Powerful laptop

[philiporchard]

Hi,

We generally use Macbooks, but Macs always seem to struggle with Excel.

We're doing lots of work at the moment with Lookups with 500,000+ rows etc, and Mac seems to struggle.

What is best laptop Currys sell for this kind of work - budget around 1k.

Many thnaks, Phil

 

[Edwin]

Do you absolutely have to cart it around? Could you get away with a mini desktop instead (if you're limited for space but don't need the portability?)

And will you ever game on it, or are you only looking to do "business stuff"?

If you don't need to game with it, then you'd be better off without too hefty a graphics card otherwise it's going to run much hotter and noiser for not much gain since business apps don't need much graphics power.

 

[Edwin]

Generally, the limiting factors on a business laptop are going to be:
- Processor
- RAM
- Hard disk

For the processor, look for an HQ processor. Don't go for an "U" series or a "Core m" processor as they're low power and very low power respectively (as in the amount of power they use) but underpowered (performance) as a consequence. Some companies sell specialist gaming laptops with desktop processors in, but those will run VERY hot and noisy and you won't find them in Currys!

Something like the i7-6700HQ or i7-7700HQ is pretty close to top of the line (one is a generation older than the other, but they're both very meaty chips).

For the RAM, make sure that whatever you buy can easily be upgraded to 16GB. You're going to see rapidly diminishing returns beyond 16GB so it's not worth worrying about going higher, but 8GB is a bit low for heavy use.

For the hard disk, look for a laptop that has an SSD, or an SSD and a hard disk (the latter can give you the best of both worlds - you stick Windows and your other software on the SSD so that everything loads quickly, and store your actual data on the much larger hard drive)

Oh, and you'll almost certainly want Full HD (1920x1080) resolution if the screen's a decent size (15" or larger). It can be wasted on a small screen because everything's so small anyway. It's utterly pointless to pay extra for 4K resolution on such a tiny viewing area.

 

[Edwin]

Here are a few laptops that match the spec I was outlining above.

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...ion-x6601-15-6-laptop-black-10154823-pdt.html (has a 10% off deal that ends Tuesday)

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...a-15-6-gaming-laptop-silver-10156896-pdt.html (you'd need to check it can be upgraded to 16GB not too expensively; again, 10% off until Tuesday)

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...-ab051sa-17-3-laptop-silver-10147525-pdt.html (17", again check the RAM, 10% off on this one too)

 

[Edwin]

If you're willing to look at other retailers, here's another laptop with the same sort of spec...
https://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-id...b-nvidia-gtx-960m-15-6-full-hd-black/p2343691

 

[Edwin]

If you fancy a Dell, there's a 10% off code on this one until tomorrow (20th March) which will take it just under £1,000.
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15-7567-laptop/pd?oc=cn56702&model_id=inspiron-15-7567-laptop

And here's an HP already configured with 16GB of memory
http://store.hp.com/UKStore/merch/Product.aspx?id=1DN37EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB

 

[lazarus]

I'd say nothing below an i7 and a decent brand SSD like Samsung + at least 8GB Ram (I'd go 16GB for shits and giggles) and you will be all set to launch a rocket ship. (I mean Excel)

For me.. A major factor on a laptop is battery life. Check the reviews for this.
Then you got build quality. I personally rate ASUS gear.

 

[Edwin]

You probably don't want to be far from a plug with any of the ones I listed (or any similarly high-end machine) since they'll be drained in 3-4 hours of real world use. But that too is about compromise...

 

[monaghan]

The other question, is ....

Is Excel the right software for the job? If you're doing lots of lookups against large data sets, would a SQL database and some well written queries be the better tool for the job?

 

[philiporchard]

Thanks for useful comments. I went for the Quad core. I didn't spend too long looking, and no doubt plenty of better ones out there, but had a nice feel to it. Also, we use Macbook Pros 98% of the time, so as long as it packs a bit of punch for Excel, then doesn't need to do much else.

I bought this one:
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...l-xps-15-15-6-laptop-silver-10157225-pdt.html

Seems to be much better than Mac for Excel - so that's good.

And yes, when I was chatting to my developer this eve, he pretty much said that Excel has its uses to a point, but definitely has its limits!

 

[Edwin]

Well, that's a budget buster of a beast, but it should stand you in good stead. Well done.

Although it's true that a database may be a much better way of manipulating large data sets, you may also find under certain circumstances that the free LibreOffice Calc is actually also faster than Excel. It's one of those "you don't know until you try" situations...

 

[philiporchard]

Yes, I went round examining the processors Ed
It had the i7-7700HQ - so thought it was probably worth it.

 

[Adam H]

Good choice, I went with this one a couple of months ago :

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/product.aspx?sel=DEF&id=1GP03EA&opt=ABU

Wanted the 17" screen so it was the only thing that was lightweight enough in comparison with the old Vaio's while still having the power, its beasty to say the least, booking into windows in about 10 seconds ready to use. I have about 30 things running at once and it doesnt even flinch it just does it. I got cheaper HP 15" and a HP X2 for travelling and meetings but to be fair the 17" omen is light enough and compact enough to take most places anyway.