive software weeds.
You don't have to run Windows; Linux-compatible video editors exist, and if your needs are modest then one of the free options might even be good enough. But no software setup is going to work well on inadequate hardware. The word processing requirement is inconsequential because LibreOffice will run like lightning on anything even vaguely capable of video editing.
For video editing the main thing you want is buckets of RAM, a big SSD and a decent (probably nVidia) GPU; if the machine has those, whatever CPU ends up tying them all together will probably be fine. Mediocre screen and sound quality shouldn't be dealbreakers, because nobody with a desire to preserve their own sanity would contemplate video editing without at least one large external monitor and good external reference speakers and/or headphones.
That said: yeah, avoid HP/Compaq. Everything they've made has been worthless since Line-Go-Up Fiorini went scorched earth on their engineering culture and I agree with you that the shitty little speakers in their laptops are just intolerable.
Avoid sub-$1000 Toshiba laptops as well. Absolute bastard things to get inside for servicing.
ASUS boxes perform well for their asking price - if you luck onto a good one. But they are notorious for build quality issues and ASUS customer service is dogshit.
Lenovo used to make really good machines as well, but again their build quality has been going backwards for some years. If you can find a high-spec Lenovo refurb that still has the older-style rectangular charging socket rather than USB-C, it will probably be a good buy.
Acer and Dell both tend to offer good value for money, and both have warranty departments that are not a complete pain in the arse to deal with. The school whose IT purchasing I used to be in charge of was an Acer shop for the fourteen years I was there, and I was never given cause to regret that choice.
Personally I have no desire at all to allow MS anywhere near my digital life so all my computers run Debian. I also have no desire to spend money on hardware, so the SSD with my current Debian installation on it has been jumping from one salvaged laptop to the next as I intercept them on their way to the e-waste knackery. I just grab those as opportunities arise, and the ones that have given me the most cause for amazement that anybody would toss them have all been Dells.
I routinely see solid reliability from machines way older than the oldest Mac that any current Mac OS still supports, so don't be scared of refurbs, many of which will have come from shops that churn their whole fleet every three or four years just to limit the range of issues their IT departments need to deal with. You might well find a fast ex-corporate refurb that costs you less to buy and then max out its RAM than you'll pay for worse performance in a new machine with worse build quality. In 2024, absence of USB-C ports is the age cutoff criterion I'd use.
posted by flabdablet at 3:49 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
Having now read that Tom's Hardware article (for which thanks, BungaDunga) it sounds like MS has bumped the difficulty up a notch. So if I have to do it again I will certainly be going the Rufus route described in the second half, mainly for all those other lovely checkbox options.
I always recommend doing your own clean Windows installation if you intend to run Windows. There is no need to put up with any of the affiliate-marketed third-party bloatware with which pretty much every OEM routinely encumbers its default Windows installation, and doing your own Windows install from known-clean official MS media is a lot easier and more reliable than having to spend forever ripping up invasive software weeds.
You don't have to run Windows; Linux-compatible video editors exist, and if your needs are modest then one of the free options might even be good enough. But no software setup is going to work well on inadequate hardware. The word processing requirement is inconsequential because LibreOffice will run like lightning on anything even vaguely capable of video editing.
For video editing the main thing you want is buckets of RAM, a big SSD and a decent (probably nVidia) GPU; if the machine has those, whatever CPU ends up tying them all together will probably be fine. Mediocre screen and sound quality shouldn't be dealbreakers, because nobody with a desire to preserve their own sanity would contemplate video editing without at least one large external monitor and good external reference speakers and/or headphones.
That said: yeah, avoid HP/Compaq. Everything they've made has been worthless since Line-Go-Up Fiorini went scorched earth on their engineering culture and I agree with you that the shitty little speakers in their laptops are just intolerable.
Avoid sub-$1000 Toshiba laptops as well. Absolute bastard things to get inside for servicing.
ASUS boxes perform well for their asking price - if you luck onto a good one. But they are notorious for build quality issues and ASUS customer service is dogshit.
Lenovo used to make really good machines as well, but again their build quality has been going backwards for some years. If you can find a high-spec Lenovo refurb that still has the older-style rectangular charging socket rather than USB-C, it will probably be a good buy.
Acer and Dell both tend to offer good value for money, and both have warranty departments that are not a complete pain in the arse to deal with. The school whose IT purchasing I used to be in charge of was an Acer shop for the fourteen years I was there, and I was never given cause to regret that choice.
