My use case: I’m an engineering student, I need something with a lot of storage, hopefully SSD (right not I have MatLab, Anaconda and KiCAD taking up most of my 128 GB HD, and I had to uninstall the STM32 cube IDE from lack of storage), and reasonable processing performance so I can actually run these things at a reasonable rate. I need to stay within the windows/ms office world to simplify collaborating and file sharing etc. I’m not using it for gaming. Don’t need a massive screen, or touchscreen or anything fancy. HDMI port would be reasonably important.
I want it to last me at least the next 4-5 years, and I’m hoping to not spend more than about £300.
I know a lot of people reccomend ThinkPads, what’s a good model to get cheap at the moment? Or any other suggestions?
Is Windows 11 so bad that I should only be looking at ones that come with Windows 10 installed?
Thanks for any helpful advice!
Edit: Thanks to everyone for taking the time to advise me, I’ve ordered a refurbished T480 with 1TB ssd, plenty of ram, and a 1 year warranty for £340.
A refurbished Thinkpad T480 could do
Thinkpads are a solid choice, and since all the software you listed runs on Linux as well, it’s a good option if you change operating systems to extend the lifetime of your laptop down the road.
If you get one, try to buy one without the RAM soldered on (i think most of the s models). When jt breaks, you basically brick the device - i had to throw out a Samsung notebook because of that.
Yeah I’m planning to install Linux on my old laptop for just home use so I can get familiar and learn a bit of command line stuff, and hopefully make the switch fully at some point. But for now I don’t feel confident that the Linux learning curve wouldn’t slow me down to much, so I’m about to face the horrors of Win 11 Pro (-_-)
I have a Thinkpad T480 and I’m very happy with it. I paid about $250 (~£190) for mine. It came with 16 GB RAM, but is upgradable to 32 GB. The one I bought came with a 128 GB SSD, but I swapped it out for a 1 TB drive which added another $100 (~£76) to my initial investment. This model originally came with Windows 10 and most on the market will come with it, but can be updated to 11 if desired.
I personally have not used Win11 since they made some changes I don’t like, so I can’t really give you advice on that aspect.
Well, if you are in the market for a smaller laptop, don’t buy the x280, as it isn’t upgradable, buy a Latitude 5290 with the same specs as t480, but with a horrendous display and no trackpoint. It has decent build quality and the same upgradability as the t480. You could find it used under 200$ easily.
You can run Office programs in the browser, so if possible I would install Linux. Windows is so heavy and the T480 is quite old hardware by now. I have Pop OS on a T480s and it’s reasonably fast for coding and web browsing.
The browser versions of Office are straight ass though. Google Docs is better for a web option, but if you don’t want all your data farmed by Google, I think it’s easier to just install something local and lightweight like LibreOffice. Just convert to .docx (or whatever other Office app you’re working with) and share through OneDrive or Teams if collaboration is needed.
They run 8. gen Intel processors. The difference to latest models is substantial.
I haven’t switched to Windows 11, but I also haven’t been using Windows 10, either. I’ve seen plenty of people say that Windows 11 is fine, but you should probably check with other students at your school who use the same software you do. Make sure your machine can be upgraded to 11, at least, since support for 10 is ending soon and that could result in software or services that you need being unavailable as well.
