My wife is looking to replace her mid-2013 MacBook Air: 13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display 1440 by 900 256GB flash storage 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 (Intel HD Graphics 5000) 4GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 onboard memory Weight: 2.96 pounds (1.35 kg) She was looking for a 13" ultrabook. I had her sold on the Dell XPS 13. We went to John Lewis and it was pretty ugly so she said no. The sales guy said apple is the best, so she waited to see if the MacBook Pro would have a refresh but it didn't. She likes the Microsoft surface but to get 512GB and 16GB ram I'm looking at £2000 for the Pro 4 and £2200 for the Book 2. I can't justify the cost just because she likes the look. So here is what I'm looking for. convertible laptop light good battery 512GB SSD 16GB memory 1080p or 1440p, not 4k preferably 8th gen intel i5 or i7 The XPS 13 2-in-1 convertible has an i7-7Y75 Processor Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1 looks suitable and it's £1200 HP EliteBook x360 G2, I can't tell the difference between the 1020 and 1030. £1800 Samsung Notebook 9 Pro, I can't find it in the UK. She doesn't want ASUS or Lenovo. Am I missing any?
Happy Wife, Happy Life... Off the top of my head, that you've not already listed... HP Spectre x360 [don't ask what the difference between the spectre and elitebook is, i have no idea... but they are officially different] Others to potentially consider, neither are convertible though - Huawei MateBook X Pro HP Spectre 13
The Huawei MateBook X Pro is really interesting except the EU gets a stick up the ass. $1500 USD and over here €1900 I can't find anyone selling in the UK that I would trust. Very has last years i5 but I wouldn't buy from them. Amazon is sold out and again no current models. HP Spectre 13 is £1700 for i7 16GB and 1TB. It's the thinnest touchscreen but doesn't flip. It's a pretty nice ultrabook.
She doesn't like it in black. In reviews, I see a rose gold but I don't see it on the HP site. It seems that the UK is limited in choice compared to the US. If I can find the rose gold with the 8th gen i7 16gb and 512GB it will be a good option for her. She is a bit picky about the appearance but she will keep it for at least 5 years.
It scrapes in 50g above your limit, but the Thinkpad Yoga is worth another look. The consumer Lenovos and the business Thinkpads may as well be made by two different companies: I wouldn't touch the former, but take the latter over an Elitebook or Latitude any day of the week. The only mark against it is the switch to Thunderbolt docks from a dedicated passthrough docking connector (some see it as a bonus, but I prefer having docks that are basically port-replicators rather than active devices). Particularly with the 'needs to work for 5 years' requirement: our Latitude deployments (a good 5+ thousand install base) are already on the 4th gen and are still dropping like flies (don't touch the E7x40 series), our 1 year run with Elitebooks are all long dead (god those docks were flimsy garbage too), but those who have 'ancient' OOW Thinkpads are still clinging to them for dear life and refusing replacements.
Unfortunately, the only model with 16GB of RAM is £1,929. My wife is Chinese and has a bias too Chinese computer brands. If it wasn't near the price of the Microsoft surface I would suggest it to her.
I got mine secondhand on ebay. Correction though it's not a 4200U, it's a Core M-5Y10 which is the i5 800mhz / 2ghz turbo boost part as per my signature - mine came off this exact listing https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Lat...114524?hash=item466f7c18dc:g:CWsAAOSw8vZXMx26 and in fairness was in really good nick. I think I did Best Offer for something like £295 and they went for it. If you can sell her on it, this may save you some pennies for £799 - remember topcashback for ebay as well - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Lat...955110?hash=item1caac275a6:g:6BQAAOSwAAFa8xZz This one also lists itself as 16GB and 500GB ssd but for less money - I'm assuming this is FHD instead of QHD - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Lat...014010?hash=item1ee16caa7a:g:EhQAAOSwgPZZcHt8 I believe the RAM is soldered (it is in mine) but I think the SSD is swappable.
