June 17, 2024 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Five Years and Counting
June 17, 2024 at 11:51 am
Steve, I really think you owe it to yourself to get a new laptop after five years. It is always a hassle to get the conversion done, but worth the effort. Now here is my recommendation. My wife and I between us have had five ASUS ROG (Republic of Gamers) i7's and i9's and I think they are great. I've always run my personal SQL Server on them along with Msft Office and other software. My wife also uses Msft Office, and her graphic design applications, mainly Photoshop , that she now uses for preparing designs for her digital embroidery machine.
My current machine is a 32gb i9 17" with second 32" display and I'm running 64-bit SQL Server on it, built in August 2020. It blazes through processes I've written for my personal use to import and analyze data with a couple tables in excess of 1,200,000 rows. I love these things. It's more machine than I used early in my career to run an IT department for a local wholesale food and industrial supply company with five people working on the old CRT terminals.
They are a bit on the heavy side, but about all the moving around I do is between my home office and my Lazy Boy. Use a well-padded shoulder bag when I take it anywhere else. It pulls data very well from my NAS devices to anywhere in the house via ethernet or wireless.
I did get my wife a new honkin' desktop last fall that was custom built by my local goto techs. Two of the ROG's are still in our office and used every day.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
June 17, 2024 at 12:58 pm
Back in 2022, I purchased an HP Victus which has proven to be a high performer for the money.
https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/mdp/victus/victus-16
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
June 17, 2024 at 2:45 pm
Steve, you owe it to yourself to check out Framework. You can get all sorts of snap in adapters to give your laptop complete flexibility when on the road. Pretty much everything is user replaceable. And if you need to upgrade, buy a new motherboard-processor board, and replace it yourself. Then you can repurpose your old motherboard-processor into a 3D printed case to use at your desk, or as a multimedia PC. Or, you can even sell your old motherboard to recoup some of the costs of your upgrade. Much less E-Waste, and they are really making great strides in the laptop space, pushing other manufacturers to reconsider their more wasteful and non-upgradeable designs.
Hope this helps!
June 17, 2024 at 2:53 pm
Steve, I really think you owe it to yourself to get a new laptop after five years. It is always a hassle to get the conversion done, but worth the effort. Now here is my recommendation. My wife and I between us have had five ASUS ROG (Republic of Gamers) i7's and i9's and I think they are great.
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Thanks, though I can't do 17". With my travel, I need something in the 13/14 range. I've had 2 13s (3 with the Macbook Air), but might do 14 this time. 32GB is tempting.
June 17, 2024 at 2:55 pm
Back in 2022, I purchased an HP Victus which has proven to be a high performer for the money.
Thanks, I'll check it out. I see a 15", which is worth looking at.
June 17, 2024 at 2:57 pm
Steve, you owe it to yourself to check out Framework. You can get all sorts of snap in adapters to give your laptop complete flexibility when on the road. Pretty much everything is user replaceable. And if you need to upgrade, buy a new motherboard-processor board, and replace it yourself. Then you can repurpose your old motherboard-processor into a 3D printed case to use at your desk, or as a multimedia PC. Or, you can even sell your old motherboard to recoup some of the costs of your upgrade. Much less E-Waste, and they are really making great strides in the laptop space, pushing other manufacturers to reconsider their more wasteful and non-upgradeable designs.
Hope this helps!
Interesting idea, though it doesn't quite look like it's available in a small form factor, and a few reviews noted some heat/reliability issues. I like the idea, but I need reliability and durability more than most anything.
June 17, 2024 at 3:11 pm
Steve, I also have an HP Spectre laptop, which is about 5 years ago. (I'd love to know how you were able to determine the age of your laptop.) I am more cash strapped, so wasn't planning on upgrading it this year. Although I have been tempted by Microsoft's announcement of their new AI + PC, although I was thinking of seeing what HP will offer similarly.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
June 17, 2024 at 4:16 pm
My employer standardizes on Dell for everything. Aside from the "Dell Tax" the only complaints I've ever had with them are a spat of bad batteries 5-6 years ago which required a lot of replacements. My use case for a laptop (work or personal) involves it spending most of it's time docked, so my requirements involve a big screen and a numeric keypad on the keyboard (and no touchscreen as I've found those annoying rather than useful). Another requirement for my personal laptops are that the keyboard doesn't flex while I'm typing. Last time I was looking I found Dell, HP, and most Sony laptops shined here. ASUS, and Lenovo boxes were notably bad (keyboard flexed like a mattress while typing).