Personally I have no desire at all to allow MS anywhere near my digital life so all my computers run Debian. I also have no desire to spend money on hardware, so the SSD with my current Debian installation on it has been jumping from one salvaged laptop to the next as I intercept them on their way to the e-waste knackery. I just grab those as opportunities arise, and the ones that have given me the most cause for amazement that anybody would toss them have all been Dells.
I routinely see solid reliability from machines way older than the oldest Mac that any current Mac OS still supports, so don't be scared of refurbs, many of which will have come from shops that churn their whole fleet every three or four years just to limit the range of issues their IT departments need to deal with. You might well find a fast ex-corporate refurb that costs you less to buy and then max out its RAM than you'll pay for worse performance in a new machine with worse build quality. In 2024, absence of USB-C ports is the age cutoff criterion I'd use.
posted by flabdablet at 3:49 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
I don't care much about battery life or weight because I don't plan to be moving the laptop around much, it will mostly stay plugged in at my desk
If this is the case, then it may be worth considering whether you want a laptop at all. This is particularly the case if you plan to use an external monitor, speakers and keyboard with the computer. There are a bunch of small format PCs intended for corporate environments - so needing good connectivity, reliability, servicability and adaptability combined with reasonable power. Something like a Lenovo ThinkStation Tiny
posted by rongorongo at 4:44 AM on September 21 [5 favorites]
If this is the case, then it may be worth considering whether you want a laptop at all. This is particularly the case if you plan to use an external monitor, speakers and keyboard with the computer. There are a bunch of small format PCs intended for corporate environments - so needing good connectivity, reliability, servicability and adaptability combined with reasonable power. Something like a Lenovo ThinkStation Tiny
posted by rongorongo at 4:44 AM on September 21 [5 favorites]
Jump away from the PC and get a Mac. There's a Mac Air laptop for $999 if you go back to their M2 Chip, which is still great. Or you can get a great Mac Mini and a monitor for under $1000. You'll be amazed at how much longer this will last you than a crappy Windows laptop. Apple will want you to set up an account with them as well, but it's not obtrusive at all.
posted by hydra77 at 7:17 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
posted by hydra77 at 7:17 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
If you're considering a Mac, borrow one and do some word processing on it first. If your fingers prove as allergic to them as mine are, that could save you money and trouble.
Apple's keyboards lack keys that I use all the time like Home, End, Page Up, Page Down and forward deletion, so the longer I work with one the more infuriated I get. Yes, I know the two-key chorded equivalents for all of those functions. No, they're nowhere near as quick to type.
Apple's trackpads also don't have buttons, instead providing lots of functionality via multi-touch and different lengths and pressures of tapping. I trigger most of that stuff by accident way more often than on purpose, making the machine do something inexplicably different from what my fingers thought they were asking for, and that gives me the shits as well.
I have never experienced anything like this degree of difficulty physically adapting to a new keyboard/trackpad/trackpoint on any other manufacturer's laptop, not even ones that put those frequently used keys in weird places.
I've also never been given reason to be convinced that the design quality arguments actually stand up to scrutiny. They're pretty machines to be sure, but the superior hardware engineering trope has long been and remains a marketing talking point, not reality.
posted by flabdablet at 8:17 AM on September 21 [4 favorites]
Apple's keyboards lack keys that I use all the time like Home, End, Page Up, Page Down and forward deletion, so the longer I work with one the more infuriated I get. Yes, I know the two-key chorded equivalents for all of those functions. No, they're nowhere near as quick to type.
Apple's trackpads also don't have buttons, instead providing lots of functionality via multi-touch and different lengths and pressures of tapping. I trigger most of that stuff by accident way more often than on purpose, making the machine do something inexplicably different from what my fingers thought they were asking for, and that gives me the shits as well.
I have never experienced anything like this degree of difficulty physically adapting to a new keyboard/trackpad/trackpoint on any other manufacturer's laptop, not even ones that put those frequently used keys in weird places.
I've also never been given reason to be convinced that the design quality arguments actually stand up to scrutiny. They're pretty machines to be sure, but the superior hardware engineering trope has long been and remains a marketing talking point, not reality.
posted by flabdablet at 8:17 AM on September 21 [4 favorites]
It sounds like you want a low-stress computer that just works. Get the a cheap Macbook Air ($999 for a 13" M2 currently or you can get a refurbished model directly from Apple for significantly less or a refurbished 15" M2 for about $1000) and don't look back. You should expect 8+ years of life from a Macbook and I don't think there's anything else in the price range that offers that level of reliability and longevity.
posted by ssg at 8:48 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
posted by ssg at 8:48 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
"Apple's trackpads also don't have buttons ..." This is not correct. The entire trackpad is a button.
posted by Mo Nickels at 9:55 AM on September 21
posted by Mo Nickels at 9:55 AM on September 21
That's another way to describe it. Point is, Apple's trackpads are different enough from everybody else's that many people, myself included, are put on edge by the resulting tactile experience; in my own case, to such an extent as to find it frustrating and unpleasant enough to require suppressing actual rage.
