‘Good looking’ (Windows) laptop

[Tycho]

stewies_minion said:

I’ve had Surfaces since the 3 and have always been moderately annoyed by them. Bad firmware etc.

But the latest Surface Pro, a pen and a dock and a Surface keyboard is a very, very good machine.

Very expensive but now a very sorted, if expensive, package.

Win10 in tablet mode is no iPad but fine.

For personal use, I’d have Apple over it in a heartbeat.

I'd agree. In tablet mode, it's perfectly usable and I love mine.

[captain_cynic]

Original Poster said:

I’ve been a Mac user for nearly 20 years but I’ve decided to transition over to Windows so I need a new laptop.

I will be using it for work (no intensive stuff) and home use, again, no tough tasks.

Budget is up to £1000. I appreciate I don’t ‘need’ to spend this but it has to look ‘nice’. I have to enjoy using it. Rightly or wrongly design is important to me and I’m happy to pay for that pleasure.

What would people recommend?

Would absolutely consider a 2 in 1 or something like a Surface Pro with a keyboard, too.

Thanks chaps.

Define "good looking"?

Personally I find Mac's uglier than a hessian bags full of scrotums, looks are a subjective thing.

I like the look of the Asus laptops, something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-S510UQ-BQ178T-VivoBo...

I generally don't buy them for looks. I buy Asus because they're powerful and reliable, liking the look of it is a bonus

[anonymous-user]

The surface laptop is more than OK.

[AC43]

skinnyman said:

SwissJonese said:

skinnyman said:

I'm a fan of the HP Envy/Spectre range. Current machine is a 2013 Spectre, still going strong. About to buy my wife the latest Envy 13 for university come September.

^^^ This, we buy HP Spectre range for our managers as they are powerful and look really good + uber thin and light too. I've still got an old model that has been working for 4+ years.

HP Envy, cheaper than equivalent Dell XPS too.

I just got the wife an HP Envy 13 for £800 with 3 year cover thrown in.

It please the OH as she likes the look & the form factor.

Spec seems pretty goof for the price.

[anonymous-user]

DELL Inspiron 15 7000 15.6" Core™ i7 Laptop - 256 GB SSD, Silver
RAM 16GB, NVIDIA GeForce 940MX

I purchased one of these from Curry’s on Tuesday, reduced from £999 to £599
I also get an 8% discount on Curry’s gift card via work, so came in at £552, very happy with it, nice aluminium case!

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 19th July 13:39

[HRL]

chadders74 said:

HRL said:

Boot camp your existing Mac and put Windows 10 on it too?

Or Parallels to have both at the same time.

And split resources over both. Don’t get me started...

Says he loves his Mac, but needs Windows. Boot camp ticks both boxes. Each to their own though I guess.

[TameRacingDriver]

Efbe said:

god I can't stand these things. horrible to use unless your idea of needing a laptop is just for browsing the web.
If you need a tablet, then microsoft just isn't near as good as ios. if you need a laptop, then a surface will just annoy you.

personally I'd get a lenovo yoga.

Have to agree. We had some surface pros at work. Very unreliable. Also hideous to use on your lap. Not the best laptop or tablet.

I would if I had to get a surface laptop or 2in1 if there is such a thing.

Otherwise I'd get a yoga.

XPS13 also looks nice but again a question mark over reliability.

[Dracoro]

captain_cynic said:

Define "good looking"?

Personally I find Mac's uglier than a hessian bags full of scrotums, looks are a subjective thing.

I like the look of the Asus laptops, something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-S510UQ-BQ178T-VivoBo...

So, you think Macs are ugly, that’s fine but you then point to a laptop that looks like a blatant copy of a Mac (MacBook Air especially).

[14-7]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

They are apart from the terrible battery life compared to Macs.

[Tallow]

I've got an XPS13 and love it. I also looked at a friend's Surface Book and that looked pretty good too - I'd certainly consider one if I was in the market for a new machine.

[captain_cynic]

Dracoro said:

So, you think Macs are ugly, that’s fine but you then point to a laptop that looks like a blatant copy of a Mac (MacBook Air especially).

I guess you should have gone to specsavers. They aren't similar at all.

[Dracoro]

I think you need spec savers! Apart from black bezel round screen, they’re pretty much the same.

[Dracoro]

Also, many reviewers online agree with me.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/laptops/news/asus/1414...

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/asus-vivobook-s15-rev...

Just search for VivoBook looks like MacBook and loads of results.

[51mes]

Tallow said:

I've got an XPS13 and love it. I also looked at a friend's Surface Book and that looked pretty good too - I'd certainly consider one if I was in the market for a new machine.

