Best High-end Business Laptop?

[rm - ottawa]

Hi all, I am looking for some guidance on 3 burning questions relating to above Subject. Am hoping I can have some of the knowledgeable folk do a quick read through and vet my line of thinking on my next purchase Thanks!

I'm in the market for a new laptop, and after doing some light research I've come to the conclusion that my best best for a high-end ($2000 range) business laptop may be the Lenovo T450s or the Dell XPS 13.

I'm sure there are a couple of brands I've left out here, but please enlighten if so - I simply looked at top 10 lists, and the following criteria for my needs:

- no requirement for high performance GPU, this will be strictly for microsoft office & light use.
- i5-5200u or better (seems fair), light weight, 128 gig SSD, 8gig ram, windows 10 pro ideally, and then search for best product offering in high end range for good design features, keyboard, and support.

When comparing the Dell & Lenovo, I am giving it to Lenovo for the sole reason of superior keyboard. It was made abundantly clear that the keyboard is far better. I also saw a negative review of Dell's keyboard on Linus tech tips.

Questions I would like to ask:
1) Based on my performance needs, light weight and desire for high-end i.e. multi touch being a nice bonus, am I in good hands with these 2 models, or there better choices?
2) Is now a good time to hold off on buying a laptop, in anticipation of next gen from these brands? I know the Dell XPS 15 is almost here, but I don't think that is a good match for my needs, thoughts?
3) Do you think going with the T450s for superior keyboard is justified, or am I missing out passing up on the Dell?

Thanks again!!

 

[why_wolf]

The Lenovo Thinkpad series is still the best. They aren't sexy looking, but they work great. Lenovo tries to maintain the build quality on the Thinkpads since they were legendary back when IBM made them. It's kind of their prestige line.

 

[boosted1g]

Laptops should start seeing intel skylake shortly.
I support your choice of Lenovo over others for quality.

Is there any specific form factor or other needs you have?
I am very very happy with my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro (there is a new generation, the yoga 3 pro but it actually has a weaker CPU).

 

[dudeman509]

We just ordered a bunch of HP Probook 840 G2's. 3.4 lbs, 14" screen, and amazingly portable and sleek compared to the giant brick Elitebook 8760's we have now (17", 8 lb monster).

 

[Solandri]

You can probably meet the specs you've listed with something in the $1000-$1200 range. A $2000 laptop is tailored more for a market niche. The XPS 15 for example is a straight competitor to the 15" Macbook Pro, so has strong graphics design, photo, and video performance. It comes with a high pixel density display which covers 100% of sRGB space, and has a quad core CPU and GPU to help speed up video rendering and certain Photoshop operations. If all you're gonna do is run office tasks on it, then quite frankly the price premium of a XPS 15 is a waste. Get something in the $1200 range, and upgrade it after 3 years, instead of waiting 5 years to upgrade like you would with a $2000 laptop. It works out to the same $ per year

I'm biased towards the Thinkpads as well. Not just for the keyboard (it really is great), but for their durability. I've owned 5 Thinkpads, and they've survived drops, kicks, spills, being left in the rain, having a backpack dropped on them, and countless other abuses. The one my company bought me in 2004 (T40) is still being used - not because it's really usable (the CPU and RAM are wholly inadequate now), but because the damn thing won't die (it's the one that was left in the rain). The president of the company lets her kids use it.

Keyboards really are a bit of a personal taste though. If there's a store where you can go and try out a Thinkpad keyboard, do so. The difference isn't night and day at first (unless you're comparing to a $500 laptop). But after several hours of use I'm usually fatigued with most laptop keyboards or consistently making the same typos. The Thinkpad keyboards I feel like I could type on forever, and each key responds firmly and accurately. The only annoyance is that they reverse the ctrl and Fn keys. You can swap them in the BIOS in newer models though (I like ctrl on the outside so I can press it with my palm instead of having to stretch my pinky all the way down there).

Based on the reviews, the XPS 13 is a really good laptop too. But it prioritizes small size and portability, and compromises other features to achieve that. If those are most important to you, then it's probably the best choice. But if they're not that important, you may be happier with a slightly bigger laptop.

If you mentioned the XPS 15 because you wanted a bigger laptop, take a look at the Thinkpad Yoga 15. It's a little on the heavy side at 5.1 pounds, but packs in a lot of features plus has a touchscreen and flips into tablet mode, and has a halfway-decent GPU for some gaming. The T450s is basically a non-tablet version of the Thinkpad Yoga 14 (discontinued, probably due to a design defect) with a slightly better keyboard.

In your specs, I'd bump it up to a 250 GB SSD. SSDs perform best when you leave at least 15% of their space free, preferably about 25% free. So your 128GB SSD (really 119 GB) loses 30 GB right there, 15 GB for Windows, 10 GB for system restore, 8GB for a restore partition, 8 GB for swapfile, 8 GB for hibernate file, and you're down to just 40 GB for programs and data. 250 GB is really a much more comfortable size when it's your only storage.

If you can wait, I'd wait just because they Skylake laptops will probably cause stores to cut prices on Broadwell laptops to clear inventory.

 

[rm - ottawa]

Thanks for the responses. I appreciate the insight.

Solandri, I am buying in Canadian, but it works out to roughly $1450 USD + Office 2016 Subscription ($100)

These are the main features/options I plan to opt for:

CPU: i5-5200U
1920x1080 IPS Display (Not touch screen)
8GB DDR3L-1600 Memory
Keyboard Backlit
256GB SSD

I've taken your SSD size advice, upgraded ram to 8GB, and kept the base i5-5200. I don't think it's worth spending on the i5-5300 or i7.

