Business laptop recommendation?

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eisa01

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  • #1
    I'm switching jobs and can choose laptop for the first time

    What would you recommend if you want something like:
    14"
    Quiet
    Good trackpad
    Good battery life

    I have a 14" M1P MBP as my personal laptop today, that would've been perfect if it weren't for the fact that Office is still crap on macOS

    I've had Lenovo X1 Carbon and most recently a Lenovo X1 Yoga Gen 7
    Both had crap trackpads, and the Yoga overheats with all the end-user protection software (is that what it's called?) such that it throttles quite bad and is super noisy even under normal work.

    So far I'm considering the HP Spectre x360. I do notice it thermally throttles if pushed hard in the Notebook Check review, but otherwise seems silent and among the better battery life?

    Any ideas? Are ARM PCs out yet?
     
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    continuum

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  • #2
    How soon do you need to buy? Snapdragon X Elite isn't quite out yet.

    eisa01 said:
    I've had Lenovo X1 Carbon and most recently a Lenovo X1 Yoga Gen 7
    Both had crap trackpads,
    Click to expand...
    Hmm you might just not like Lenovo trackpads then? X1 Yoga Gen 7 is 2 generations old but not sure (and kind of doubt) trackpads have changed much in 2 generations.

    Since you know Notebookcheck, I might look at Dell Latitude, Dell XPS, Asus Zenbook, LG Gram, and I think Samsung as well... and Microsoft Surface as well, the Gen 10 just came out.
     
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    Oddabe19

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  • #3
    I recently received a newer model Lenovo T14 from work, and I think the trackpad is excellent compared to previous generations. Sleep wasn't working properly (I had to enable S3 in UEFI and disable hybrid in Windows), but otherwise it's pretty decent. Full sized RJ-45; HDMI; and several USB-A and C ports are really nice. My only complaint is the speakers seem to be bottom and top mounted, so when it's on my stand at home I can't hear it as well as the old model version (top-mounted speakers).

    Historically, Dell's Latitudes were always the most reliable and repairable compared to their other models. HP's Elitebooks just behind that (with the exception of mic issues in Linux). I've never had any issues with Lenovo T series either. I got my wife an HP Envy(?) x360 a few years ago and I have been really surprised by the build quality and reliability for a sub $800 laptop.
     
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    eisa01

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  • #7
    continuum said:
    How soon do you need to buy? Snapdragon X Elite isn't quite out yet.
    Click to expand...
    Should likely order this week to ensure it arrives, so then that's out of the question

    I read the comment field on the x360 review, and now I have second thoughts... Complaints about grainy OLED display (apparently applicable to all), and that it is more noisy than reviewed.

    So back to research :)

    I will occassionally do a 3-4 hour bus/train commute in this job, so it would be good if the battery life is good. Is it worth trying to get an AMD for this, given the node advantage I'd think they have better power consumption?
     
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  • #8
    eisa01 said:
    . Is it worth trying to get an AMD for this, given the node advantage I'd think they have better power consumption?
    Click to expand...
    I'd find specific models you are interested in and then look up reviews with battery life testing. Notebookcheck I think is still one of the better sites. I wouldn't prescribe Intel or AMD specifically in an effort to find better battery life.
     
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    eisa01

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  • #9
    I think I'll pick the HP Elitebook 14" G11. Seems to be very similar to Lenovo in keyboard layout with "proper" mac-style arrow keys + page-up/down, but no nibble that detracts from the trackpad. Dell still use the "broken" mac-style full-height arrow keys :p

    The AMD-versions are not so easy to get in Norway, and I guess they miss Thunderbolt for docking? Or does that not matter even for the ultrawide-screens you can get?

    Would you pick the Core Ultra 5 125U or H version for better battery life?
    Most heavy lifting will be done in the cloud, so not sure the two extra P-cores on the H version matter that much.
    Or does it not really matter, because if you use the local compute you're really better off with two extra P-cores to complete the task sooner?
     
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  • #10
    I honestly don't know, but I want to say Notebookcheck reviewed another ultralight laptop-- I want to say the X1 Carbon G11-- but unfortunately it was Raptor Lake (13th gen) not Meteor Lake (14th gen), so may not be relevant to your exact case.

    But they reviewed both the U-series and P-series and actually found not much of a performance difference between the two in reality due to the thermal envelope/power restrictions. For normal desktop use there's basically no difference....

