I need a work laptop (new). Help me out

[Irving]

It's time to get a new laptop. I don't know enough about computers to shop for myself, so I'm once again appealing to the hive mind. Please help me out.

- I'm done buying used computers. They do okay, but don't last long before they start slowing down.
- I currently have a Lenovo Thinkpad W520. It's fine for everything I do, but when I use Xactimate it slows down so much that I'm probably losing an hour or more a day in lag time.
Here are the system requirements for what I need to run. Probably isn't that much, but the rest of my computer about shuts down when I'm running it: https://www.xactware.com/en-us/solut...-requirements/
- EDIT: Battery life! My laptop now only lasts about an hour, definitely under two, while it is running off of the battery. If I can get something that'd give me four hours I'd be happy, six or more and I'd be ecstatic.
- I carry this out in the field with me so it needs to be durable, and if possible I'd like it to be reasonably light.
- I want a 10-key.
- Not interested in a Mac.
- I'm only conceptually interested in Linux. I'm not sure if most of my stuff will run on Linux, and even if it can, I quite literally do not have the time to find out how to do it.
- I hesitate to even put cost on the list. I want something great, but I don't want to pay a million dollars only to have it run like garbage in two years. If I'm going to spend the money, I'd like something that has some longevity to it. I'm only referring to usability. I care zero about having the latest-greatest-as soon as it comes out. I just want it to work well for as long as I can.

Please help me out with some options of what I should look at. Thank you.

[thedave1164]

Dell Outlet, get a Latitude with Intel i5, 8gb ram and SSD, 15" should get you 10 key.

Get the 3 year warranty and accident coverage

You might have to go to a Precision Mobile Workstation in order to get a discrete video card

[CoGirl303]

keep buying Microshit Winblows based garbage pc's and you'll keep getting junk that slows down and has issues.


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[Irving]

I think maybe I should be looking for gaming or video edit specs. I don't do either, but it sounds like that is the level of robust I'm looking for.

[Irving]

Dell Outlet, get a Latitude with Intel i5, 8gb ram and SSD, 15" should get you 10 key.

Get the 3 year warranty and accident coverage

You might have to go to a Precision Mobile Workstation in order to get a discrete video card

I want to say that I heard the Intel processors eat up battery life, but I'm not sure. Have you heard anything like that?

[ACE2GOOD]

I would recommend going with Dell. That is all we buy for our clients and they last about 5-6 years before you need to replace them. For the specs a software requires you should always go above that if you want better performance. Their recommendations are typically minimal to run the software and perform decently. If you put more resources towards it they will typically perform better. We usually recommend Intel i7 7700k if high performance is required. For graphics the Nvidia Quadros have been the most stable, ATI's have had crashing issues. For the model of graphics that is up to how much performance you are looking for. M2 SSD has the best performance as far as hard drives go. On the battery life I have not heard anything directly related to Intel. Most of it is due to all brands trying to make their computers lighter and smaller so they do that by putting in smaller batteries. We ordered a really beefy laptop for a client that does CAD work and the default config came with a 6 cell battery that would last maybe 4 hours so we had to "upgrade" to get an 8 cell battery to push the battery life up. All of the above really depends on how much performance you really need and want to pay for. We work with some companies that need these specs for CAD for best possible performance and then other clients that are fine with just a small SSD and an i5 that just deal with the standard performance.

[kwando]

I love my ASUS. I bought it back in 2012 for $429. Intel Core i5-3210M 2.5GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, DVDRW, 15.6" Display. I upgraded it to 8gb of RAM, and added a 1tb SSD drive (saves alot on battery drain).

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...3ORDER-_-Deals



I've dropped it from kitchen counter, swore it broke but its fine. I've slammed the lid in a fit of rage HARD, swore i was going to need to replace it.... Nope! It books up fast still, for normal activities its more than fine for what i need. When i stitch those time lapse vidoes using lightroom, i have to leave it for 30 minutes and then come back. But ASUS gets my vote after this laptop.

[TFOGGER]

Looking at the specs for Xactimate, you'll want a quad core processor, at least 4 Gb of ram (8 would be better, especially if you have other stuff running at the same time), and an SSD instead of a spinning drive (will improve both performance and battery life, as Xactimate uses about 30 GB of disk space for swap files). I'll +1 on Dell stuff. My 2009 Dell was a monster when it was new(about $1200, Core i7, midrange graphics), and is still pretty competent. I upgraded to a SSD a couple of years ago, and basically doubled the performance, while increasing battery life about 30%. The rest of the hardware has been rock solid.

Maybe something like this:

http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/...137w10p1c1102d

[thedave1164]

I want to say that I heard the Intel processors eat up battery life, but I'm not sure. Have you heard anything like that?

Nope, as long as you stick with the mobile processors you are good to go, some of the speciality gamer laptops use desktop processors which do eat up the watts

[ray1970]

We live in a disposable society. I seldom buy any windows based PC's anymore but if I did I'd buy the cheapest one that would suit my needs, keep it backed up regularly, and when it shits the bed or becomes too unserviceable just buy a different one.

I think the last one I bought was about seven or eight years ago. Probably paid about $250 for it and it's still chugging along. I fire it up once a year around tax time. Lol.

If you want robust, we use some sort of IBM computers at work. I think they're some sort of Think Pad or Lenovo or something. Not only are most of them probably eight or ten years old but they see use in the field on a regular basis and always being run outdoors, in the dust, in buildings where the temperatures regularly exceed 110 degrees, have been dropped multiple times, etc. and they just keep working for the most part. I think mine is running XP or Windows 7.