I realize Skylake is on the way, but I don't think I would like to wait.

How does this decision look? I will place the order tomorrow.

Thanks again!

 

[jaguarskx]

If you mentioned the XPS 15 because you wanted a bigger laptop, take a look at the Thinkpad Yoga 15. It's a little on the heavy side at 5.1 pounds, but packs in a lot of features plus has a touchscreen and flips into tablet mode, and has a halfway-decent GPU for some gaming. The T450s is basically a non-tablet version of the Thinkpad Yoga 14 (discontinued, probably due to a design defect) with a slightly better keyboard.

The ThinkPad Yoga 14 was discontinued because a newer version has been released. It uses a Broadwell generation CPU (not Skylake), has a dedicated nVidia 940m GPU and supports an active digital pen (specifically, the ThinkPad Pen Pro; $40 USD)


With regards to a SSD... Configuring a laptop with a larger SSD is generally pretty expensive. It's usually a lot cheaper to buy a larger capacity SSD yourself, clone the hard drive / SSD in the laptop to the new SSD and then install the new SSD. However, it does take a little bit of time and you must do it yourself or have someone do for you.

The ThinkPad T450s offers pretty good storage expansions. It accepts a standard 2.5" hard drive / SSD and it has two M.2 slots for M.2 form factor SSDs. The capacity of consumer SSD drives are pretty good; though pretty expensive as well. 2.5" SSDs have up to 2TB capacity (about $750 - $950) and M.2 SSD capacity is up to 512GB (roughly $250 on average).

 

[rm - ottawa]

If you mentioned the XPS 15 because you wanted a bigger laptop, take a look at the Thinkpad Yoga 15. It's a little on the heavy side at 5.1 pounds, but packs in a lot of features plus has a touchscreen and flips into tablet mode, and has a halfway-decent GPU for some gaming. The T450s is basically a non-tablet version of the Thinkpad Yoga 14 (discontinued, probably due to a design defect) with a slightly better keyboard.

The ThinkPad Yoga 14 was discontinued because a newer version has been released. It uses a Broadwell generation CPU (not Skylake), has a dedicated nVidia 940m GPU and supports an active digital pen (specifically, the ThinkPad Pen Pro; $40 USD)


With regards to a SSD... Configuring a laptop with a larger SSD is generally pretty expensive. It's usually a lot cheaper to buy a larger capacity SSD yourself, clone the hard drive / SSD in the laptop to the new SSD and then install the new SSD. However, it does take a little bit of time and you must do it yourself or have someone do for you.

The ThinkPad T450s offers pretty good storage expansions. It accepts a standard 2.5" hard drive / SSD and it has two M.2 slots for M.2 form factor SSDs. The capacity of consumer SSD drives are pretty good; though pretty expensive as well. 2.5" SSDs have up to 2TB capacity (about $750 - $950) and M.2 SSD capacity is up to 512GB (roughly $250 on average).

Thanks Jaguar, I like your idea of getting the SSD separately, I could probably do the same for RAM!

I have very little laptop knoweldge. Just to walk through this:

- Order the T450S with the standard 500GB HDD and 4GB memory.
- Is Samsung 850 Evo (MZ-75E250B/AM) be a good bet for SSD?
- Match the RAM type as the original 4GB that comes stock? I could either add 4GB for 8GB total or 8GB to go up to 12, I imagine both easy on the budget?

Should I aim for a 2.5" or a m.2?
Assuming 2.5", is this Samsung model a good bet?
Could someone offer guidance on a good RAM option?

 

[jaguarskx]

Here is a video on how to replace the HDD in the ThinkPad T450s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ6Ows-GRjA


Samsung 850 EVO SSDs are pretty good. Add M.2 SSDs later. It comes with software that allows you to clone the laptop's HDD, but I do not think I comes with a cable to connect the SSD to the laptop. You may have to purchase the following cable adapter.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400542&cm_re=usb_to_sata_adapter-_-12-400-542-_-Product


For laptop RAM I would go with Crucial since they are pretty much compatible with all laptops. I buy them without bothering to go to their website to check for compatibility. RAM is pretty cheap; $24 for a 4GB stick (versus $80 that usually Lenovo charges), or $39 for an 8GB stick.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148813
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148679

EDIT

I forgot you are in Canada, but you can check Newegg's Canadian site for those parts, or other Canadian websites.

 

[why_wolf]

Just a small note. Microsoft just announced they will be making their own laptop for the first time. If you're not in a rush to get a new machine it might be worth it to wait for the reviews to come in on it. Should ship at the end of the month I believe. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/microsoft-introduces-surface-book-a-laptop-for-surface-fans/

 

[rm - ottawa]

Yes wolf, I just found out about an hour ago as well. Unveiled earlier today, Microsoft's first laptop, the Surfacebook. A "macbook pro killer", "singlehandedly wrecks dell & lenovo"

The video is definitely exciting to watch, I've seen it 3 times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=5&v=XVfOe5mFbAE

The base unit comes with a Skylake i5, 128 SSD & 8gb ram. 7.7 mm thick, 1.6 lbs.. detachable keyboard... geeze.

The only problem is the pricetag. I'm looking at $2300 CAD just for the base model with a 1-year office subscription and a further $280~ if i want to bump the SSD up to 256gb.

I guess I really need to weigh this against the Lenovo option, which is about 25% cheaper with a 256gig SSD ( assuming I buy harddrive separate)