Almost time for a new computer

[Nish]

My Desktop is about 10 years old at this point and really starting to show it's age.

Thinking about replacing it with a laptop this time but as I've often said before I'm just this side of computer illiterate.

What has come about that you like and what seems like a gimmick?

I see a fair deal of lap tops that are "2 in 1" and able to fold to a tent or over completely flat with the screen out. Gimmick or anything useful? What is the advantage of this new PCIe SSD?

[Scottybeans]

New laptops are great. I don't love the 2 in 1s but to be fair I don't have one that I use. I do use an IPAD a bunch for general browsing from my couch so if you're trying to replace two devices it might be worth a try.

What do you use it for? Just general web browsing? Games? Any kind of artistic photo or video work? PCIe SSDs are much faster than the old SATA SSDs, but if you're just using it for general purpose computing and not moving large files around on the regular you really won't notice a difference.

One laptop gimmick in my opinion is a 4K or other very pixel dense resolution on a laptop size (17 inch or under) screen. In my opinion it just reduces both performance and battery life while not really adding anything to the user experience. I don't think 4K makes sense until you get to about 27 inches and that's only for folks who take photo/video editing somewhat seriously.

[Nish]

Mostly basic "office" stuff, browsing, streaming videos or online meetings.

I do use a photo editor (Corel product but I don't remember what one off the top of my head)

The few games I play are old games or strategy games that don't require a lot in the way of graphics but some require a lot from the processor (Paradox games)

Touch screen is one that seems pointless to me on a laptop but I've never used a laptop with that feature so maybe I'm wrong.

[goofyman23]

2 in 1's are great if you need the portability or feel the need to draw using a stylus, for example. Sounds like you need a pretty traditional laptop.

I'd recommend one with the 4000 series AMD Ryzen processors. They're great on battery life and are no slouch with productivity.

[Axel]

Avoid touch screens unless you really want that functionality.

Touch screen = large glass panel = susceptible to cracking

[THE_Incredible_Hulk]

Micro Center is my go to for pc's; both laptop and desktop. Check out Power Spec brand pc's. That's their brand. Good functionality for the price. And I agree with Axel the Admin, avoid touch screen. Especially if you have pets. But that's another story for another time.

[latches109]

4000 release is next thursday, not currently available. A 3700x would be more than enough to run the programs you are talking about - or an intel i5. SSD is a must! Look for the words NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express). NVME is a protocol that uses PCIe to connect the CPU directly to the SSD. You will see very little difference between PCIe 3.0 & 4.0.
If all this makes no sense ^^ just go buy a macbook pro from the refurbished store https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished. buy Apple care and you will not need to worry about anything. I use both for work and my go to for daily use is mac, even though my PC is a beast.

[Scottybeans]

4000 release is next thursday, not currently available. A 3700x would be more than enough to run the programs you are talking about - or an intel i5. SSD is a must! Look for the words NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express). NVME is a protocol that uses PCIe to connect the CPU directly to the SSD. You will see very little difference between PCIe 3.0 & 4.0.
If all this makes no sense ^^ just go buy a macbook pro from the refurbished store https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished. buy Apple care and you will not need to worry about anything. I use both for work and my go to for daily use is mac, even though my PC is a beast.

4000 series mobile is currently available and what I'd go with if I were looking at new laptops now.

[latches109]

4000 mobile is slow, $/performance not worth it. something like a i5 9600k would be (literally) 1000% faster. For what sounds like a mainly at home laptop, power is not really an issue. still best bang for the buck if you know how to OC is AMD 3600

[Nish]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far guys. The current computer isn't dead yet (unless I just jinxed it) so this is likely a deal where I will hold out and check the holiday sales that get earlier and earlier every year.

[Siress]

10 years? Nice haul. I hope you give it a proper funeral and send it off for recycling when it does churn it's last bit flip.

