My work provided this laptop suggestion list for WFH. Any thoughts on which one to go with?
Man their options are out there… for most normal office type jobs I would shoot for the HP17 i5 request a ram upgrade to 16GB and the HP docking station and then you should be golden for work I mean seriously 8gb of ram for Windows 10/11 and probably o365, Chrome, probably symantec, or Trellix ESS, probably some form of LCE like Aria or Tanium. yeesh 8gb of ram would be a nightmare…
For me, 16” is the sweet spot. You didn’t indicate what you do. If you do engineering/Cad or need high graphics, go with the Alienware. Otherwise the Inspiron may work. I didn’t look at the individual computers, but another decision driver for me is whether it has a numeric keypad, because that’s something I use all the time.
Why do laptops have to be “company approved” if they’re just computers?
There could be many reasons for this such as:
- Certain software that needs to run on the computer
- Company image, They may want all of their employees to have similar looking laptops
- IT purposes, it’s easier to take care of a system of similar laptops than one where they’re all different
I’m not saying all of these are good reasons but these are just a few of the ones I could think of.
Frankly, none of those except the Alienware are even suitable for modern office work. 8gb of ram? Is that a joke? A single big Excel sheet and you’re dead.
If they’re paying, might as well go alienware.
absolutely do not understand any circumstances buy a low-end HP. your lack of bloatware will thank you.
For portability I’d go with the XPS. You’re not gaming on the laptop and lugging the Alienware will suck. Unless you’re doing engineering work, the XPS will be the easiest for taking to a coffee shop and lightest on your back if you want to take a trip somewhere and work from a hotel room
Alienware no doubt- not even for the gaming part. Just for the fact that it’s the only option with more ram and storage than the rest… I don’t trust windows 10/11 to run properly in a work setting on 8gb ram
Dell 16" or Alienware but the alienware laptop would be my top pick.
What is this? A bunch of anemic consumer grade laptops and a couple of gaming laptops? Why aren’t they providing business grade laptops as options? This seems like a really odd list. Is this what their IT department has recommended? Is this provided as a recommendation for you to purchase for yourself? If you’re supposed to buy your own laptop at your own expense I understand but I’d recommend since it’s your own money that you buy something better than anything on this list.
What would you recommend?
My personal go to, and what I put into policy is Lenovo Thinkpad. T and P series are great. There’s a price premium but in general I know they’re going to survive 5 years and most often more. I have a 7 year P series and 5 year old T480s sitting on my desk that I still use though I recently just transitioned to a new T14. If you are going with Dell, Inspiron is consumer grade but Latitude is a decent business class laptop. These recommendations look the part, they’re not flashy but they’re sturdy. Common points of failure on consumer grade laptops are the hinges and the top case breaking away because the plastics are cheap and can’t handle the long term stress of opening and closing and flex through the unit because they aren’t sturdy enough. If you really want an HP, I used to approve ProBooks as they tick most of the boxes for long term durability though I stopped using them at one point because in my last org we experienced a high rate of premature battery failures. Sorry for the wall of text but I don’t feel like formatting.
Seconded. My ThinkPad T470 is still my daily laptop.
HP EliteBooks are also great. NOT ProBooks.
What, no Lenovo laptops allowed???
Probably have a contract with Dell or HP.
Probably, much to their dismay
Alienware is terrible but comparing the build to everything else, I’d probably go that route. Hopefully it has a warranty.
Alienware
Depends what you are doing. If you just need it for office and web browsing, Id get the xps 13. It’s the most premium one here, they are quite nice to use.
Maybe they’re checking if people automatically go for the most expensive laptop on the list?
Seriously though, it’s the only one with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB storage, it’s a no brainer, unless there’s an option to upgrade any of the other packages up to $1,499? You can get a configure-to-order (CTO) option for less than $1,499 on other laptops and have a more capable laptop (except for the lack of a discrete GPU).
well as a para they shouldn’t be storing much on the laptop but some personal crap everything else should be on an access controlled shared drive or onedrive and not locally stored. so storage isn’t that big of a concern but ram on these is horrible the only real option that I see is the alienware but with all the alienware bloat it’s going to suck as much as the 8gb i5’s… Man this company tho is making my eye twitch and makin my IA side scream in geek…