Purchasing advice please

[Pukmeister]

M2 Air is a great choice, superb kit.
I bought the M1 Air for my lad when he was at Uni.
Having no cooling fan to drag dust through it is a great advantage IMO.

 

[Mzokk]

My current 15” MB PRO is 10 years old now. With Original battery. Upgraded processor i7, 512gb SSD, with 16gb RAM… apart from not supporting the latest OS for the past 3 years, it is still stinking fast and does everything I ask of it. However, certain graphics software I use, is no longer supported, so it is a case of a must rather than want to upgrade.

Probably will do a similar thing and uprate hardware to future proof it and will likely to cost me £3k, but if it means next 10 years are solid, then it isn’t that bad.

Since its intel based you could load Windows 10 on it or any variety of Linux

As an alternative zero-cost option LibreOffice runs on MacOS, Windows and Linux. Get it from https://www.libreoffice.org/

This its very good.

In addition the free versions of Word Excel and Powerpoint that come with a MS hotmail account are pretty good and will probably do everything you want. I run Office 2016 on my powerful desktop machine that I built in March 2020 this is the most up to date non subscription version of office. But I only ever use that machine for Photo and video editing were fast graphics, fast multi core chip and loads of ram are required. Most people run way more computor than they actually need. I run this old 2011 Toshiba laptop for casual computer work i.e e-mail internet stuff and Basecamp/MRA. Its Dual boot Win 10 and Linux Mint has 8GB of ram (upgraded from 4gb and a 240GB SSD upgraded from a mechanical drive Total outlay < £70) and a Intel Pentium Dual Core B950 2.1GHz chip.

You might find that your old desk top PC would be plenty fast enough with a clean install of Win10 on an SSD drive (very cheap now 1tb drive <£60) and make sure it has at least 8gb ram to run Win 10. I like MAC's but they are overpriced IMHO.

 

[Boxerboy55]

I had similar needs to the OP, so considered all the suggestions above.

I’m not ready for a leap into a Mac so followed the recommended PC spec and my shiny new HP is sorting itself out on the kitchen table as I type.

I’m reasonably pc literate so the Unpack / Put it together / Switch on / Register has gone smoothly.

It looks and feels soooo much better than my 2015 laptop that was grinding to a standstill.

Very impressed with it‘s (the new pc that is) offer to dig out yesterday’s automatic backup and load it up. Didn’t expect that. I’ve been sweating over a few external hard drives today.

Was going to buy from John Lewis as I screw a nice “EasyFundRaising” donation out of them, but HP direct had a very similar spec for much less (only 512GB storage).

Thanks for the tips.

 

[Trilogy2k]

If you move from Apple, as Barnoe suggests this spec is very good and will boot up in moments - i7 processor, 1TB SSD drive, 8GB of RAM

I buy HP laptops for work and they are very reliable and well made.

I read your comment and had to chuckle to myself.

I repair computers as my job and the HP stuff is the worst of the lot! Maybe 10 years ago their stuff was ok but these days I have to disagree.

if it wasn't for HP stuff being so chocolate I wouldn't get half the business that I do!

 

[Trilogy2k]

I've been in the computer 'game' for over 30 years, previously as an ex hardware designer of IBM laptops (when they were being manufactured in Scotland!)

If your needs are not too performance orientated (and mainly involve browsing, Youtube, Office, with some light video editing thrown in etc) then the same can be easily achieved for about 200 quid!

For example, amongst the equipment I run I have a 3 year old Lenovo Thinkpad T480, 16GB memory, 480GB SSD with an 8th gen i5, with two! internal batteries, and Windows 11 and it's absolutely brilliant, extremely rugged and bulletproof reliable. You don't recessarily need either an i9 or an i7. This one has been around the world and been kicked about but still looks like new.

At the end of the day it only really depends on which OS universe you're used to working in and how deep your pockets are..

 

[Oldrat]

I've been in the computer 'game' for over 30 years, previously as an ex hardware designer of IBM laptops (when they were being manufactured in Scotland!)

If your needs are not too performance orientated (and mainly involve browsing, Youtube, Office, with some light video editing thrown in etc) then the same can be easily achieved for about 200 quid!

For example, amongst the equipment I run I have a 3 year old Lenovo Thinkpad T480, 16GB memory, 480GB SSD with an 8th gen i5, with two! internal batteries, and Windows 11 and it's absolutely brilliant, extremely rugged and bulletproof reliable. You don't recessarily need either an i9 or an i7. This one has been around the world and been kicked about but still looks like new.

At the end of the day it only really depends on which OS universe you're used to working in and how deep your pockets are..

Now why didn't you tell me that a month ago ?

 

[Mr Bean]

I repair computers as my job and the HP stuff is the worst of the lot! Maybe 10 years ago their stuff was ok but these days I have to disagree.

I had two fail in about 3 years due to the hinges separating the case in two when opening - shocking build quality.

Still very happy with the Lenovo ThinkBook referenced earlier.