Laptop reliability

YBR

My husband's HP laptop failed fatally in under 2 years which seems not much but it was out of warrantee, and I also could do with a new laptop now - my is still going at over 10 years old but very slow.

We're hoping to keep it to under £800 each for laptops capable of video editing and streaming (probably using Black Friday deals or similar). What brands are generally going to last?

400ixl

If you are doing heavy video editing I would recommend a Macbook, but that would blow your budget and if a 10 year old Windows laptop is doing the job then a new one will certainly be more than capable.

HP is typically a reliable brand as is Dell and Lenovo. The dell outlet store may be a good one to look at.

You will be wanting either an Intel I5 or i7 or an AMD Ryzen 5 or 7 processor with a dedicated graphics card (not shared) and I would suggest 16Gb RAM minimum and a 1TB SSD hard drive (Min 512Gb if doing video editing).

Cisco001

Entry level gaming laptop for video editing. Example

ASUS ROG Strix G15 AMD Ryzen 7 16GB 512GB RTX 3050 144Hz FHD 15.6 Inch Windows 11 Gaming Laptop £820

Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 Intel Core i5 16GB RAM 512GB SSD NVIDIA RTX 3060 15.6" Full HD IPS Gaming Laptop £750

Then, for 2nd laptop with ordinary web surfing. You probably could go for £400 dell Inspiron 15 Ryzen 5, 8GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

Neil_Jones

YBR said:

My husband's HP laptop failed fatally in under 2 years which seems not much but it was out of warrantee, and I also could do with a new laptop now - my is still going at over 10 years old but very slow.

We're hoping to keep it to under £800 each for laptops capable of video editing and streaming (probably using Black Friday deals or similar). What brands are generally going to last?

My current HP laptop I've had since 2018.

A lot may depend on what was happening with it to cause it to fail after just two years.  The common cause is blocking the cooling vents on the bottom, such as leaving it on the bed for example and then wondering why it cooks itself.

My previous Acer lasted 12 years FYI.

cerebus

YBR said:

My husband's HP laptop failed fatally in under 2 years which seems not much but it was out of warrantee, and I also could do with a new laptop now - my is still going at over 10 years old but very slow.

We're hoping to keep it to under £800 each for laptops capable of video editing and streaming (probably using Black Friday deals or similar). What brands are generally going to last?

There's not a single component that can't be replaced on a laptop which will cost a lot less than £800 to fix

What exactly happened to your husbands laptop? You might have some consumer rights here to get it fixed but I believe its an uphill battle (not my area of expertise but try posting elsewhere on the forum)

YBR

Thank-you for your comments. It is comforting that HP are still regarded as normally reliable. I don't think much of the commercial Dell laptops my employer gets in bulk.

The dead laptop was not used where the vents are blocked, such as your example on a bed. I don't know the details but the cost-to-fix would have been around £700 so really not worth it. I might have tried pursuing consumer rights but he chose not to.

We now know what we want to replace with, and both the same. I'm not sure why Cisco assumes that I want a less capable machine than my husband, or that I am only up to "ordinary web surfing" and don't do video editing!

cerebus

YBR said:

Thank-you for your comments. It is comforting that HP are still regarded as normally reliable. I don't think much of the commercial Dell laptops my employer gets in bulk.

The dead laptop was not used where the vents are blocked, such as your example on a bed. I don't know the details but the cost-to-fix would have been around £700 so really not worth it. I might have tried pursuing consumer rights but he chose not to.

We now know what we want to replace with, and both the same. I'm not sure why Cisco assumes that I want a less capable machine than my husband, or that I am only up to "ordinary web surfing" and don't do video editing!

£700 ? Not a chance it would ever cost that to fix , that amount would mark it as not cost effective it to fix.

It's also a trick used by repair companies/personnel where they massively overprice the repair cause they either don't want the job or don't have a clue how to fix it 

cerebus

As you intend to spend a fair bit on your new laptops I would be cheeky and ask for a discount when you buy 

debitcardmayhem

you haven’t said what fatally means

Am-I-Paranoid

YBR said:

My husband's HP laptop failed fatally in under 2 years which seems not much but it was out of warrantee, and I also could do with a new laptop now - my is still going at over 10 years old but very slow.

We're hoping to keep it to under £800 each for laptops capable of video editing and streaming (probably using Black Friday deals or similar). What brands are generally going to last?

Was the old laptop okay for video editing? If so, what was the spec?

When you say "streaming", do you mean just watching streamed videos or are you live-streaming gaming content OUT to YouTube/Twitch, etc?

Video editing / streaming (transmitting) are going to push the spec requirements up a bit, but not too much if you're realistic about the capacity of the device.... if you are serious about either, get a desktop as the GPU capacity is WAY higher and it's easier to add lots of RAM and high spec storage.

In terms of longevity, I've still got Thinkpads from 2007 that work (X61 Core2Duo).... and several from around 2012 (X230: i3-3110, i5 and i7-3520 - all still used on a daily basis!)... so I do tend to stick to Lenovo if I can as they seem to last forever.... Dell are a little more fickle, but I've got a couple that are ~10years old and still run fine.

A few months ago, I picked up a "Lenovo LOQ" with the 16 inch screen for £1100, but that was 16Gb RAM, Ryzen 7 7840HS and RTX4060... and that was STRAIGHT after it launched and you could trim the spec down a little (e.g. 15" or lower spec RAM to start with)... and if the prices have come down even a little for Black Friday, something like that might be within budget?

Main compromise was the screen is only around 1080P (technically 16:10, 1200P), but it's high refresh rate and doesn't need a crazy GPU to drive it, compared to MUCH higher GPU requirements if I went for a higher resolution screen. 

Am-I-Paranoid

Just checked the website - the Lenovo LOQ devices are still the same price, so no luck there... worth noting these savings options though:

I wanted Win 11 Pro and I wasn't going to pay the £180 for that.... so I removed it (saved £90), then paid <£20 for an unused corporate win10pro license off Amazon and upgraded that: 100% legal and saves a fair bit!

Register at Lenovo, put the device in your basket.... then wait ~2 days and you'll get a mail asking you about a discount (normally 10%-20%)....

If you really need to cut corners, then try to keep the highest available CPU and GPU in that chassis (Ryzen 7 7840HS + RTX4060) and cut back on the storage + RAM specs, you can always upgrade those later - you're stuck that graphics card + CPU for the duration of the laptop.