Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

We used to call small portable computers "laptops" until people started burning their laps with them.  Then for liability reasons, we starting calling them "notebooks."  But the general market never shifted terms, and now pretty much everybody's back to calling them laptops again, even the manufacturers.

Just a little stroll down memory lane.

I think utee said this above, and it echoes what I overheard from our IT folks when I was getting my work laptop refreshed a month or so ago. Said work laptop chugged along with daily use for 5 years, so I'm inclined to believe the IT folks when they say...

You get what you pay for.

If you want something with halfway decent build quality, you're not getting it for $400.

I wouldn't worry THAT much about the processor. Pretty much anything you're doing will probably be nothing compared to the capability of the processor. If you have an option, I always recommend going towards the higher end on RAM capacity though. Most software hogs memory, even things like having a bunch of Chrome tabs open at once, so IMHO that's the place you're going to feel the pain of pinching pennies FAR more than the processor.

In real estate they often say "buy the worst house in the nicest neighborhood", with the idea being that's your best approach for appreciation. If you're looking for build quality, I might say "buy the lowest spec'd high-end laptop", so you're getting the better build quality but you're not breaking the bank on a whiz-bang processor that's overkill for what you need--but don't neglect RAM.

Agree 100% with all of this, perfectly stated.

And just to help differentiate, there is a bit of a premium for Intel processors, but it's not $120.  So if you're looking at an AMD system for $280 and an Intel system for $400, you're not comparing apples to apples.

And also, either of those would represent entry-level and I'd stay away from that low price band if you're interested in reliability and longevity.

I'm doing 16 GB RAM.  I think that'll be fine. 

16G is good.

What screen size do you want?

Yeah, but I wouldn't go lower.

Heck, I just checked task manager on my laptop with 16GB and it says I'm using 87% of the memory... And about 7% CPU...

Close all those extra browser tabs, man.

16G is good.

What screen size do you want?

It won't be too tiny, but a smaller size is fine since even at home I typically have it connected to a larger monitor for extended display.  

If I'm understanding y'all correctly, don't worry about the processor and get something not-cheap so that it lasts longer.  (I'm good on how much hard drive space and RAM I want, no offense, but I'm not asking for advice on that.)  My remaining question is "What's not-cheap?"  There's laptops for $750, laptops for $2275, and everything in between (I realize these are also probably starting prices depending on how it's spec'd out).  I mean, for me, $750 isn't cheap, but compared to a lot of the laptops, it is.  I just want something I can get a reasonable 5-7 years out of.  Actually, the laptop I have now is from 2012 and other than a bit of screen damage it's still working like a champ.  It just can't install Windows 11 and soon support for 10 will stop.  Also I want to replace it before it unexpectedly craps out on me one day.  But it's still trucking along with nary a problem.  

It's been a long time since I bought one at a regular price.  The one I have now was given to me second-hand, and before that I knew some guys who worked at Dell who always gave me their annual employee discount code for money-off when I wanted to buy one.  It's been since probably 2005 that I bought a Dell for regular price, so I'm not very used to the prices ranges compared to quality.  

For Dell specifically, I can give you a decoder.

We now have two lines of business.

Dell Laptops-- these are the consumer laptops that used to be called Inspiron.

Dell Pro Laptops-- these are the commercial/corporate laptops that used to be called Latitude.

(Also, since we're currently in transition, you can still find the Inspirons and Latitudes, and they're the previous generation so there are probably some decent deals on them)

Anyway, within those two LOBs, there are three classifications.  The base model, then one called Plus, then one called Premium.  Those equate to what we used to call 3000 series, 5000 series, and 7000/9000 series.  3000 was entry level, 5000 was midmarket, and 7000/9000 were the premium products.

So that breaks down to:

Consumer: Dell Laptop, Dell Plus Laptop, Dell Premium Laptop.
Commercial: Dell Pro Laptop, Dell Pro Plus Laptop, Dell Pro Premium Laptop

I'd stick to the ones that are Plus or Premium.  They will typically be more expensive but they are higher build quality and therefore usually better CSAT models.

As far as the differences between Consumer and Commercial, a basic way to think of it is that the Consumer ones tend to have more whizz-bang technology, and the Commercial ones tend to have fewer bells and whistles but offer a more stable software image, because that's what very large corporations value most-- stability over features.  Of course, there's a floor for the amount of features a corporate laptop will have, and it's almost certainly plenty good enough for what you want to do with it.

Your sweet spot will be Dell Plus or Premium in the Consumer series, or Dell Pro Plus or Premium in the Commercial series.

And there are now AMD, Intel, and Qualcom CPU options for all of the above.  I'd stick with AMD or Intel, and the AMD versions will likely be somewhat less than the Intel versions.

Our primary American competitor has analogs for all of the above, but I don't know the model names or branding conventions.

And finally, and I can't stress this enough-- avoid any brands tainted by the CCP.

My computer is pretty badass.

Yes, the Precision workstations are indeed pretty bad-ass.

For reference, those are now called "Dell Pro Max."