I’m mostly writing this so I can copy a link to it on every laptop buying post i see, so I don’t have to repeat myself, lol. Maybe it’s good advice, you can tell me how wrong I am in the comment section below.
My experience with buying laptops for background – I work in IT, and for years managed helpdesk where we bought laptops for corporate users. I also run a small youtube channel where I review laptops – something I have done for over a decade, where I typically buy a couple of dozen laptops a year, and also get loaners to review from manufacturers. I touch a lot of laptops every single year.
I’ll go through some generic questions I see a lot of and then the steps I would mentally go through when I buy.
Mac VS windows VS Linux –
This comes down to app support and the eco system you want to buy into.
Macs are great if you are a mac person OR you use software that runs great on Macs. you have an iphone, ipad, and you run adobe/final cut pro? Get a mac. It’s an easy eco system to stay in with a lot of benefits. You run Auto cad? they don’t support macs or linux, so you’re stuck on windows. Do some research on the software you know you’re going to be using. Personally I own laptops running several flavors of linux, windows, and several macs. I 99% use my mac to manage my kids phones/parental controls. Their parental controls roll over the the macs so I don’t have to do anything different, it makes my life easier. I use my windows laptop (Thinkpad P1 Gen 7) 75% of the time I use a laptop. it’s just easier for me and the workflow I run. my job requires me to use teams, and teams sucks on anything but a windows computer… I mean it sucks on windows too, just… slightly less. This is a personal decision, base it on the software you plan on running. hardware wise, Macs are better than consumer grade laptops, but once you look at business class systems, that gap narrows. Linux has one big issue, There are too many versions/flavors, as a new person stepping into that world it can be overwhelming, especially when you are trying to replace the applications you use in windows with linux ones, or finding workarounds, or just trying to do basic tasks that are muscle memory in windows. It’s worth it to break free of the microslop trash environment, but it does have a learning curve. I think this will get better in the coming years.
New VS Used –
You will almost always get more value out of a lightly used laptop than new, However, there is value in being the first/only owner of a system, especially when it comes to warranty, battery/storage health. This is more budget focused, but I tend to steer people to used more often than new, since if you are limited on budget, your money will go a lot further used. (a $600 used system will probably be a lot better than a $600 new system).
Brand –
My personal opinion is brand does not matter nearly as much as product line. I personally will never buy a consumer grade laptop again. HP elitebook/zBook, Dell Precision/Latitude, and the Lenovo Thinkpad lines are often better built, with better materials, better hinges, better thermal designs. etc. They are sold/leased to companies in bulk on a discount with long 3-5 year warranties. it does not behoove the manufacturer to cheap out on these systems. It would cost them far more in warranty claims than they would save going cheap. The drawback? you don’t get all the fancy flashy new stuff. You may get a lower quality screen, you may give up a bit of performance, or go with a generation or two older CPU for the same price as a consumer grade system. However, the number of people who still daily drive a thinkpad after 10+ years of constant use are a testament to their build quality, I have a zBook that is now over 10 years old that gets regular use. Every time I get asked a recommendation in person, it is to buy a business class laptop. Period.
Gaming laptops –
My recommendation is just don’t. Game on a desktop, or lower your expectations on a non gaming laptop. I’ve owed close to a dozen of all brands – acer, azus, HP, lenovo, Dell. Almost all of them have cooked themselves to death shortly after the warranty ran up or they had some other major issue with a component that cost more to fix than the laptop was worth. And yes, I know that people go to great lengths to undervolt, and play with fan curves, but 1) you shouldn’t have to do that with a new laptop, and 2) most people are NOT technically savvy enough to know to to that much less how to do it. And avoid them at all costs used. They are being sold because they are already broken, and the seller wants to offload their broken junk, lol. Not worth it. If you can snag one on a smoking deal on like cyber monday sale, and you just figure you’re setting that money on fire, I guess go for it, but take the time and make sure you take the steps to protect your investment.
