Laptop Loop Help!

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KneesUp

Guru
I've been thinking about replacing my laptop for a while because it's a bit tatty and heavy, but it also does the job I want of it, albeit sometimes it's now a little slow when I use the really badly made software work have me use, and the trackpad is slightly sketchy since a recent incident with a glass of wine and a zoom quiz.

I currently have a HP Elitebook 8470p with an i5 3320m (from 2012 according to Intel) 8Gb Ram, a 256Gb SSD and a 1Tb spinny-platter drive - it's dual boot so the operating systems are on the SSD and all the data is on the spinny-platter drive (which, seems as you ask, is not backed up, no ...)

What I like about the current laptop is

1) it's built like a brick outhouse. You could probably knock nails in with it.
2) It has a proper dock that all the peripherals connect to. When I get to my desk all I have to do is drop it on the dock and it has power, mouse, two monitors, pen tablet, webcam, headphone and mic all connected without ever having to fish around for any cables at all. It also puts the keyboard at a nice sloped angle.
3) I was able to swap the optical drive for another HDD so I can keep the OS and the data separate
4) It's pretty tough (see 1) so I don't worry about dumping it in a pannier in a padded bag.
5) It has a display port connector and a VGA connection which means I can plug it straight into the displays at work

What I don't like about the current laptop

1) It weighs a ton. Because it built so that you can knock nails in with it
2) The battery life has never been amazing
3) It's not HD, and the screen in general is a bit dull and the colours are rubbish
4) It can get a bit slow when I have everything running at once (6 or 7 bits of software I use throughout the day plus multiple tabs)
5) It's Windows 8, and even though Windows has the bigger part of the SSD, it's still running out of room. I don't know if 10 is more compact (MS always seem to think the next version is better, and they always seem to fill all the space available) or if I just need a bigger SSD
6) It has not got an HDMI connector so I have to use a dongle to connect it to any screen other than the weird-ass ones at work

I use the laptop for contracted work (education) and self-employed work - which involves spreadsheets and some graphics stuff (mainly vector drawings) - I've sometimes thought that a discrete video card might be good. I also take photos as a hobby, so I use various photo editing tools.

I have a budet of £1,000-ish that ideally I will spend before the end of the month. Suggestions please - I'm going round in circles trying to work out what specs mean! I have no aversion to getting a refurb one if it's a better performance per pound - this one was a refurb and has been faultless.

Thanks, hive mind!
 

DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
Certified Refurbished Laptops from MicroDream.co.uk
Could be worth a look here for another HP, or a Lenovo ThinkPad, both are good quality business laptops
 
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KneesUp

KneesUp

Guru
Spend some of your budget on a backup drive. There are two sorts of people. Those who do backups and those who wish they had. Speaking from experience
All the key documents sync to my google drive to be fair to myself, and I do have a 3TB WD MyCloud to back up to - but to my shame I've not actually set it back up since we moved <cough> over a year ago <cough> - so the only stuff that's not backed up anywhere are my photos from the last 12 months. But point taken - I'll plug the MyCloud back in at some point today if I can find the power supply.
 
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KneesUp

KneesUp

Guru
Certified Refurbished Laptops from MicroDream.co.uk
Could be worth a look here for another HP, or a Lenovo ThinkPad, both are good quality business laptops
I had an IBM Thinkpad back in the day and that was fab - another laptop you felt you could use as a door stop if you wanted. I think it also had hot-swap caddies you could use to replace the optical drive with a hard drive without rebooting?

As you know Lenovo bought the laptop business from IBM a while ago - I bought a 'consumer' Lenovo laptop maybe 8 years ago based on the work one being so well made, and it was rubbish - the keyboard was bendy and the hinges snapped through the base after not much more than a year. Are the 'business grade' ones supposed to be as good as the old IBM ones were?
 

glasgowcyclist

Charming but somewhat feckless
Location
Scotland
If you want to continue using the docking station then stick with HP and go for something like an Elite Book 830 G6. This is new enough to be decent but old enough to be a reasonable price 2nd hand.
 

DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
A Panasonic Toughbook could double as a hammer, but it's over budget and the guts may not be up to what you want.

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/r/panasonic-toughbook
We use them at work, the track pad and buttons aren’t very responsive, not for what they cost.
I had an IBM Thinkpad back in the day and that was fab - another laptop you felt you could use as a door stop if you wanted. I think it also had hot-swap caddies you could use to replace the optical drive with a hard drive without rebooting?

As you know Lenovo bought the laptop business from IBM a while ago - I bought a 'consumer' Lenovo laptop maybe 8 years ago based on the work one being so well made, and it was rubbish - the keyboard was bendy and the hinges snapped through the base after not much more than a year. Are the 'business grade' ones supposed to be as good as the old IBM ones were?
I’ve got an old 2011 Lenovo T420, fitted it with another 4GB of ram (8GB in total) and an SSD, and a new 2 Power battery, I also found that it has a working SIM slot too, so can be used on mobile internet, it’s pretty quick, runs Windows 10 Pro, it’s built like a tank and works well, but I agree with you that their consumer models, they are awful but not sold as a ThinkPad, which are the quality business models, and new are priced accordingly
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I'm happy with my Lenovo ideapad 710s. The HD screen is very good, the keyboard is ok apart from a couple of niggles (small Enter key, right shift key in silly place). The trackpad is so-so but I usually use a wireless mouse so that doesn't bother me. The battery life is ok, but I use it with the charger plugged in most of the time anyway (with battery conservation mode enabled to extend the battery's longevity).

It has a 12 inch screen and is very thin and light. It is well constructed but fairly delicate - I wouldn't want to throw it about unprotected!
 
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KneesUp

KneesUp

Guru
Thanks for all the input - I am now looking at the M1 MacBook Pro / Air options as well (some of which are over budget but I can be flexible) I had a G4 Powerbook way back when - I liked that and the Apple eco-system - just need to check there are OS 11 versions of all the software I need. Out of budget and no dock option, but discrete graphics and lots of performance.
 
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Open File explorer, right click on your C drive, and click Properties.
Click Disk Cleanup. When that finishes, click Clean up system files, and delete all that. You might be surprised how much space re-appears, and some performance with it. Do it regularly, if it's enough to change things.
 
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KneesUp

KneesUp

Guru
You say it’s dual boot. What is the second operating system you boot it into and how much space is that taking up?
It's a 256 GB drive split into a a 112GB Windows partition (currently 104GB used) and a 112GB extended partition with 104GB for Ubuntu 20 (75GB used) and an 8GB swap file.

Open File explorer, right click on your C drive, and click Properties.
Click Disk Cleanup. When that finishes, click Clean up system files, and delete all that. You might be surprised how much space re-appears, and some performance with it. Do it regularly, if it's enough to change things.
Cheers - I have done that and even have the drive compression turned on - Windows just likes to spread out it seems.

I have toyed with the idea of giving over some of the spare Ubuntu space to Windows but because Ubuntu is on an extended drive it gets more complicated / potentially problematic than I can be bothered with!

EDIT - the spinny drive is 1TB with 590GB free.
 
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DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
Thanks for all the input - I am now looking at the M1 MacBook Pro / Air options as well (some of which are over budget but I can be flexible) I had a G4 Powerbook way back when - I liked that and the Apple eco-system - just need to check there are OS 11 versions of all the software I need. Out of budget and no dock option, but discrete graphics and lots of performance.
I also have a 2010 16" MacBook Pro, it's a belter of a laptop, I like the way it seamlessly links with the iPad & iPhone, the Lenovo was done up when my wife needed a machine with windows on to work from home.
 
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KneesUp

KneesUp

Guru
Hmm - just discovered that the otherwise splendid looking M1 Macs can't natively support more than one external monitor which is something as a shame as I have two (one landscape for most things, one portrait for annotating PDF docs and parking small windows (i.e. spotify) on.
 
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