So, it sounds like you don't really need the new hotness. I'm guessing you care more about stability and longevity since it sounds like this will be your only computer. Now, I'm not an expert on the laptop scene. I've actively avoided every model released in the past 9 or 10 years and keep modifying my old ThinkPad to help it keep up. However, I can help put some guardrails on your request:

Right out of the gate you need to answer a few questions:

• Do you need an integrated optical drive? External options are available, but I've heard they're not good for frequent/prolonged use.
• How important is a docking station to you for things that cannot be done over a single USB 3.0 or USB-C?
  • Will you be plugging it into a lot of external devices? (e.g. displays, standard keyboard/mouse, etc.)
    • If so, will you still take it with you frequently?
• How important is it that the computer operates quietly? Small form factors (SFFs) will operate much more loudly than larger ones under the same conditions.
• How important is picture quality with the built-in display? (e.g. brightness, contrast, pixel density, refresh rate, viewing angles, color accuracy... the list is long. Personally, I refuse to use anything that isn't OLED or IPS, and that typically brings everything else into acceptable levels... but that's just me.)
• How big can it be before you'd rather just have a desktop and a portable device?
• What's your budget?

[Nish]

10 years? Nice haul. I hope you give it a proper funeral and send it off for recycling when it does churn it's last bit flip.

So, it sounds like you don't really need the new hotness. I'm guessing you care more about stability and longevity since it sounds like this will be your only computer. Now, I'm not an expert on the laptop scene. I've actively avoided every model released in the past 9 or 10 years and keep modifying my old ThinkPad to help it keep up. However, I can help put some guardrails on your request:

Right out of the gate you need to answer a few questions:

• Do you need an integrated optical drive? External options are available, but I've heard they're not good for frequent/prolonged use.
• How important is a docking station to you for things that cannot be done over a single USB 3.0 or USB-C?
  • Will you be plugging it into a lot of external devices? (e.g. displays, standard keyboard/mouse, etc.)
    • If so, will you still take it with you frequently?
• How important is it that the computer operates quietly? Small form factors (SFFs) will operate much more loudly than larger ones under the same conditions.
• How important is picture quality with the built-in display? (e.g. brightness, contrast, pixel density, refresh rate, viewing angles, color accuracy... the list is long. Personally, I refuse to use anything that isn't OLED or IPS, and that typically brings everything else into acceptable levels... but that's just me.)
• How big can it be before you'd rather just have a desktop and a portable device?
• What's your budget?

So going to answer a lot of these questions the best I can. Everyone else in the house has laptops and I did have a $99 chromebook that lasted like 3 years so that it the experience I am basing this off.
We already have a plug in Optical drive for the kids. Integrated would be nice but not needed as I hardly ever use the optical drive that I have in my desktop and never felt like I needed one on the chromebook.

I've never used nor do I own a docking station so no need for one I guess.I don't need to print often, probably measurable by the month.

Picture quality. It would be nice to be able to actually see the screen when I bring it outside during the day but I don't need anything fancy.

I'm not sure how big is too big. The chromebook I had was... 11-13, in that range. It was tiny and really convenient. The reality is most of the moving around is bringing it to different rooms in the house to avoid listening to the TV when I do something, Bringing it to the Tae Kwon Do school, or Masonic lodge to work on things.

I'm thinking $500 give or take 1 or 2. I'm still looking into what these cost and how long they last to be honest. I know I don't want something that is going to be dead in a year or is so under powered to meet a price point that it will basically surf the web and do nothing else, and I sure as hell don't need one of these $1k+ powerhouses with every bell and whistle.

[Siress]

To be clear on the docking station - that means you have no intention of keeping your current computer setup? (e.g. display(s), keyboard, mouse)

At the $500±200 price point, I definitely suggest the used market. There isn't much new that I'd recommend as a desktop replacement in that range. It's also hard for me to imagine a desktop replacement without a docking station setup that has a screen <15". If you feel strongly about the size, I suggest you get two separate systems or a small system with a powerful CPU and ≥TB3 for connecting to a larger display at home.

Since you're going for longevity with a cheap laptop, I think that puts you in an area I do know a bit about; used workstation laptops. Something like this is on the higher end, medium, and lower end. You won't get nearly as much useful life from that lower tier option as I suspect you'll want to bump up in performance within ~4-5 years instead of ~6+ with the other two.

