I am looking for a laptop currently for college. I am going to a local college and need a laptop that will last quite a few years, pretty much all of college, so nearly 4 years. I can spend a max of $1500 but want to spend as little as possible. The problem I have having it finding something that I can duel boot. It is really important to me to be able to dual boot windows and Linux the school I am going to now uses some proprietary teaching software I cant seem to get to work in Linux. So What do i actually need though is my big question, should i go for an i7 for software development (some vm stuff as well) or a i5 should do me fine. I do a decent amount of photo work and some light video editing. Gaming is't s big deal but would be nice. looling at ultra books right now like the XPS 13 and hp x360. What processor should i look for and does anyone know when the next big release for mobile CPUs are, i can wait a couple of months just would be nice to have to play with for now. I have been building desktops now for about 9 years,but haven't kept up with the laptop market.
Edit: Dual boot with 2 drives, i don't like partitioning one drive for both so either expandable with an m.2 or 2ed drive options are what I am looking for.
would prefer new just feel like trying to make it last 4 years could be hard with a used computer. Also a warraty would be nice encase i drop it haven't ever really carried a laptop before so it bound to happen.
Thinkpads hold up quite well. Currently using an X230 from EBay that I got for $300 last year. Its 4 years old and works great with Linux and a few friends have the X220 with Windows and are enjoying it, granted they don't edit videos or code on that one. Get an I7 version and it should last the 4 years and then some.
If you do allot of development and then you want to test your software on different platforms like linux, windows, mac to see how it runs, you might want a system that has a good amount of RAM and all the latest virtualization extensions so you can do lots of VMs.If you are serious about this, sooner or later you will start compiling your own software from source and look into containers, soo something something i7 is going to be nice to have. For super easy dual booting I'd pick a system that has a nice uefi, everything modern should have that. I like the idea of dual booting from 2 separate drives, keep everything linux on drive one, everything windows on the other one, this is what I would do. I really like the new HP Envy models btw.
Only if you want to play some games, you won't be playing battlefield1 on a 15-inch notebook with a mobile chip anyway, well you can, but you might not have the best experience. These modern intel igpus are actually pretty good now for most things, you can even play some of the older games well.
Alright wasn't really sure starting to think laptops are more preference than hardware. Desktops are easy this part faseter and cheaper throw it in. A laptop cheaper and faster but an extra 3 pounds ahhh not so easy.
It's tempting to have a slick looking notebook that you can hold with two fingers indeed. But I would look into functionality first, because if I drop it or scratch it slightly it will annoy me forever :D
Yeah right now i got it narrowed down trying to find that Goldilocks computer ya know, just light enough but is the work horse i need without breaking the bank.
Lenovos are great used devices, more so with the X series. I have an x220 I recently managed to get working again, I got it on eBay for about £130 upgraded the crap out of it with 16gb ram, 500gb ssd, new keyboard and 9 cell battery from lenovo and dropped fedora Linux on it, additionally mine has a modified bios so I can use what ever wireless card I want and get access to more settings.
If your going to be using VMS I suggest looking for an i7 model then upgrading it (we can help you with that here with suggestions)
I didn't realize an x220 would handle that much ram. I'm using one as well and they are awesome Linux general purpose machines still. With an ssd mine flies on Antergos. I would be interested in the information on that ram.