Laptop search

Am sports editor for multi weeklies and ready for new laptop.

I take notes on laptop sometimes, use split screen, write stories and edit and store my own photos. What is a good laptop for me at this point? I have an HP that is several years old and has some issues I don't want to deal with anymore.

Money is not an issue but I'm not going to spend a few grand and hardly think I need to.

 

Buy a MacBook they’re worth the investment

 

Seconded. Worth every penny.

You can save a couple bucks on a MacBook if you buy refurbished. Same warranty as new.

Refurbished Mac

I've been doing it this way for 20 years and never had a problem.

 

Make sure if you buy a newer MacBook that you get all the memory and hard-drive space you need up front. Newer MacBooks are near impossible to upgrade. That’s going to raise your price by a few hundred $$. I paid about $1,600 for a MacBook Air last year, but that’s also because I maxed out in terms of hard-drive size and RAM.

 

Get one of the new MacBooks with Apple’s in-house M1 processor. Don’t buy an Intel Mac. Upgrade your memory and storage as much as you can afford.

 

I hate Apple for a variety of reasons, so I say don't, especially since you're coming from a Windows laptop and aren't a prisoner of the Apple ecosystem.

What program are you using to edit photos and how often? Safe to say you're just editing JPGs from games for print use? Maybe Lightroom or Photoshop? This isn't a task that requires a lot of computing power and you shouldn't have to spend a lot. Any chip with power equivalent to an Intel i5 will suffice.

My general recommendation: New Surface Laptop 4: Ultra-Thin Touchscreen Laptop - Microsoft Surface

If I was buying a regular laptop today, I'd get the Microsoft Surface Laptop.

New Surface Laptop 4: Ultra-Thin Touchscreen Laptop - Microsoft Surface

They get rave reviews. I've played with them and a friend has one. Great, powerful laptops starting at $800 with good battery life. Base configuration should be fine for you, unless you edit photos more than I'm assuming.

Others recommendations:

I use touchscreens on 360-rotatable laptops now extensively. Life-changing. (Hey Apple users: It's like an iPad, but a real computer!)

If you'd be interested in something like that, here's three recommendations...

- Do/did you like your HP? I have an Envy from 2013 and an HP Spectre from 2016. Both still work great. If you're still interested in an HP, their latest gen Spectres have gotten good reviews from PC Mag. This one should suit your needs: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-spectre-x360-laptop-14t-ea000-touch-1q881av-1?source=aw&subacctid=221667&subacctname=Ziff+Davis,+Inc.&adcampaigngroup=91539&awc=7168_1639968355_bdf4388f20c108287db3ebf53852e607&jumpid=af_gen_nc_ns&utm_medium=af&utm_source=aw&utm_campaign=Ziff+Davis,+Inc.

-Microsoft Surface Pro 8: Everything from Surface Laptop applies, except this is a tablet design, with a keyboard and trackpad that doubles as cover (that may be sold separately, so check if interested). Needless to say, you can't get more portable than this for a REAL computer. Surface Pro 8 – The most powerful Pro – Microsoft Surface

-If you really want a nice combo of a touchscreen and powerful laptop, this rocks. Just picked one up on Black Friday for $900. But this is probably overkill for you. https://store.acer.com/en-us/conceptd-3-ezel-cc314-72g-72sx

 

I’ve always been tempted to try and create a hackbook, but never have.

 

What? I think I have a different definition of objective.

I hate Mac OS. I've hated it for 20 years, since I was forced to use it in school. I still have to use it at the office on an old iMac (though luckily not that much now since I mostly work from home). I still hate it. I don't find intuitive in the least. Finding settings -- or really anything -- and it's in-computer searching sucks.

Windows, especially 10 and 11, rocks. Snapping windows to portions of the screen, great customizable menus, great taskbar, the list goes on and on.

Oh, and the touch screen capabilities. I use a mouse when needed or just touch the screen, depending on what works fastest. To quote Apple BS, "it just works."

But I freely admit that's subjective.

Also like how I prefer Android over iOS. I have less strong feelings there as truthfully for the "average consumer," there's little to no difference if you're just using social media apps, consuming media and calling/texting.

But just like PCs, Android manufacturers are the only ones really innovating the hardware. From stylus support (avid Samsung Note/S21 user here) to desktop modes to folding displays... again, the list goes on. I mean, Apple's bragging about 120hz refresh rates on the iPhone 13 (only in the Pro models, sorry regular users, maybe next year!)... and that's been on Android phones for three years.

Not to mention that while iPhones have great cameras, you can find so much more Android land. Like on Sony, which just released a phone with a 1-inch sensor and variable aperture.