Question Lightweight laptop needed

[elvisruns]

In need of recommendations again after recently springing for a Zenbook 14 (long story short, but the wifi adapter takes forever to connect to my home network, and nearly cost me a deal this evening after the wireless zonked out as I was sending work documentation. This has happened multiple times in three days now):

1. What is your budget? I'll say $1200 max - want to stay under, and am willing to look at refurbs, open box, outlet deals, etc

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 13"-14"

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1080p

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? portable

5. How much battery life do you need? 12+ hours (am preferrable to the 4-cell batteries)

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? No games - just productivity

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) a lot of web-based work, some light graphics via Gimp, Inkscape, SketchUp

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 256 minimum, 512 preferred

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links: Newegg, MicroCenter, Amazon, Dell Outlet, Lenovo Outlet

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 4-5 years+

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? No optical needed.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. Lenovo and Dell - those are the two I am most familiar with for mobile computing. I wouldn't say I'd shy away from any brand in particular. I think my ASUS issue is a one-off, but I can't deal with multiple wifi connection failures every day and am ready to return this unit as soon as I secure something else.

13. What country do you live in? USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed. My other requirements are for ports!! At least one USB-Type A port, an HDMI port for an external monitor, and desperately want something under 3lbs in weight. I kind of dig the USB-C Thunderbolt style port for charging, since I could use one charger on multiple laptops. And I sometimes need to travel with two laptops (I have a 3yr old Lenovo Thinkpad X1 from my consulting job that weighs in at 2.8lbs), so light weight is essential.

 

[elvisruns]

Really could use a couple of ideas. I've been trying to filter on Newegg, but it keeps narrowing down to like three or four that I am not interested in (weight heavier than expected, color, etc).

 

[faalin]

Have you tried your laptop anywhere else to see if its actually the wifi on the laptop or you home network.

I have a Asus ROG G15, i use all Ubiquiti stuff at home and at work its all cisco meraki. But when i took my laptop over to my brothers house, he also uses Ubiquiti but an older gen then mine i could not connect to his wifi till he made some changes to his settings.

I bought a msi laptop back in 2013 that i still use today but replaced it with the Asus in 2021, other then the network issue at my brothers house both have worked just fine.

 

[elvisruns]

Have you tried your laptop anywhere else to see if its actually the wifi on the laptop or you home network.

We've got three other laptops between wife, college-age kid and my work-issued laptop, plus my desktop all on the network with no issue on those with the home wi-fi. This issue was also observed when I took it to my office and was attempting to work from there as well.

 

[GreyCatz]

It seems the biggest challenge is your requirements that the device should weigh under 3lbs AND offer battery life over 12 hours. The only laptop I could find that comes even close is this $1,475 ThinkPad X1 Carbon:

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/x1-carbon-gen9/22tp2x1x1c9

Yes, it's somewhat over budget but it does meet all your (technical) requirements. Storage is a bit low and so is RAM, but external HDDs are fairly inexpensive and slim nowadays, and 8GBs of DDR4 RAM should be adequate for your business life. If it makes financial sense to you to stretch your budget, this X1 is guaranteed to solve your problems - and it's a device you already know.

Other laptops will either fall short on weight (T-series ThinkPads and Dell Inspirons) or on battery life (pretty much all proper laptops available max out around 8 hours).

Refurbs are definitely worth considering, but while cheap to buy these older machines tend to be very heavy or power-hungry (or both). Open-Box sales are a bit of a lottery, and Outlet Deals are all about checking the right site at the right moment.

Best of luck,
GreyCatz.

 

[hang-the-9]

I would not try to get so caught up in finding a super light weight laptop, you will end up paying more for the build, and for battery life you need a decent size battery which means size and weight. Plus the cooling and speed is very compromised in small systems.

Dell XPS and the Lenovo X1 are two of the better slim systems to look at, but don't expect to find huge battery life in a system without neutering things like speed, size, screen brightness, etc..