     
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    eisa01

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  • #11
    Status update after one week with the laptop (I chose the U-version):
    • Battery life is good! (disabled the "wolf security", rather relying on the built in Windows security stuff)
    • Trackpad works much better than Lenovo, the bigger size helps a lot. Had to tweak the settings to disable a lot of the swipes, right click in lower right corner etc.,
    • No fan noise to speak of
    • Display could be nicer, it's the cheapest 300 nits version, which is quite a bit less than MacBook Pros.
    • ctrl key is in a different location than Lenovo, and it's not possibly to switch in the bios with the Fn-key
    • Had an occurrence where the CPU inexplicably got stuck at 400 MHz for no reason and was super slow for 10 minutes
    • Had twice an occurrence of the screen deciding to dim to lowest level, and not respond to brightness changes
    • Had trouble reconnecting to a monitor in the office twice, charging from it and receiving power, but not displaying anything (and yes, I checked that it was on "extend" :) )
    Latter three I have never experienced in 12 years of Lenovo, or lifetime of Apple...
    The computer is pretty much stock Windows + whatever HP wanted to add + checked for BIOS updates

    I guess any productivity loss in Excel/PPT would have been gained back by not having these issues :)
     
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    KingKrayola

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  • #13
    Oddabe19 said:
    […] Sleep wasn't working properly (I had to enable S3 in UEFI and disable hybrid in Windows), but otherwise it's pretty decent. […]
    Click to expand...
    OT, but I have this issue. @Oddabe19 what do you mean by 'disable hybrid'?

    We have two Thinkpad P14s-es at work (T14s-es with Quadros), one of which is my personal machine. Would recommend them but I get that trackpads are quite personal, these are pretty big (though maybe not as big as most recent Macs?)
     
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    Oddabe19

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  • #14
    KingKrayola said:
    OT, but I have this issue. @Oddabe19 what do you mean by 'disable hybrid'?
    Click to expand...
    It's a little confusing, but in the bios, there's a power/sleep option that says "Linux" or "Windows". It makes a user assume that Windows won't work if you select linux, but it's actually just setting sleep mode to S1/S2/S3, which is more linux/other OS compatible. After setting that, I turned off Hybrid in Windows. This was Windows 10, but should work in 11.
     
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  • #15
    Oddabe19 said:
    It's a little confusing, but in the bios, there's a power/sleep option that says "Linux" or "Windows". It makes a user assume that Windows won't work if you select linux, but it's actually just setting sleep mode to S1/S2/S3, which is more linux/other OS compatible. After setting that, I turned off Hybrid in Windows. This was Windows 10, but should work in 11.
    Click to expand...
    Ah. Which explains why if I do a powercfg /a I get
    The following sleep states are available on this system: Standby (S0 Low Power Idle) Network Connected Hibernate Fast Startup The following sleep states are not available on this system: Standby (S1) The system firmware does not support this standby state. This standby state is disabled when S0 low power idle is supported. Standby (S2) The system firmware does not support this standby state. This standby state is disabled when S0 low power idle is supported. Standby (S3) The system firmware does not support this standby state. This standby state is disabled when S0 low power idle is supported. Hybrid Sleep Standby (S3) is not available. The hypervisor does not support this standby state.
    And why I have not seen Hybrid Sleep.

    edit: Thanks.
     
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    eisa01

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  • #16
    Made in Hurry said:
    Did you keep it? I think that sounds like something i wouldn't want to keep.
    Click to expand...
    Haven't really thought about the possibility of returning it...
    The three problems I noted have been persistent, but there was a bunch of firmware updates released yesterday, so let's see if things improve

    I also get complaints about the mic cutting out when I speak. I have turned off noise suppression in Teams, so I have no clue what else could cause that? I can't visibly locate where the microphone is, the speakers are underneath the laptop...
     
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    eisa01

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  • #18
    Randomly found that there's a "HP Audio control" app on the notebook. That had a mindboggling stupid setting to use "AI" noise control and "conference mode". After setting the noise control to "normal" + "personal" mode it seems to work...

    Now the only issue is that the built-in 5G modem doesn't seem to have drivers installed? Nothing happened when I popped in a SIM-card...
    I guess I will try to find some time to call them tomorrow

    Mindboggling how HP has managed to fuck up the software and firmware on some otherwise seemingly decent hardware :)
     
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  • #19
    eisa01 said:
    ctrl key is in a different location than Lenovo, and it's not possibly to switch in the bios with the Fn-key
    Click to expand...
    To be fair that's because Lenovo is the oddball, HP uses the standard Ctrl-Fn key layout the rest of the world uses.

    Regarding your modem are you on the factory operating system load as delivered from HP? And you ordered the modem as an option? If yes to both of those questions then that's definitely weird.
     
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    eisa01

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  • #20
    Ah, ok, didn't know that, Apple also has the Fn-ctrl layout :p

    I called HP and it turns out there's no cellular modem in the laptop.
    I brought this up with the store and they asked what would be a fair refund for having the wrong specs on the website when I purchased it...

    Let's see, when we get further employees I think I will make them get one of the new Microsoft Surface Snapdragons, that should be here in a month
     
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