Title says it all, been shopping around looking for a new work laptop. The front-runner right now is the Surface Pro 5 with keyboard and pen. I'm not sure if I'll like it so I'm planning on purchasing it from Costco to take it for a run for 3 months.

So far in contention:

Surface Pro 5
Lenovo Yoga
iPad Pro
Dell XPS
Thinkpad X1 Carbon(?) a little more expensive but may be worthwhile..



I'd like to stay in the $1,000 - $1200 budget range and am open to suggestions with or without touchscreens.

Thanks slores! :gheyhug:

 

I cannot believe how happy I have been with my Apple Refurb 13" MBP running Bootcamp with W10.

Refurbs form Apple are rock solid. I get OSX and W10 in a very nice chassis.

it might stretch your budget just a bit, the refurbs for the 13" are just shy of $1500.

 

 

https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/ho...ac/macbook_pro

 

What all do you do on your computer?

 

i would go for the lenovo. just make sure to get their dock with it

 

What most guys do on it... porn and Acurazine


I ended up going for a Dell XPS 13 after going to Costco and seeing it on sale: https://www.costco.com/Dell-XPS-13-T...100403152.html

For the specs, the price was KILLER! Also i have 3 months of Costco return policy to play with it and decide if I like it, first impressions: so far so good! I did end up getting a dock shipped from Amazon and just have it installed and set up in my home office. I bought another travel adapter 'dock' so I can take it with me to the client site.

Home dock:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Travel dock/adapter:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The X1 would have been nice but this one has it beat on price. Also, I went to price it out on Dell's website when I got home and even with my corporate discount, it was over $2000 ..


Thanks for the advice all!

 

Can't go wrong with Costco, their 2 year warranty (4 years if you pay with their credit card) is pretty nice!

 

Brother!

I was just about to say the XPS13. I got mine a few years back when the new thin bezel version came out and I really like it.

 

Great choice! How is 4k on a 13 inch laptop?

 

Guess I meant do you use any Windows only applications?

 

I've always liked the Latitudes. Not really a fan of the XPSs that I've messed with. My hands are too big to type on them comfortably among other reasons.

 

Any feelings about the Lenovo T480? Costco has one (i7, 8GB RAM) for $1199.

I need to replace an aging W530...

 

Man I didn't realize how much workstation laptops were. Friend needed one for a new job (interior design so CAD and architectural modeling) so I helped him out. Went from an MSI, to an Alienware, and finally settled on a Precision 5530 (6-core i7, 16GB RAM, Quadro P2000, 512SSD+1TB HDD, 3 year warranty with accidental coverage). "List" price from Dell was like $4100 After tax and with promos from Dell and an additional coupon I was able to get him it came to just under $2400.

 

The T Series have been the go-to laptops for the last few companies/clients I've worked with. I've personally had a T420, T430, T440, T530, T540 (most recent), and I think they're solid computers. They definitely don't look like best and can be heavier than their counterparts but they're build to last and are relatively easy to take apart/replace RAM, etc. I can't speak for the T480 and whether or not they've gone the soldered-on RAM or SSD option yet but if they stayed true to their roots, I don't think they would have. The Thinkpads seem to pride themselves on being easily managed at an enterprise asset management level in my experience.

 

The Precisions seem to share a similar chassis to the XPS laptops from what I've seen. I thought one of my developers had an XPS 15 until he turned it around and told me that it was actually a Precision 5510. They seem like beasts of laptops internally and a touch better than their consumer XPS counterparts. That sounds like some solid specs for the price to me.. It's about the same price as a MacBook Pro if not cheaper with comparable specs

 

Definitely easily mistaken - tons of people in my office have Precisions and I thought they were XPS'. I guess the suggested list price is what prompted my reaction. The $1800 savings definitely seems to make it a good buy, especially when my 13" MacBook Pro was almost $2200 and it has the dual core i5 and integrated graphics. Comparably, Micro Center has the XPS 15 with a 1050Ti instead of the Quadro, no secondary hard drive, and the upgraded 4K screen for $1700, but the guaranteed compatibility for Autodesk kinda sealed getting Quadro for him. He originally wanted a 17" with a GTX 1070 but commuting that thing into Manhattan every day would get real old, real fast.

By comparison, my work laptop is a Latitude 7480 with the dual core i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, and touchscreen. Covers everything I need perfectly (I previously was issued a W540 that was overkill). Also, my brother has had a T450s for the past three years of college and it has served fine. Only failure has been the keyboard, but we took that as the opportunity to replace it with a backlit one off eBay. Just wish that didn't happen a week after he went back for the semester so I had to drive to Pennsylvania for the 10 minute job of swapping it out in his dorm room.

 

i run a host of different WIndows Surface pros from the 3 up to the 6 and not one has ever had a issue. They all run sketch/drawing software and a few programs that are fairly hoggish resource wise and all do just fine. they have been a great tool for us.

 

T480 from Costco just arrived. It's a nice machine.

 

Just ordered a second 8GB RAM stick for the T480. Once I can find a decent selection of 2242 Nvme SSDs in 1TB I will toss one in the WWAN slot and it will be good to go. It came with a 256 GB 2280 in the 2.5" bay in an adapter.