Laptop and OS recommendations

dllive

Hi guys

Im looking to buy a new Windows laptop. Im a freelance designer, so speed and reliability are essential. But also value for money. (obviously!)

Can anyone recommend a good website to buy a laptop; a reliable company (Dell, HP etc). Also, should I buy one with Windows 11 on, or stick with Windows 10?

Any tips, advice would be great.

Thanks

PS
I must say, for 15 years Ive bought my laptops from the Dell website. Ive never had a problem with any of them! So maybe Ill just do the same again, but Id be interested to hear comments/suggestions. My other laptop is HP, and have also never had problems with that! Maybe I should get a reconditioned laptop?

J_B

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/dfh/shop/dell-refurbished/cp/outlet

There used to be a 10% 'new customer' discount offer somewhere - google it!

Neil_Jones

Wouldn't worry too much about the computer brand, bulk of brands these days are made by Acer anyway.

If it isn't a Dell, a HP, a Vaio or a Lenovo, it'll almost certainly be an Acer in new colours.

Alienware is owned by Dell, and Dell quite often now repackage other hardware with their own name on it.  They used to do it all themselves, but that was farmed out to Taiwan years ago and is probably repackaged Foxconn.

k_man

Neil_Jones said:

Wouldn't worry too much about the computer brand, bulk of brands these days are made by Acer anyway.

If it isn't a Dell, a HP, a Vaio or a Lenovo, it'll almost certainly be an Acer in new colours.

Do you have any more details of this?

Albeit even if made by the same company, build and specs will vary.

Neil_Jones

k_man said:

Neil_Jones said:

Wouldn't worry too much about the computer brand, bulk of brands these days are made by Acer anyway.

If it isn't a Dell, a HP, a Vaio or a Lenovo, it'll almost certainly be an Acer in new colours.

Do you have any more details of this?

Albeit even if made by the same company, build and specs will vary.

Packard Bell, NEC, eMachines (now defunct brand), Gateway, Predator Gaming...  all Acer.

The other brand I forgot to add:  Asus.

In fact out of all the brands showing on Curry's website:

Acer - own company.

Asus - own company

Avita - very cheap and cheerful, doesn't get good reviews

Dell - as discussed

Dynabook - repackaged Toshiba

Entity - Chinese company

Honor - former owned by Huaewi, was split off after they fell out with the US government

Lenovo - biggest PC company sales wise at this time

LG - new (ish) entrants to the market

Medion - Aldi brand, Lenovo in new colours

Microsoft - the Surface range, made by Pegatron

Samsung - does what it says on the tin but can't make up their mind whether they want to stay in industry or not.  Not good value.

Venturer - Alco Electronics, owned by RCA in the US.

So yes my bad.

Archie_Duke

If you have any students in the family that can take advantage, there are a few new offers on UniDays, there are St Patrick’s Day ones this week, but they always have them running for IT. 

coffeehound

It's worth checking the qualities of the display very carefully for things like colour gamut and contrast ratio -- some review sites go into depth on these.  Apple computers historically knocked PCs into a cocked hat on display quality which is why they are still popular with designers, photographers, etc, but maybe the windows machines have caught up now

teddysmum

Medion is not an Aldi brand, but a brand they sell. i am on my third, having bought direct from their website, but they no longer sell this way, now using a number of outlet such as Aldi (very limited) and Costco.

Lenovo bought out Medion ( in last year?) and this seems to have caused the removal of direct sales.

My son has worked with or owned a number of brands and suggested I go for an Asus (also Chinese), so I treated myself to a ROG Strix 17".