Help on choosing a laptop

[Trompie67]

So my daughter starts varsity next month & she's going to need a laptop.

I know fokkol about laptops, and she knows less than.... She currently has a desktop to game with & do whatever work needs to be done.

I have an HPProbook 450 G8 for work. i5 1135G & 8GB RAM with a 256GB NVMe. It works OK, is sometimes a bit slow when working on discounted cash flows (I reckon more RAM would cure the problem as I can run the same DCF on my desktop which has a 10th gen i5 & 16GB RAM & it is much quicker). The fact that it is enterprise managed by some cnuts called VOX makes me hate it, but that's not the fault of the laptop
My son also has a Probook for work, but his is highly specced 12th gen i9 with 128GB RAM to cope with his renders & drawings, and he's been pretty happy with it except for the fact that being so thin it tends to thermal throttle when the workload gets high.

She likes the size of the display (15'6 inch) & the fact that it is relatively thin & not bulky.

So I'm thinking something along the same lines, but probably prefer 16GB RAM & a larger NVMe - 512GB or 1TB. 4 hour or more battery life would be good.

Suggestions? Ideas? What to look out for? What to avoid?

Thanks In Advance!

 

[Typhon]

Drop me a PM, will assist

 

[JollyJamma]

I’m a huge fan of an HP Elitebook or ProBook.

I have an old HP Elitebook 840 G6 (i5 8350u, 16gigs of RAM) and would buy another Elitebook in a heartbeat but they are often expensive.

The ProBook is a solid shout too.

Why don’t you give her your current HP laptop and get yourself a new laptop unless you don’t own the laptop as is?

It’s varsity so yeah, no heavy use case really.

Hopefully Typhon can help though

 

[rinners]

What is she going to be studying? Unless there is 3D models at play, she probably won't need a workhorse until final project.

I used Fusion 360 on my 13 year old Q9400 with 8GB RAM until last year (when the company gave us 8th gen) and didn't really have any issues on the geometric rendering front. It would probably crumple if I had to use it for simulations, but for note taking, I doubt the software would be very resource intensive.

I know the Universities give specs of what to get, but I think it's a blanket cover all to minimize potential headaches.

If there are specific programs that need W11 then obviously 8th Gen min on Intel and that's probably about the only immediate concern. In 3 years she might need an upgrade anyway as she learns what is actually needed before she starts the final project. At least that's when I did my major number crunching.

What should look for is something with good build quailty (good hinges, metal housing) as that laptop will get put through its paces, being carried around and opened and closed every lecture. Probably dropped once or twice

 

[Trompie67]

The HP that I use is company owned, so giving it to her isn't an option.

Uni specs are i3, 8GB RAM & 500GB storage - so yup, kind of generic one-fits-all stuff.
She's studying a humanities degree, so no number crunching, just plain office & Windows. I prefer Win 10 to 11, but let's see what's available over the next few weeks.

The build quality is why I like to Probook, it's metal, feels solid & has taken a fair bit of abuse.

Will drop @Typhon a PM & also reach out to Philip (BillyBawb on AVTalk forum) to see what they suggest.

Thanks folks!

 

[JollyJamma]

The HP that I use is company owned, so giving it to her isn't an option.

Have a chat to them because they may not want to keep it and will sell it to you for cheap.

Companies depreciate their assets and it is a tax deduction on their balance sheet.

I bought a laptop from a company I used to work at for cheap.

 

[Trompie67]

So an update. I decided to just buy new, rather than second hand.

Got her an i5, 16GB RAM, 512GB NVMe & 55Wh battery, so it should last the 3 to 4 years required.

Thanks everyone for their input, it is appreciated.