New laptop time

54and56

Hi all,

Classic one man band niche prof service provider here. Used to travel a lot, that slowed down as I re-focused on Irish clients a few years ago and now WFH for the last year like so many others. Have access to an office but it's only real benefit over WFH was the included meeting room which I don't think will be needed much if at all going forward post Covid as clients new and old seem comfortable (or at least accepting) of Teams / Zoom etc.

I currently operate a 3 year old 15" Lenovo T580 laptop with an Intel i7-8550U CPU, 8GB ram, Win 10 64 Bit and 512GB SSD.

I predominantly use MS 365 90% of the time and all my documents are sync'd to OneDrive. The T580 is a good workhorse, has never let me down and it's screen and keyboard are a joy to work with but it's a lump of a yoke to drag around if travelling (hopefully will do some of that again in the future) or I need to work away from the home office or do a Zoom call in a quieter location etc and the battery seems to drain very quickly, I'm lucky to get 3 hours out of it and less if video calling.

I've had it docked via USB C to 2 X 27" QHD monitors for the last year and can't see myself ever undocking it so I'm thinking about getting something light and portable which has excellent battery performance and enough processing power to run MS 365 apps offline if needs be for some light work plus handle Zoom / Teams calls and some VLC video watching (13" or 14" screen) whilst travelling / holidaying etc.

Although I've generally been loyal to Lenovo for the last 10 years or so I'm aware that AMD chips may offer better mobile performance so open to switching to another brand if there are better options than the Lenovo AMD offerings such as the Ryzen 3 IdeaPad Flex 5 for €550 or the Ryzen 7 version for €800 which would be top of my budget.

Am I on the right track or completely off course?

Any suggestions?

km991148

Would you consider selling the T580 to up the budget to an XPS 13? Portable and powerful?

Or replace the battery in the T580. Won't solve portability, but will give you more time to look out for a good deal on something you like (might be a while before you need the portability anyway!). Then you could wait until a new generation of cpu or laptop is due and buy 'last years' model.

54and56

km991148 wrote: »

Would you consider selling the T580 to up the budget to an XPS 13? Portable and powerful?

Or replace the battery in the T580. Won't solve portability, but will give you more time to look out for a good deal on something you like (might be a while before you need the portability anyway!). Then you could wait until a new generation of cpu or laptop is due and buy 'last years' model.

Both are good ideas but to be brutally honest I like the T580 and it'll do a fine job as my "desktop" machine for a few years.

Tried upgrading an old Lenovo X1 battery a few years ago. Sourced the right battery online for €75 or so and paid another €25 or so to have it fitted. Complete waste of time. Went from a laptop with a failing battery which only lasted 2 hours to one which lasts 0 seconds and is now used by my daughter for online school but has to be plugged in all the time. In fairness it's almost 10 years old but super form factor, lovely keyboard and as it had an early i7 with 4GB RAM it still clips along ok.

km991148

Sounds unlucky on the battery placement and someone messed up.

About your replacement machine: if it's something genuinely portable, I'd buy and solid a chassis as possible.. i.e. nothing too plastic-y.

I can't really advise in those machines, I've been on the Dell treadmill last few years. Currently in a similar situation between an xps 15 and a 12.5 inch latitude.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

Doodah7

Apple M1 MacBook Air?? Microsoft 365 runs natively on the M1 chip. Incredibly fast machine and battery life is exceptional and the laptop is extremely portable. Onedrive, Teams, Zoom etc. all work the same.

54and56

Doodah7 wrote: »

Apple M1 MacBook Air?? Microsoft 365 runs natively on the M1 chip. Incredibly fast machine and battery life is exceptional and the laptop is extremely portable. Onedrive, Teams, Zoom etc. all work the same.

Thanks Doodah7,

I'm extremely reliant on MS Excel (in particular) for what I do and have had nightmares in the past trying to use IOS generated Excel files especially when there is anything complex going on such as macro's etc. Perhaps the M1 runs MS 365 natively but I'm not sure I want to find out, the scars from pervious promises that the files being generated would be "compatible" run deep!!!

Also, whilst I know very little about MacBooks I'd be surprised if my €800 budget would stretch to an M1 MacBook Air?

Inquitus

Don't go near a Macbook if you have been a PC User for years, it's a nightmare, plus they are overpriced.