Recommend me a decent 13" or 14" laptop to use for business purposes while traveling

[RBShooter]

Can't find anything decent on Costco.com. I'm not comfortable with Dell anymore...seems like their quality went in to the shi_ _ er. There's a 15" Lenovo for like $600, lots of good review but lots of bad one, too, and it's 15".

Do I start to cross the slippery slope and go Macintosh Airbook 13"?! I'm already considering bailing on 15 yrs of Android use and going to an iPhone, so maybe this is the time?

I have a Samsung tablet and a Bluetooth keyboard, but that just seems mickey mouse and too much of a learning curve as I rarely use it.

What say you, knowledgeable Calgunners?

[ARFrog]

Check out a Lenovo. If you up your budget a Thinkpad X1 Carbon is a good choice.

[toro1]

I have 2 Lenovos. One 17" for around the house that I bought from Costco last year for ~$450. The second one is a 13" I picked up at Best Buy as an open box special for $125. Both have been solid for me although the 13" is a bit slow on some things.

[ibanezfoo]

My carry around for work is a Dell Latitude 5310 2-in-1. Actually I have like 5 of them I pulled from our recycle pile at work. I was carrying around some huge *** Precision model but its like dragging around a boat anchor. No complaints about the little Latitude model. Its touchscreen and you can flip it around and use it like a big tablet as well.

But, need to know more about your budget and horsepower requirements.

[NorCalBusa]

The new Dell XPS 14 is badass. It depends on "what" you're doing with it of course. Email and porn? Crunching big spreadsheets? Drafting or drawing? Different needs...

[dC0m]

I would avoid Dell as well - while they're one of the largest laptop/desktop manufacturers, their quality is definitely not as good as they used to be. My company uses a lot of their Latitude series and we warranty/cycle them out roughly every 2 - 3 years.

Depending on what apps/purpose you will put it through, a Macbook may not be a bad option. Even if it is for light business use (basic web browsing and simple MS apps), Macbooks are great. The trade off is the "Apple sticker price/tax".

Look into Lenovo or even ASUS (ASUS still makes some 13 - 14", but it may be out of your price range as they're geared more for graphic design/gaming).

[Citadelgrad87]

I have a two or so year old Dell XPS 15, I use it for everything and it's been solid as can be. I don't know about their budget stuff, but this has a metal body, great battery life and is solid.

[NorCalBusa]

I have a two or so year old Dell XPS 15, I use it for everything and it's been solid as can be. I don't know about their budget stuff, but this has a metal body, great battery life and is solid.

As does mine. Only complaint I have with Dell is my old(est) XPS desktop is not upgradeable to Win 11. Not much in its specs, but that thing just runs and runs. Me (2024) XPS desktop replacement is a badass, very pleased with it.

[sonofeugene]

[high_revs]

Check out a Lenovo. If you up your budget a Thinkpad X1 Carbon is a good choice.

the only part i don't like about the carbon and we use them at work, is the fixed ram. it's like you have to buy a lot in advance vs. the ability to add ram later. at least when i was reading thru this last year since some folks asked me what i thought of them at work. i ended up getting a T15 from 2 yrs ago for work because it had expandable ram and i opted for a 32gb. drawside - big *** powerbrick of a charger since it needs 240w. maybe a lower T series that can travel with 60 or 80w powersupply?

still a fan of lenovo though dell would be my second. HP... eh.... only their commercial end i'd get. my dell was a xps15 10 yrs ago. rock solid but heavy as heck. i tend to get the higher end for my stuff even if personal since for decades, i mainly used non-consumer machines for work. i have an old lenovo t460s i lug around and it still works just for internet, email and streaming.

[ibanezfoo]

I would avoid Dell as well - while they're one of the largest laptop/desktop manufacturers, their quality is definitely not as good as they used to be. My company uses a lot of their Latitude series and we warranty/cycle them out roughly every 2 - 3 years.

Depending on what apps/purpose you will put it through, a Macbook may not be a bad option. Even if it is for light business use (basic web browsing and simple MS apps), Macbooks are great. The trade off is the "Apple sticker price/tax".

Look into Lenovo or even ASUS (ASUS still makes some 13 - 14", but it may be out of your price range as they're geared more for graphic design/gaming).

Thats funny. We used to use IBM/Lenovo but they turned into flimsy plastic easily breakable crap so we ditched them. Everyone has their favorites. In construction they have to be durable to survive at jobsites, from the heat, dust, machinery, general abuse...

I've been to the Dell labs up here many times. Got to smash laptops and throw them across the room, spray them with pressure washers, etc in their durability lab. They even take them to the range and shoot them but I wasn't invited to that.

[Iknownot]

[RBShooter]

Thanks all. Budget is $600-$1400 I guess. Work is mostly MS-Office type apps, spreadsheets, if any, small. Lots of internet portals, MLS, DocuSign, accessing myriad of city agency websites for basic data. No CAD, or anything complex.

[dC0m]

I miss the old days where laptop batteries were hot-swappable. These days (in favor of slimness), the battery is built into the motherboard and cannot (easily at least) be removed. A good majority of the Dell Latitude that we replace are due to batteries failing within 2 - 3 years, but then again, it probably doesn't help that our employees leave the unit plugged in, even at full charge.

My previous company used the old all black Lenovo Thinkpads - those were solid. I actually liked it so much I bought a Thinkpad X1 for my personal laptop years ago. It was really easy to service different components such as adding a new SSD...

[OlderThanDirt]

https://www.razer.com/gaming-laptops/razer-blade-14