My Lenovo Z500 is coming up to 3 years old and the battery pack just gave up the ghost. It’s an i7, running 12gb, a 256gb SSD and 1tb HD. I like it cos it’s pretty quick, I don’t like it cos the hardware is getting a bit worn out (trackpad, battery pack now, rattles a lot), the screen is 720p which ain’t enough these days and because I’m getting the sense that it’s “now or never” with the £:$ rate so royally fecked.

Doesn’t get use for anything too taxing, I just like a quick laptop that just works! Used on client sites so need hdmi and vga every day. Company (mine) is paying. I do run GTA V and Half Life 2 on this one, for those lonely nights away 😉

Thoughts are: MS Surface Pro 4 (used the wife’s 3 and liked it a lot, but ££ and everything seems to be an accessory. Dell XPS. MS Surface Book. Or replace it with a newer Ideapad for 600-650 quid ish. Was watching the recent threads on these with interest! Gets shoved in a rucksack, car boot, on trains and carried regularly.

Would a 6th gen i5 be “enough” for me being 2 gens on from an i7? Some of the stuff I’ve seen would indicate yes, benchmarks seem to say no. Or should I just replace the battery pack and carry on?

Not really sure what I’m asking for, other than can you help me spend a grand when I can fix it for 50 quid, but any pointers? No Macs please. And I’ve just converted an old laptop to a chromebook which just isn’t shiny enough, so none of those too 😉

Dell XPS (which I have) has no VGA/HDMI ports. You have to buy USB to HDMI/VGA dongles for those. They’re not expensive if you get generic ones off ebay but its something to consider.

Doesn’t get used for anything taxing and it’s a 12Gb i7? 😯

Thanks Sammy. Will have a shufty.

It was only 500 quid 3 years ago, 4gb stick was about 25 quid. That’s the problem I have – it’s plenty rapid, but what to replace it with (if at all)?

I’ve had bad hardware reliability with MS surface devices. Based on about the 20+ i’ve managed.

Dell XPS is nice but no NIC.

Current favourite is the HP EliteBook range.
Something blinger and with a touch screen? HP Spectre…but no VGA and comes with Windows Home so may need an upgrade to Pro.

XPS in an ultrabook so is meant to be as slim and light as possible. External connectors are the first thing to go, quickly followed by expandability.

You can have your VGA/HDMI/NIC interfaces, you just need a USB dongle/dock to do it.

You cannot upgrade the RAM in the XPS (probably the same in most ultrabooks). It’s also not going to be the quickest out there as its uses the low power version of all the latest Intel chips.

i ended up in the same scenario – lots of ‘almost there’ laptops but the 15″ XPS was the one i liked the most. 16gb ram included, so no need to upgrade

better than a mac (in my opinion) – newer hardware, easier to support, thunderbolt port, FHD screen (not as relevant in mac comparisons) but Ive had a few bsods – whereas my colleagues mac hasnt

horses for courses tho…i dont need to connect to a monitor and I do need windows (not running virtual box on a mac) – but I do use a mac at home and we’ve become an apple house.

edit: its plenty quick tho…and with dual graphics card for 3d gaming

I’m in kinda the same position as you, but running a 6 y/o Acer (was a top-end one it its day and still holds a +3 hour charge).

Use it mainly for standard MS Office stuff, and when office base always attached to a big screen.

I’ve just bought a Fujitsi Lifebook, feels good to use and while slim has all the standard ports I need including Ethernet and VGA plus can run two onboard batteries. Just over £1k plus vat.

Thanks for the pointers. Some brands I’d not even thought about in there!

Lenovo Carbon X1

🙂

Lenovo Carbon X1

This ^

Might be a bit over budget though.

crap build quality on those z500’s. apple, asus, dell

One of those nice subtle Razer laptops 😛

PS your old one sounds b0rked. Swap for a pair of part worn tyres?

PPS no wonder it was cheap with that display! Doesn’t make a lot of sense with the rest of the hardware.