Powerful Laptop recommendations

I would look at http://www.MySN.co.uk or http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/custom/laptop, they are almost all custom build laptops. Being custom built means you can buy within your budget and leave room for future upgrades. Asus, Acer etc are not upgradable and are not meant to be.

Get more bang for you money

 

There are almost no laptops sold with SSD drives as standard, and those that do come with SSDs tend to come with small, no-name (i.e. slow) SSD drives in them. Given that this is the single biggest improvement you can make to a PC, it's really worth thinking about putting an aftermarket one in.

It is usually pretty easy to replace the existing HDD with an SSD, assuming that your computer is compatible and the SSD drive fits (the spec of your particular model should give the accurate dimensions of the hard drive)

1. Buy the SSD. For example a Samsung 850 EVO 500GB drive, as recommended by Tom's Hardware and others - it's available for under £120 direct from Amazon.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

2. Buy a USB-to-SATA cable, for example this one.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HJZJI84/?tag=acorn06-21

3. Plug your new drive into one of the laptop's USB ports, and format it (just like you would for any new HDD)

4. Use disk cloning software to copy your entire system HDD to the SSD

5. Take out the HDD and plug the SSD in its place

6. Reboot

That should be about it. I've done it for 5 machines so far with no hiccups.

Of course, if your laptop has 2 drive bays you don't need the cable because you can just stick the SSD in the empty one.

 

Go for a Dell XPS 15 - I've had one for 6 months and loved it, just swapped it for a Surface Book though..

 

Why?

They have a similar build quality to a mac but are 100% pc.

Check them out - http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd

 

Well the world has moved on dude - Sony's have a rep for being awful..

There are budget Dells, and premium ones - huge difference between them

 

Sony exited the PC market last year.
http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/computers/vaio-laptops

 

Don't write off Dell, I've many friends who had cheap ones and yes they are crap, but spend some money and they are decent

I've got a Dell XPS 15 , it's few years old now but it's been really decent (minus a few battery issues), it happily runs Chrome (with 15 tabs), photoshop, FTP programs, multiple folders, etc

It's spec:




Though I'm looking to switch to a Macbook Pro more for portability and battery life than anything, surprised to see Dell's holding value bit more, saw my model going for £220-300 on eBay. Which will be nice to go towards the Mac

 

The 2015 version with infinity screen is amazing... Loving mine!

 

Tempted with this but ultimately a MacBook is more reliable with better battery life and similar price, plus can go to a Apple store with it if something goes wrong

But yeh it looks great and not much in it

 

Related aside: does nobody rate desktops any more? Even a fairly modest spec desktop will run rings around a high end laptop - there's only so much power saving technology can do for a CPU and graphics card...

 

Would be totally impractical for me personally, I work from various locations and run my businesses so they can be worked on remotely anywhere with internet. If I had a desktop would have to also have a laptop that could do everything that does too

 

Edwin is correct, desktops are generally much faster.

I use both, a monster PC at home and a powerful surface now. If you implement cloud technology correctly, it doesn't pose a problem working from multiple computers.

 

It does if you need to run powerful programs on the go

 

Just bought a HP elitebook from Ballicomm - maybe not an upgrade for you but a good supplier.

https://www.ballicom.co.uk/h9w23eaa...essional-downgraded-to-windows-.p1123226.html

I work about 50-50 laptop and desktop though and tend to do the resource intensive stuff on the desktop, which is a beast set up on one of these:
http://obutto.com/ergonomic-workstations-2/r3volution-workstation/
highly recommend them, 3 screens is great for productivity

So - how do you implement cloud tech correctly?

I've got dropbox and skype, what else do I need?

I'd like to better sync my desktop, laptop, tablet, phone and staff could do with the same. I figure it's maybe time to get our own VPS if the costs stack up.

 

Liked Windows 8 , Love Windows 10. In my opinion one of the best operating systems since XP.

Not had a single issue from the day of the update on my Vaio.........Will be looking for a new laptop myself soon now Vaio's are no longer made.

Pretty sure there was a thread a month or two ago which i replied to about laptops where I think Skinner had recommended a couple of good options.