How old is too old? –
I don’t recommend going more than 5 years old on a system, Try to buy as new of system that allows in your budget. If you can go less than 3 years the number of times I’ve been able to buy a laptop that still had a year left of factory warranty left that I was able to use is not insignificant. Time is money, A couple of laptops I know well, a T480 and a T14 Gen 2 amd, the T14 gen 2 is more than 2x faster than a T480, has better screens, better storage performance, etc. but they run about the same price wise, and often people pay MORE for the T480. It doesn’t make sense. Why would you pay the same/more for worse performance that means the things you are doing on your laptop will take longer to do? A laptop is a tool to do a job, why would you want to do that job slower?
Soldered ram vs socketed –
Obviously having ram be soldered has drawbacks, but it also means it can’t be scalped right now, I just would make sure I am buying something with sufficient ram, minimum 16gb, preferably 32, but be prepared to pay. If the price is less than a system with socketed ram having 16gb being upgraded to 32gb and the 16gb dimms being sold after, I would buy it, otherwise I would stick to something with socketed ram, or make sure I don’t over pay for the soldered ram laptop knowing it won’t last me as long as one where I could possibly upgrade down the road.
Dedicated GPU or not.
this comes down to personal workload, I have a laptop with a dGPU, I like to play games on my laptop as well as run some local LLM stuff and video editing, and while integrated ones have become SO much better in the last couple of years, they don’t replace a proper dGPU for some of these workoads. That being said, there are a lot of drawbacks, dGPUs in laptops can very wildly depending on year/model, for many years, they served to basically be in compliance with CAD software and support more screens at higher resolutions, and were barely any faster than integrated GPUs when it came to gaming. Driver support for them can be pretty terrible. They are also pretty hard on battery life, even when you do everything you can to use the integrated GPU as much as possible. Do you research on what laptops come with GPUs in your price range, and do the research on specific models. There is too much variance here to put in this post.
360 folding hinge laptops-
I always recommend against these, they seem to have gotten more reliable over the years, but they tend to have hinge and cable problems over time. they are also often carried while on the go and dropped while on the go. I’ve had some recently that my kids are using that have held up well, but I also see them fail in the field too often to spend my money on them.
So the steps I go through when buying:
- Set a budget. be pretty firm about this budget, and include all the costs (taxes, shipping, upgrades you may want to do). If you’re looking at laptops and you know you need a 1tb storage drive, see what is cheaper, finding a laptop that already has one, or buying one after market, etc.
- figure out what your software’s minimum and recommended software requirements are. Do you need a dedicated GPU? do you need a specific amount of ram. etc.
- figure out what features you really need, do you need HDMI? thunderbolt 4? an ethernet port? what features can you live without, and don’t want to pay extra for.
Step 4 is a BIG one. Don’t be desperate, don’t be in a hurry, this next part takes time, if you rush, you always over pay or buy something that is not right.
Then start your search. I’m in the US, and live in BFE, so I buy the majority of my systems on ebay, but there are other sources. Lenovo has an outlet site where they sell new old stock and refurbished systems, sometimes their prices are terrible, but sometimes they are fantastic. Everybody runs sales, especially around holidays. Amazon also is a place you can buy systems, but Their prices are not always great.
I start with my price first, and just see what is available. see what looks good to me, and start narrowing down my options. ebay lets you really filter stuff when you search, CPU generations, Ram amount, etc. and then I narrow it down to a couple of systems that make the most sense, and do my research on those to make sure there are no gotchas I’m not aware of.
Your goal is to buy as NEW of a system that fits your budget and your system requirements based off the software you want to run.
If somebody came to me to day and asked me for a straight laptop recommendation it would be –
General use: a Thinkpad T series, the newest one you can buy.
If you need as powerful of a system as you can buy: a P series.
In my 15+ years of buying every kind of laptop you can think of, all manufacturers have had their ups and down, some years are better than others, but thinkpads have had the best consistency and I don’t have to worry about it being an issue for the end user. But if given more time and more specifics/needs there are some great HP and Dell Laptops out there (and some stinkers).