New Work Laptop - Thinkpad Yoga... awful!

[Biscuit]

Hi Guys,

In the new year i will be starting a new job in a much better position for future career growth, with more chance to work from home so should have a serious bearing on social/family life. They have asked me what laptop i would like and given a budget of £1000 exVAT which seems pretty reasonable to me.

I have set about my research and basically discovered that we over in the UK don't seem to have many of the cool new Haswell laptops available to us yet

My requirements are flexible but ideally i would want it to be fairly portable and light, nothing bigger than 15.6", 4th gen i5 or i7 power but essentially a decent resolution screen. By decent i mean anything above the evil 1366x768 is acceptable but less than 1080p would need to have some serious other benefits to be worth while, the software i will be using requires lots of small windows to be open at once so the higher the better.

The Samsung Ativ book 9 plus would be pretty much perfect but its just out of the price range

Quite like the look of the Sony Vaio pro, but i cant help feeling i must be missing something?

[AETAaAS]

What are you looking to do with it?

If you want to squeeze some gaming out of it, MSI GE60 is my choice with the i7 4700MQ and 765M graphics. http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/MSI-G...K_1389673.html
Same thing in a smaller and lighter form (13.3 inches as opposed to the MSI 15.6) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=LT-028-OE

For mobility, you already mentioned the Samsung and Vaios, alternatives I'd consider are the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13 http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptop...131012111250:s

And the Acer S7 (but wait for the Haswell version to hit)

[Biscuit]

No gaming necessary, its quite specialist software ill be using most (aside from the basic office and email tasks), not too CPU hungry and no requirement for any GPU. Do we have any idea of when these laptops are coming to the UK? Surely we will be getting more 4th gen ones before Christmas? Loads of announcements have been made for the super high res super awesome haswell machines but few seem to have materialized

[AETAaAS]

At the moment, you might have to go with the fruit company... *audible gasp*

Or or this; http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/sy..._Gaming_Laptop

A pretty laptop to look at and with an impressive spec sheet. Review of similar W740SU on Notebook check; http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-...k.98313.0.html

[Biscuit]

Ergh, another Macbook :/ Doesnt appeal too much although specs/pricewise i suppose they are comparable to other 'ultrabooks'.

That cyberpower actually looks pretty good... with the exception of the HUGE logo printed on it.

[AETAaAS]

It's not a printed on logo. As far as I can tell, it looks like a stick on which you can probably pry off with care.

[Biscuit]

i might call them and ask them if i can get one without it, as a business laptop i dont think its hugely professional. What are CyberPower laptops usually like?

[AETAaAS]

The laptop itself is a Clevo system. Clevo build a ton of different barebone laptop models and various companies buy them, install hardware to their spec (or their customers) and sell them on. My current laptop is Clevo based but it was sold through PWNPCS.

Specs are in my profile and as it states, its based on the Clevo P150-EM. Scan sold a similar model as their LG10 IIRC, it has since been succeed by a newer Haswell model. I think I'm right in saying that all current Scan 3XS laptops are Clevo based. In fact, a vast majority of custom laptops sold by 'boutique builders' are Clevos. Infer of that what you will but I can say my P150-EM has been very solid.

Main benefit of a 'barebones' type laptop is that it is usually easy to modify or upgrade since it was designed with this in mind. Buying from CyberPower means having them as your support/warranty provider but I anticipate you shouldn't have problems. I once ran my laptop for a full week encoding hundreds of 720p videos as a stress test. Absolutely no problems.

[Biscuit]

Many thanks AETAaAS, certainly given me something to think about.

[cptwhite_uk]

Biscuit take a look at the new Dell range due out in the next few weeks (from mid-Oct to end of Nov)

http://hexus.net/tech/news/laptop/60...isplay-xps-15/

There's some really interesting options, is XPS 15 especially might just come in at a price acceptable to you (£1200 I believe inc. VAT?)

It's set to start at $1499 for the base model.

Using the price of the Dell Venue 11 Pro also in the line-up which engadget says will be $500 / £350

This means with the same conversion ratio we might hope the see the XPS 15 for somewhere between £999 and £1099

The direct conversion cost is $1500 / £939, so add UK shipping and VAT and it might just come in on budget.

Note it's QHD+ screen (3200x1800) which they claim is the highest res screen on any 15" laptop

Dell XPS 15 featuring Quad HD+ display

The Dell XPS 15 is the world’s first 15.6-inch laptop available with a Quad HD+ display at a 3200 x 1800 pixel resolution (also available with a touch option and in a 1080p screen option). This machine is configurable with a 4th Generation Intel Core i5 or i7 quad core processor and NVIDIA discrete graphics options. The XPS 15 includes a 32GB mSATA SSD paired with up to 1TB HDD, it is also available with a single SSD up to 512GB in size. This “multimedia powerhouse” weighs in at 2Kg. On sale from 18th October, prices start from $1499.

The 13" and 11" options might also be interesting.

[Biscuit]

I had seen some of these announcements i just couldn't see any of the details for them on their websites, clearly just not up for sale quite yet then eh!

I dont need it till the new year however, i will need it right at the beginning and i know what these companies can be like with deliveries. Looks like a couple of weeks waiting will be worth it

[cptwhite_uk]

Absolutely, I'm plumping for a Venue 11 Pro the moment it's released (Nov 7). If the price is correct it's a steal.

I'm getting the Base unit, dock, keyboard for laptop style use and I might bump up the processor depending on costs....happy to blow £600 on this one as it will function as a Window 8 tablet, traditional laptop and desktop set-up all in one machine, which is very very useful

[Biscuit]

Having a look at the current XPS15 range, it seems the base price which will fall into my budget will be pretty basic specs. Time will tell of course but i will have to do some checking before i buy incase i cant change RAM/HDD. SSD is absolutely essential, although im happy to buy one myself.

[george1979]

How about this?

http://www.johnlewis.com/hp-envy-tou...-metal/p588914

Haswell i7, full HD touchscreen, aluminium body, dedicated graphics (i understand you don't need it but its there anyway), 16Gb ram.

[cptwhite_uk]

Since the buttons (plural) fell off the keyboard of the HP I got them, and the on-board GPU gave up the ghost (probably nVidia's fault to be fair, but still, it was in a HP machine) I haven't touched HP. Looks a reasonable machine otherwise, except it's only Full HD and 560g heavier than the Dell that's due out in a couple of days.

[Biscuit]

How about this?

http://www.johnlewis.com/hp-envy-tou...-metal/p588914

Haswell i7, full HD touchscreen, aluminium body, dedicated graphics (i understand you don't need it but its there anyway), 16Gb ram.

Cheers for that! Certainly ticks all the boxes, again i would need to check how easy it is to install an SSD though.

Since the buttons (plural) fell off the keyboard of the HP I got them, and the on-board GPU gave up the ghost (probably nVidia's fault to be fair, but still, it was in a HP machine) I haven't touched HP. Looks a reasonable machine otherwise, except it's only Full HD and 560g heavier than the Dell that's due out in a couple of days.

Higher than 1080p is more of a nice to have, on such a small screen i think 1080p will suffice but if it was between more CPU grunt/RAM and high res screen, i would go for the RAM.
Was the one you had issues with from the same range (envy) as this one?