New Laptop for an IT Pro

Hi


I need to laptop for working with Microsoft Office and developer tools such as visual studio code. My current laptop is a Gigabyte P35W which is still performs well but after two and half years solid use, I feel it is time for a refresh.

First things first, I am not a gammer but do want a high spec machine. Here is a summary of what I am ideally looking for :

• 14-15.6" screen
• 3+ hours battery life
• UHD and or IPS screen
• 16GB-32GB DRAM
• Lower spec graphics card .
• Great UK keyboard for typing
• Slim profile
• lower wattage PSU - I don't want a brick to carry around!
• lightweight as in < 2.5 Kg
• Power lead that stays in without needing to be super glued to the laptop !
• Quiet as in not trying to emulate a jet engine during take off

Gigabyte AeroX looks great but the with a humongous graphics card (GTX 1070 GDDR5 8GB) card I will paying over the odds just for a basic 8GB machine without wanting to add a SSDs and fast (hybrid) hard disks
PC Specialist UltraNote IV - now this looks promising but I wonder if the onboard graphics card and audio is too low in spec.

To be honest I am open to suggestions.

Daniel

 

Hey Daniel,

With your rather large ram and CPU requirements, there is almost no chance that you can get a laptop with a lower spec GPU, the closest I can think of is the razer blade, and laptops like it, however, they come with a rather large price premium. If anything, the only laptops that you can get the best CPUs on right now are gaming laptops with the i7-8700HQ being pretty much gaming laptop exclusive, meaning that a GPU is pretty much always going to be there. You could always get a lower spec laptop from AMD (without a soldered CPU) and do some modding to upgrade the CPU and the RAM, but that may not be your cup-of-tea.

 

If you are an IT professional or network and security administrator, definitely the below laptops will match your requirements.

• Acer Aspire E 15
• Alienware AW17R3-1675SLV
• Asus Zenbook UX305FA
• MSI GL62
• Lenovo P50