She is starting to really like this model but a youtube review demonstrated how loose the hinge is and that the screen can wobble when you type. After a few minutes verifying student status, my wife is happy. Her budget she nows tells me after finding an alternative to the Microsoft Surface was £1,500. I just confirmed that she would have gone with the surface despite budget if I didn't find something else fast. thin and pretty... women HP Spectre x360 13-ae003na Convertible Laptop with 3 Year Care Pack for £1,495.12 with a student e-mail address. i7-8550U (1.8 GHz base frequency, up to 4 GHz, 8 MB cache, 4 cores) 33.8 cm (13.3") diagonal 4K IPS micro-edge WLED-backlit touch screen with Corning® Gorilla® Glass NBT™ 16 GB memory; 1 TB SSD storage Only 1.29kg and 13.6mm thin; Windows Hello ready webcam; Active Pen Included; HP Fast Charge; Bang & Olufsen Quad-Speakers; 2 x USB-C™ Thunderbolt™ ports
They're all going to have flaws or quirks... it's all a matter of which ones she can/can't live with...
I agree. The convertibles seem to have poorer battery performance than a regular clamshell ultrabook and 4k is overkill but overall it will be a huge upgrade over the 1.3GHz dual-core and 4GB ram in the laptop she is replacing. I'm also pretty happy with the price as it is cheaper than other models with a 7th gen CPU.
I ordered the laptop on Thursday. Order processed on Fridays. DPD doesn't work over the weekend it sat in the depo over the weekend. Monday morning I get my 1-hour shipping window... waiting... 15 minutes away ... "We were unable to deliver your parcel". I check DPD tracking the courier has uploaded a photo of the building nameplate as proof of attempted delivery... of the wrong building. I call up DPD and after 10 minutes on hold they call the driver and he says "No, I'm too far away. Maybe tomorrow". DPD says nothing I can do, I can't even collect it from the depo tonight because it closes before the end of his shift. I try calling up HP after hunting for the correct number and I get disconnected twice. I sent an email this afternoon but no reply yet. I know that the failed deliver is the driver's fault but HP is even less helpful. I had thought that HP would be similar to Dell for customer service. It is my bad luck or is HP much worse than I expected?
In my experience HP's business support - brilliant HP's consumer support - bollocks But i can say that of most companies...
The Specter x360 arrived today and my wife is readjusting to windows after running OSX since 2013. She has two main issue with the HP, the first is annoying fan noise and the second is the trackpad. I agree that the trackpad is not as good as on the Mac and I think the main issue is acceleration. Is it possible to disable trackpad acceleration? Can I adjust the fan profile? She was been alternating between browsing firefox and playing VLC. These shouldn't be particularly taxing for an 8th gen i7.
I think this one is going back. The fan is constantly running and I can hear it across the living room almost 10m away, and I have my big noisy desktop beside. I tried changing the power profile to idle at 5% and max at 99% but it still sounds like I'm encoding with handbrake. The other issue is a hum when scrolling, especially with two fingers. Based on what I'm reading QC is shockingly bad with some users needing to go through 3-5 laptops before they get one without issues.
HP's QA is bad, and iirc i mentioned it in the previous thread... but their Spectre line was supposed to be ok by most accounts i saw...
That ain't right. I have a similarly-specced 7th-gen XPS13, and it's wholly silent fan-wise unless I'm running at 100% CPU load for more than a minute or so - and even then it gracefully ramps up to its loudest setting at about the three minute mark, and it's still significantly quieter than the fan on my old MacBook Air was. It *does* have a slightly annoying buzzing noise from one of the power components, somewhere around the right-hand edge of the chassis, but it's quiet enough that it doesn't bother me - you can only hear it properly when you put your ear to the right spot on the case.
I should have a replacement in a week or so. I don't know why HP doesn't have web chat like Dell and Microsoft. It's so much easier than phone chat and waiting on hold.
