Laptop Rec for SL use

[Laurelrose Anthony]

Greetings!  I currently have a gaming laptop which I use for SL.  However, it is beginning to show signs that it may be time to move on.  I am asking what device you like for SL.  I would love one which is lighter in weight than my current one.  

Thank you in advance.

[Fritigern Gothly]

No laptop, what's best for SL is a desktop PC where you can exchange and upgrade hardware as needed/desired. In the long run, that's the most affordable option.

[Laurelrose Anthony]

1 hour ago, Fritigern Gothly said:

No laptop, what's best for SL is a desktop PC where you can exchange and upgrade hardware as needed/desired. In the long run, that's the most affordable option.

I have a desktop but I hate sitting too long at a desk.

[cheesecurd]

Anything with a current gen mid tier mobile processor, no Celerons, atoms or Pentiums. They’ll do it but a current Intel i5 would be ideal. 
As for a mobile GPU, Intel HD 620 or 630 is more than capable but dedicated options like a mobile GTX 1050 or 1060/2060 or 1660 would be good choices.

If price isn’t a huge concern, avoid low end consumer lines, look for the more home professional or enterprise laptops, generally better lifespan, better warranty and better upgrade capability in the future.

Look into the HP Spectre line, which are 13” ultraportables with decent specs, thin and light but kinda pricy. On the lower end from them are the HP Envy’s, which are also small but there’s usually a lower quality display, not sure how much it really matters for SL but if you do any photo editing or whatever you’d want a better display for the resolution and color accuracy.

If you’ve got the money, Lenovo Thinkpad X390, 13”, portable, very high quality stuff. The L390 is the cheaper 13” option. No dedicated gpu but HD620 is capable enough, much better battery life and build quality compared to consumer laptops.

For a more gaming oriented option, Dell has the G3 line out, 15” and not as small or light but far from giant gaming laptop territory. Mobile GTX 1660’s, decent displays, decent battery life for the size.

A gigabyte aero would also be a good choice, thin and light, but not super hot for the relatively compact size.

On a tighter budget, Acer Nitro 5, options with mobile 1660’s, 1080p displays, overall cheaper and bit bulkier but still 15”.

Razer Blade Stealth 13 if you have more money than sense, they’re ok but you lose a lot of creature comforts in the endeavor for raw performance and low size and weight, mushy keyboards and flexible screens and all that.

 

If you wanted me to just pick one out, the gigabyte aero 15 OLED would be my first choice.

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Laptop/AERO-15-OLED--Intel-9th-Gen
Overall the best option, not super expensive but not cheap, built well, thin and light, decent battery life, very good displays, good raw specs. You get a lot more over an equally specced but otherwise cheap laptop, a 1660ti and 9th gen mobile i7 with an NVMe SSD will perform pretty much the same regardless of what it’s in. But with something like this you get a much more well constructed laptop, metal frame, metal body, vibration dampened fans, a higher resolution and more visually appealing display, lower weight, and usually a better warranty.

There are acer aspires with the same specs, but an acer aspire is plastic inside and out, and not meant to last.

[cheesecurd]

Specifically:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16834233268?item=N82E16834233268

It weighs about 4.7 pounds, which is only a pound heavier than my tiny 13” thinkpad x220 with its battery. 
8gb of ram is the downfall of these machines, but it is upgradable, just a shame they don’t ship with 16gb. It’s not really an issue if you run a single viewer, Windows 10, a viewer, few tabs of a web browser won’t have any issue with it. But if you run multiple viewers and have a huge inventory you might hit the swap file. That’s not the end of the world on an NVMe SSD since the swap file is relatively fast, but it’s not ideal. Crucial has pages on the ram, but any 2666mhz ddr4 sodimm kit will do in whatever capacity you want, one slot is empty so you can just add another 8gb stick, or it supports up to 64gb if you wanted 2x32gb sodimms for some reason.

Specs wise it will handle anything you can throw at it, some stuff is gonna struggle in 4K, SL should be fine for the most part but some super detailed places you might have to drop down from ultra but even then I doubt it.