Try before you buy, is all I'm saying, and try not to buy the hype along with the machine.
posted from my reliable and unsurprising 15 year old Dell Studio 1555
posted by flabdablet at 10:14 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
Try before you buy, is all I'm saying, and try not to buy the hype along with the machine.
posted from my reliable and unsurprising 15 year old Dell Studio 1555
posted by flabdablet at 10:14 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Last laptop I bought was an HP Envy 360 from Costco. Similar to the suggestion above about borrowing a Mac before buying one to be sure you find it acceptable, buying from Costco is kind of like borrowing because of the generous return period. Of course you need to be a Costco member, plus when I bought that HP laptop I knew I was going to dual boot it under Ubuntu. But there is ample advice above about the Microsoft tiny brained account insistence, so my advice is more about price vs. hardware vs. try before you buy. But you do you.
posted by forthright at 4:06 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]
posted by forthright at 4:06 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]
Cheap laptops are an absolute minefield, unfortunately. Concur with the try before you buy caveat around macs (i am a pc boy from way back) buuuuuut i think your use case might be a good one for a second hand refurb mac? Pcs are fine for video editing but it's where macs live.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:12 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]
posted by Sebmojo at 5:12 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]
If you're really not moving it,
A mini PC mounted to the back of a nice monitor!
I just did a beelink s12 attached to a 27" monitor for my mom. With new keyboard and mouse (you'd need speakers, too) it was $415 Canadian.
Storage and Ram upgradeable, etc.
It's worth considering
posted by Acari at 8:04 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]
A mini PC mounted to the back of a nice monitor!
I just did a beelink s12 attached to a 27" monitor for my mom. With new keyboard and mouse (you'd need speakers, too) it was $415 Canadian.
Storage and Ram upgradeable, etc.
It's worth considering
posted by Acari at 8:04 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you everyone. I really appreciate each and every piece of feedback.
I am a member of Costco, though we only ever order for delivery. I haven't gone to the store in years and didn't think of it. Trying a laptop from there is a great idea and I wish I had thought of it before buying the HP. Costco doesn't have a restocking fee (yay). If a certain machine doesn't work out, I like the idea of being able to physically return it and not having to ship it and hope it gets there in one piece and that I am credited for it.
I will be moving the laptop sometimes. It does need to be portable. I just don't care if it's super light because most of the time it will stay in one place.
I don't have external speakers and don't want to buy them on the off chance that the sound quality becomes acceptable. I do have headphones, which I will have to dig up and try. To be clear, the sound is ultra unacceptable for any purpose, not just for something like video editing. I can't stand listening to videos or music at all. My last laptop was a cheap piece of crap and had far better sound. I am hoping this HP was a defective build, because if this is really the sound quality they are supposed to have standard... ouch. The built-in troubleshooting was no help because all it focuses on is whether you can hear various sounds at all, not sound quality.
I haven't used a Mac in quite a while, but I never used to like them. I had to use them for a couple of years at one job, and tested on them sometimes at other jobs. I'll probably just pass on the whole Mac realm. As someone said, I really do just want a computer that works and is stress-free and doesn't require me to do too much work adapting. And for me that's likely not a Mac.
I too hate Microsoft. I just happen to be most used to Windows, and haven't touched a linux machine in 5+ years. At this point I'm not going to attempt the learning curve of installing a linux flavor. Sorry. I know I'm morally bankrupt for continuing to humor Microsoft.
Again, thanks!
posted by Flock of Cynthiabirds at 11:23 PM on September 21
I am a member of Costco, though we only ever order for delivery. I haven't gone to the store in years and didn't think of it. Trying a laptop from there is a great idea and I wish I had thought of it before buying the HP. Costco doesn't have a restocking fee (yay). If a certain machine doesn't work out, I like the idea of being able to physically return it and not having to ship it and hope it gets there in one piece and that I am credited for it.
I will be moving the laptop sometimes. It does need to be portable. I just don't care if it's super light because most of the time it will stay in one place.
