So i've been spending 2 days on looking around to see if i can find a good laptop i can buy since black friday is coming up, for a dedicated purpose:
To just use it in the car while tuning and diagnostic vehicle ecu's. It's not my day to day work but i need to use it every month.
As a background my first and only laptop i've bought is the Asus G73JH i bought for 1400eur in 2010 delivered with a bundle included ROG mouse and a ROG branded carry bag (i still carry to work everyday). I used it to finish all my uni abroad and a few years after until i build my current AMD desktop system. It has been modded to hell, it's on the 3rd or 4th display panel (dead due to a age) and a 7970m from a clevo with a modified heatsink i made. It served me well but i think it's time to retire it. It's funny and sad you could buy a flagship laptop for under 1500eur back then.
Here's my requirements:
- 16" screen size and up, larger is better (16:10 acceptable, that's why 16")
- 400nits of minimum brightness: Allowing down to 350nits i think is not acceptable nowadays, 500nits will be ideal for using during the day outdoors otherwise you can't see sh*t
- TFT panel (aka IPS/TN/etc) preferable over OLED due to lower power usage at same brightness level
- 60hz refresh rate ok, higher the better but will probably change it to 60hz to save on power either way
- "Full-size" (ANSI-preferable) keyboard with backlight. Needs to have full size arrow keys and numpad
- Decent mouse pad (separate mouse keys rather than underpad buttons preferable) so i can finally avoid carrying a mouse. Trackpoint seems cool, glass pad is a plus
- CPU: If going to buy new it has to be either Meteor Lake or Lunar Lake on Intel side, but AMD with Zen4/5 cores is preferable (Strix Point/Hawk Point/Phoenix, Dragon Range is a higher tier for these requirements)
- GPU: No discrete GPU preferable because it's not needed, the iGPU/APU will do fine, be cheaper and draw less power
- At least one full size USB type-A port (normally i would say 2 but on some of these newer laptops a USB-C dongle seems unavoidable)
- Battery: ~80Wh minimum i would say, 100Wh ideal, the more is better
- 16gb ram minimum, 32gb ideal, if not soldered is a plus
- At least one M.2 nvme storage drive, with a secondary M.2 or SATA drive slot; If only one slot, better support 80mm long m.2 so i can put 2tb easily on it.
- Metal chassis preferable
- Separate power button and not integrated into the keyboard preferable
- Price: ~1000eur ideal, up to ~1500eur acceptable unless it can offer more
- Ideally available to be bought from within EU, so i don't have to deal with import taxes and have my 2-year warranty straight from the retailer (Amazon is best for this)
- If it can be bought without OS for cheaper even better, i am gonna put W10 on it either way
Buying used is also an option, i am sure they are some nice deals but it will be hit or miss trying to find something specific to my requirements, plus it will be older less efficient architecture and the battery will be degraded so i don't think i will bother.
Some comments on a few laptops i've seen:
- Xiaomi RedmiBook Pro 16 2024: Good screen, battery, chassis, price, no numpad, only available in china (can't even get to product link without tricks), intel cpu, bad wifi performance
- MSI Prestige 16: Various current and last year models, bad availability, a bit overpriced, each model always missing like one of my major requirements
- Honor MagicBook Pro 16 2024: RedmiBook Pro 16 clone with plastic chassis, initial model had discrete graphics, now on their website is without still with the exact same model number
- Asus: Various options, the good ones are way overpriced
- Lenovo: Various models, nice features but noticed the AMD ones come with sh*tty display and small battery for no reason
- LG gram: Overpriced for specs, even the 17" model has keyboard with numpad but half-size arrow keys. Also f*ck LG i have bad experience with their monitors and i consider them scammers like samsung.
I hear your suggestions