Ask HN: Laptop for girlfriend? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Laptop for girlfriend?

HNers, any recommendations for a laptop for my girlfriend with following considerations?

* Windows 10 * Not too big/heavy. Preferably 13/14 inch display - preferably higher res. * Good build quality even if that means paying more. * Battery that yields at least 5-6 hours of real-world usage (Excel, lots of it, social internet stuff) * Possibly buying in Europe with a German keyboard.. (Would buy the US version if there is a excellent laptop missing just this.)

I'm wary of Lenovo after Superfish. Would prefer to steer away unless things have demonstrably changed and hear better about Lenovo from HNers.

And, No, she is not considering running Linux, neither does she want to use a Mac. She is used to her ways with some legacy stats tools that work well with Windows.

Any inputs welcome..

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Dell XPS 13. It's light, it's got the battery life and it's competitively priced. More importantly, it's not Lenovo.

I second the XPS 13. The 3200x1800 has revolutionised how I view excel sheets with tons of columns.

And yep, I get about 5 to 6 hours of usage.

Thanks. Coming from a rMBP, I definitely appreciate the ability to see more at once if needed and see crisper text in general. XPS 13 seems to be a popular choice. I will ask her to definitely try it out.

Curious why not just ask her or even why get involved at all since it's not an area of immediate and direct deep expertise?

Laptops differ in their tradeoffs and better and worse sets of tradeoffs vary by individual. I love the Dell Precision M7510 I currently have and I loved the Thinkpad X series it replaced as my daily driver and between them are two very very different sets of tradeoffs.

Fair point. She came up to me asking to find choices in the sense I described. Ultimately it'd be her who tries it and makes the final choice.

My objective is to get pointers like what you just gave - Dell Precision M7510 so I can research and give her a few options to choose from :-) Thanks!

The 7510 probably will not meet the tradeoffs of most people. It is heavy and has mediocre battery life. On the other hand, it can be had with more CPU than most desktops and ECC RAM and a fair amount of GPU and a lot of screen. Conversely, a ThinkPad X series is small and light and sips battery while still being reasonably powerful.

i really struggle if i cant recommend the x1 carbon because i love it so damn much but if you must avoid lenovo the asus zenbook would probably be my next choice, that or an xps13

Any of the ASUS ZenBook laptops. THey are reasonibly priced and good if you don't need a tun of CPU power.

What's the pricing? ASUS's website didn't say, as far as I could see.

I dont suppose she needs the CPU power in the raw sense, as in she is not going to run builds or render anything. But, I have seen her using Excel like a Pro with ginormous sheets and sophisticated formulas. So, a good CPU room would be useful I think.

Asus ZenBook looks neat. Will definitely check it out.

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