I don't have external speakers and don't want to buy them on the off chance that the sound quality becomes acceptable. I do have headphones, which I will have to dig up and try. To be clear, the sound is ultra unacceptable for any purpose, not just for something like video editing. I can't stand listening to videos or music at all. My last laptop was a cheap piece of crap and had far better sound. I am hoping this HP was a defective build, because if this is really the sound quality they are supposed to have standard... ouch. The built-in troubleshooting was no help because all it focuses on is whether you can hear various sounds at all, not sound quality.
I haven't used a Mac in quite a while, but I never used to like them. I had to use them for a couple of years at one job, and tested on them sometimes at other jobs. I'll probably just pass on the whole Mac realm. As someone said, I really do just want a computer that works and is stress-free and doesn't require me to do too much work adapting. And for me that's likely not a Mac.
I too hate Microsoft. I just happen to be most used to Windows, and haven't touched a linux machine in 5+ years. At this point I'm not going to attempt the learning curve of installing a linux flavor. Sorry. I know I'm morally bankrupt for continuing to humor Microsoft.
Again, thanks!
posted by Flock of Cynthiabirds at 11:23 PM on September 21
Couple followups from your followup: the cheapest, shittiest external speakers you can possibly buy will still sound better than the teeny tiny drivers that can fit inside a laptop, especially the ultra thin ones that are all the rage these days, because physics. This Dell Studio machine I'm sitting at has quite good sound quality as laptops go, as do many Macs, but if listening to music or settling down with a movie is what I'm doing with it, I'm reaching for the wired earbuds every time.
Also sure, MS has always been a horrible company as are all the large companies in the IT space, but although that factor was indeed a big part of what drove my own computing choices thirty years ago it's much less so today (in 2024, MS's business practices are actually less horrible than they used to be). The main thing that has me sticking with Debian at this point is that for the last thirty years the open-source stuff has been getting incrementally smoother and nicer year on year as the proprietary stuff steadily and inexorably enshittifies.
So I'd encourage you just to set aside moral arguments around proprietary software and instead consider what you find in front of you on its merits. The steepness of the learning curve involved in forcible adaptation to whatever the fuck MS has done to Windows this time around has been steadily approaching that of switching to an entirely different OS, and for many people has already passed it. If you're going to commit to the huge learning curve involved in picking up a whole new skillset like video editing anyway, maybe keep that in the back of your mind and make cross-platform support factor into your choice of application suite. Open options good, vendor lock-in bad.
Meanwhile, do do your own clean Windows installation first thing, and don't add a third-party antivirus suite; the baked-in Windows Defender has been plenty good enough since Windows 8 and doesn't often bring on mysterious performance crawls. Leave OneDrive disabled as well, unless and until you actually have a use for it; massive video files are not its strong suit, especially if you're not paying MS for maxed-out cloud storage.
Best of luck, and I hope you end up with tools you enjoy!
posted by flabdablet at 12:40 AM on September 22 [1 favorite]
Also sure, MS has always been a horrible company as are all the large companies in the IT space, but although that factor was indeed a big part of what drove my own computing choices thirty years ago it's much less so today (in 2024, MS's business practices are actually less horrible than they used to be). The main thing that has me sticking with Debian at this point is that for the last thirty years the open-source stuff has been getting incrementally smoother and nicer year on year as the proprietary stuff steadily and inexorably enshittifies.
So I'd encourage you just to set aside moral arguments around proprietary software and instead consider what you find in front of you on its merits. The steepness of the learning curve involved in forcible adaptation to whatever the fuck MS has done to Windows this time around has been steadily approaching that of switching to an entirely different OS, and for many people has already passed it. If you're going to commit to the huge learning curve involved in picking up a whole new skillset like video editing anyway, maybe keep that in the back of your mind and make cross-platform support factor into your choice of application suite. Open options good, vendor lock-in bad.
Meanwhile, do do your own clean Windows installation first thing, and don't add a third-party antivirus suite; the baked-in Windows Defender has been plenty good enough since Windows 8 and doesn't often bring on mysterious performance crawls. Leave OneDrive disabled as well, unless and until you actually have a use for it; massive video files are not its strong suit, especially if you're not paying MS for maxed-out cloud storage.
Best of luck, and I hope you end up with tools you enjoy!
posted by flabdablet at 12:40 AM on September 22 [1 favorite]
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Windows really, really, really wants you to have a Microsoft account. The current solution seems to be "yank the Internet at exactly the right screen during setup using obscure incantations." I expect this experience is going to be common across essentially all Windows laptops.
posted by BungaDunga at 1:28 AM on September 21 [7 favorites]