Laptop Recommendations

Nothing wrong with HPs. I prefer Lenovos, but I will say that having worked with field technicians from HP, Dell & Lenovo, the ones from HP have tended to be easier to work with.

Meanwhile...we literally had to turn away a Dell tech the other day. The contract company was "surprised" their employee was held up at the gate because...he had a record (if you get my drift.)

I flat told them "I'd turn him away too! LOL"

 

I am more concerned about the operating system software. How many hated moving off Windows 7 ?
Lenovo was acquired from IBM who I worked for at one time.. The Op is looking I believe for an older laptop just to do stuff. So an older generation Lenovo would work great. JMO

 

Thanks everyone for the recommendations. I think I am narrowing it down to a used Lenovo T480, 16g ram, 512g

$19 m.2 nvme SSD enclosure, USB 3.1 gen 2 (10 gbps) to nvme PCI-E M.2 SSD case support UASP for nvme SSD size 2230/2242/2260/2280(up to 4TB) (M.2 nvme)

m.2 nvme ssd drive. These seem to be the last really upgradable Thinkpads-ram, drive, wifi. $350 range give or take.

 

$350 for that would be a steal, I have T480 for work, though, due to what I need it for, I upgrade the ram and ssd and bigger battery..... good luck.

 

How much ram do you use?

 

For what you're doing with it you'd get by with 16 easily.

 

It came with 8, I added another 8 to it.
I use it mainly for report/excel building and use to have to run Access, I ended up cutting a chunk of virtual memory onto the ssd and later the company moved online to Power BI.

 

My latest laptop is a Samsung Galaxy Pro360, but that's out of your budget. They do make less expensive models. The laptop before that was an ASUS. And before that:

Dell XPS13
Dell Inspiron
HP
Gateway

Most all mid-tier laptops will do what you need them to do. You may need an adapter for multiple monitors depending on your needs. I ran 3 monitors (2 external plus laptop monitor) with this:

$39 MOKiN USB C to Dual HDMI Adapter, USB C Docking Station Dual Monitors for Windows,USB C Adapter with Dual HDMI,3 USB Port,SD/TF, PD Port Compatible for Dell XPS 13/15, Lenovo Yoga,etc

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HGVX6Q2?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

Dell Refurbished store $349 with coupon. We use lots of these at work. Grade A

Dell Latitude 7490 TouchProduct ID: dell-latitude-7490-touch-000056

• Dell Latitude 7490 Notebook, 14-in FHD Touch (1920 x 1080), Webcam, 1x Intel Core i7 Quad (i7-8650U) 1.90 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, No Optical, Intel Integrated Graphics, Backlit Keyboard, Windows 10 Professional

 

I support the Dell refurbished route. I bought one for my side gig when I started it up 4 years ago to save $ and the laptop has been nothing but solid (kids stepping on, dropping, etc). Computer is still going strong but is being retired in the coming months. I’ve used lenovo and HP at jobs and dells are the only ones that can keep up with the abuse. Just my $.02

 

Dammit @Rocko9999 just bought a new computer lol



thanks for the heads up!

 

Upgrading RAM is the easiest, cheapest upgrade with the most bang for the buck. You said you would be using Office 365. If you have multiple documents/spreadsheets open at once, you will VERY quickly use up that 16 GB. Win10 uses 16 GB all by itself, and plays caching tricks to run large programs. 32GB is a significant performance booster for the majority of users.

 

Ha, sorry!

 

If I'd have seen this before I got the Dell G16, I'd have jumped all over it.

 

Asus Zephyr with AMD Ryzen processor. Insanely powerful, runs ultra quite . I use it with my Asus 27” monitor.

 

I ended up with Thinkpad T480, i7, 16g ram, 1TB SSD. Really enjoying it.