Another XPS13 fan here - bought at John Lewis for the extra warranty ;-) I did consider the spectre when I got the new machine but the 13 had the 8th Gen CPU which offered a big jump over the 7th Gen and the spectre available at the time was only 7th Gen - And I couldn't wait. The spectre was a little more expensive If I remember rightly as well.

S.

[blueg33]

TameRacingDriver said:

Have to agree. We had some surface pros at work. Very unreliable. Also hideous to use on your lap. Not the best laptop or tablet.

I would if I had to get a surface laptop or 2in1 if there is such a thing.

Otherwise I'd get a yoga.

XPS13 also looks nice but again a question mark over reliability.

I use a surface pro al the time for work stuff and well as home stuff. Its great, works as well as my £2k laptop provided by workm but is lighter and more compact. Battery life is good too.

I have had my surface pro 3 for over 2 years using it daily often for 8 hours a day.

[Efbe]

Dracoro said:

Also, many reviewers online agree with me.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/laptops/news/asus/1414...

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/asus-vivobook-s15-rev...

Just search for VivoBook looks like MacBook and loads of results.

Zzz

The apple portable computer is a computer that opens up like a book.
sounds like they ripped off IBM/compaq/whoever massively.

[Deep Thought]

skinnyman said:

SwissJonese said:

skinnyman said:

I'm a fan of the HP Envy/Spectre range. Current machine is a 2013 Spectre, still going strong. About to buy my wife the latest Envy 13 for university come September.

^^^ This, we buy HP Spectre range for our managers as they are powerful and look really good + uber thin and light too. I've still got an old model that has been working for 4+ years.

HP Envy, cheaper than equivalent Dell XPS too.

I've an HP Envy 13 and whilst its definately cheaper than an XPS i've found it has worn quite badly. I'm on my second keyboard due to excessive wear, the palmrests wear too and the outer cover being aluminium is prone to denting. I bought a new one but upon trying to get it fitted i've found that the screen surround is stuck down and needs remove to replace the outer shell and this ends up bent.

The little rubber feet underneath come off easily too and as they're over screws cant be glued back on.

The kensington lock port never worked correctly and being mounted in the aluminium casing wears badly.

Its 2.25 years old and until i got the new keyboard / palmrest recently it looked like it had been through the wars.

Quite prone to overheating too, and at just over 2 years old needs a new battery as battery life has dropped off dramatically this past couple of months.

Its also prone to flexing if its not on a wholly flat surface which affects keys around the middle of the keyboard.

Its an i7 with 8GB RAM which was the top spec at the time. It came with a 256GB SSD which i've changed to a 512GB one.

Yes its in every day use with work and at home and i travel a lot with it, but its definitely a consumer grade laptop rather than a business grade one.

I think the Spectre is better built but i'll be running with a 2018 model XPS 13 as soon as i can justify changing from the Envy. I'd keep it as a second laptop but i've a couple of Lenovo business grade machines for that that are frankly bullet proof.

[DoubleByte]

I've got a Surface Pro 4 and anew XPS 13.

Surface - rock solid, great screen which is a different ratio to most. Go for 8gb ram if you can. Battery life could be better but running that screen probably uses a bit.

XPS - 8th gen i7, 16gb ram and 500gb drive makes it pretty quick. But Surface Pro boots quicker. Built in Killer WiFi can be flakey but latest drivers have helped. Windows Hello rarely works from sleep. Battery life is excellent. I only have the HD display but it's pretty good for all my developer tools. Got mine from Dell Outlet for a relative steal.


Both are pretty nice to use. XPS is better for using actually on your lap.

Asus copied Surface Pro but without the superb screen. Not sure they've copied the XPS LOL.

[Deep Thought]

Theres currently a deal on for a 10% off code on Dell Outlet

http://www.dell.com/learn/uk/en/ukdfh1/campaigns/f...

And theres some XPS 13 9370 i7 16GB 512GB SSD, FHD laptops on Outlet for £1180 - the 10% = £1,062 delivered.

Thats where my money would be

[giblet]

Deep Thought said:

Theres currently a deal on for a 10% off code on Dell Outlet

http://www.dell.com/learn/uk/en/ukdfh1/campaigns/f...

And theres some XPS 13 9370 i7 16GB 512GB SSD, FHD laptops on Outlet for £1180 - the 10% = £1,062 delivered.

Thats where my money would be

This is very tempting!

I’m after a new laptop, mainly for work. Daft thing is the majority of the time I’ll be using Google Docs in Chrome so the specs are overkill.

I’ve had my current laptop since late 2011. Specs are somewhat dated now (i7 2630QM, 6GB ram and 500GB hard drive) but it still does the job. My only issue is it’s a chunky 17” desktop replacement so a pain in the arse to lug about.

The XPS seems to be a bargain when compared to it’s main rivals. The voucher code brings the price in line with the third party refurbs on eBay which have a shorter warranty.