[Falcon16]

I agree with the used workstation recommendation. The Thinkpad workstation machines are tanks

[Siress]

I've heard the modern ThinkPads are not so tough, which is why I've avoided them. I've been hearing that for years, though, and haven't seen evidence of it. Maybe a case of 'new is scary.' My laptop needs are very light, hardware spec wise, since they only need to support browsing, office apps, and remote access to other machines. So I've got a cobbled together X220/X230 system.

[Seajay]

Plenty of advice already, and I'm not super informed on the mobile space. But I highly recommend the Crucial MX500 SSD's. I have a few including a 2 TB one and they are just fantastic.
Interestingly enough I advise AGAINST the newer NVME drives unless you really want one.

The NVME drives are great for space saving and offer insanity level performance... if you are moving a shit ton of files all the time.
Otherwise the day to day performance the SATA 3 SSD's and NVME drives are not much different.
The biggest issue I have NVME drives is involving Heat. On a PC box it isn't an issue but temperatures matter a lot on a laptop. NVME drives can get up to 100'c if you really work them, but also can average 60'c for normal loads. In comparison my 2.5inch SSD's basically stay around 30'c.

Again, talking about laptop use where cooling matters a lot, the less heat producers the better, and you really won't notice a difference in everyday performance.

Obviously pick an NVME or SSD over a mechanical HDD ( I just had one of these fail ), and they are getting cheaper everyday!

[Siress]

For the application we're talking about, the difference between SATA SSD and PCIe SSD is largely academic.

In the context of being academic, I'm pretty sure that data centers use SAS drives almost exclusively, and hot-swappability has nothing to do with the drive itself - that's handled by the backplane.

[Seajay]

The Samsung SSD's are great. I've an older 830 when they first released as my OS drive. My favor for the MX500 drives is just they are well priced and have all the things you'd want in a great performing drive. Cost sure has a play here, and I originally opted for the MX500 drives because at that time there was an $60 difference between the MX500 and the "Pro" versions of the 900 series Samsung drives. The Samsung drive wasn't going to give me more than the Crucial drive and I like both brands, so it was an easy choice.

With that said stay far and away from the B series Crucial drives... cheaper storage without the power loss protection and other tech is not worth it.

[latches109]

Honestly it depends on what the customer specifies and their budget. From a macro industry view, I'm not sure what the numbers are for hard drives. I can share in the last 30MW of data centers we built they were all sata SSD.. but, we had strict seismic requirements. I seen quite a few datacenters are jumping on the NVME bandwagon for the new projects. Makes sense, it does eliminate the sata host bus adapter improving latency.

[Nish]

Yeah, my inclination was to keep an eye out for referbished Lenovos.

I see a lot of the description are saying that the Processor is "X"GHz, Turbo Boost up to "Y"GHz. What on earth is Turbo Boost?

[Seajay]

A single or couple of cores can clock much higher in low threaded applications for additional performance. So if 3.0Ghz is the CPU speed a single core might Boost to 3.5Ghz to increase performance for that single task.

[latches109]

IF there is thermal headroom, an automated overclock will be applied - the "Y"GHz just means it will not overclock past that frequency.
INTEL chips - Turbo Boost Technology 2.0
AMD chips - Precision Boost 2 (stock default)

geek out here - https://youtu.be/B7NzNi1xX_4

[Siress]

The NVME drives are great for space saving and offer insanity level performance... if you are moving a shit ton of files all the time.
Otherwise the day to day performance the SATA 3 SSD's and NVME drives are not much different.
The biggest issue I have NVME drives is involving Heat.

Those days are coming to an end. See the SK Hynix; Insane performance per watt. Not sure why you're so partial to the MX500. I've been using the Samsung Pro series for a long time with great results, though the latest release is nothing short of disappointing for the consumer space (latency was improved...but other stuff we've come to expect were left stagnant).

In general, agreed... When going used, it would be nice to at least have a 2280 length PCIe-based (NVMe) M.2 slot available. If not, it's not a big deal.

[latches109]

"NVM Express is the non-profit consortium of tech industry leaders defining, managing and marketing NVMe technology." vs for profit proprietary controller. lookup carbon nanotubes NRAM