June 17, 2024 at 4:17 pm
Steve, I also have an HP Spectre laptop, which is about 5 years ago. (I'd love to know how you were able to determine the age of your laptop.) I am more cash strapped, so wasn't planning on upgrading it this year. Although I have been tempted by Microsoft's announcement of their new AI + PC, although I was thinking of seeing what HP will offer similarly.
I looked up the support on hp.com using the serial number (Win +R? or Win+V? Can't remember). I saw the mnfg date and the date I bought it 😉
I'm worried about the AI PCs, limited selection approved and I like my CPU to mostly serve me, not my AI helper.
June 17, 2024 at 4:18 pm
My employer standardizes on Dell for everything. Aside from the "Dell Tax" the only complaints I've ever had with them are a spat of bad batteries 5-6 years ago which required a lot of replacements. My use case for a laptop (work or personal) involves it spending most of it's time docked, so my requirements involve a big screen and a numeric keypad on the keyboard (and no touchscreen as I've found those annoying rather than useful). Another requirement for my personal laptops are that the keyboard doesn't flex while I'm typing. Last time I was looking I found Dell, HP, and most Sony laptops shined here. ASUS, and Lenovo boxes were notably bad (keyboard flexed like a mattress while typing).
We use Dell, but I haven't every loved them. And for the specs, things like the XPS have a tax compared to the Spectre. I don't find them to give me more value, so I haven't bought one.
Good thought on the Lenovo. I don't love flex either, though I think the Carbon is better built than many other models (which I was looking at).
June 18, 2024 at 6:54 pm
My personal preference is also HP Spectres and my current model is a 13th gen one and I have ones at home running as servers which works well with the built in battery backup and compactness.
They are fast, light, look good and have what I consider the best keyboard for a laptop and they even come with a faux leather case and a pen and the screen folds all the way around.
I like the 3:2 aspect ratio as some machines with small 16:9 screens can be rather small to use standalone on the move and cut off content especially if the scaling needs increasing on the ultra HD screens. Unfortunately it looks like they have now dropped my preferred aspect ratio in the 2024 model.
Comparing to the Dell XPS 14, the keyboard is perhaps the worst I have used, the mouse pad I found to be very unreliable with constant mis-clicks and mostly unusable and the screen does not even go fully back. The one I bought had a dead pixel too. I took it back after putting up with it for a few months. It was a bit lighter.
The Thinkpad would probably serve well but they always look somewhat retro and I have tended to avoid Asus although not for any particular reason.
I did get an HP Dragonfly through work once which was even lighter but it suffered from throttling and got so hot the plastic strips that are the feet actually melted during a heatwave.
I migrated to the Spectre x360 after having a few Microsoft Surface devices that all overheated and failed in some way although their design is improved now so this may have been overcome.
June 18, 2024 at 6:58 pm
Robin, do you mean the Spectre keyboard is better than the Dell or vice versa? I have liked the Spectre, though not the trackpad. I find the left/right click to be a bit unnatural for me. I get way more right clicks than lefts
June 18, 2024 at 7:05 pm
Sorry I have found the HP to be really good in terms of the keyboard and find the trackpad ok although do know what you mean about the unintended right-clicks as I get that too.
However the Dell has this but much worse and as the touchpad has no visible edges you can't really see where it starts and it clicks too easily leading to dragging things around the screen being really frustrating as it keeps triggering left and right clicks. I felt like throwing it out of the window some of the time and the fact the keys have no gaps may look streamlined but it means if you are not very accurate you hit 2 keys at once etc.
For me the Dell is the worst keyboard and touchpad I have ever used whilst the HP is the best. They did try to fix the touchpad issues and made the click digital rather than physical in newer versions but when I tested one in a shop I still found the same issue occurred and it seems to get worse the more you use it from the one I had. I had to carry a mouse with me all the time.
June 18, 2024 at 8:38 pm
Thanks, I have quite a few Spectre recommendations and not a lot of other strong ones. I think I may aim for one of those with 32GB, when I find some time to deal with the hassles of changing all my stuff over
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