Laptop Shopping - Best Place to Test Drive?

[DHodges34]

My wife is looking for a new work tablet/laptop, where's the best place in town to get a good selection of decent ones to look at and play with? I could have sworn Tiger Direct had a retail location on OBT but I'm not seeing any retail on their website. Thinking about the Surface Pro 4 but wanted to check out some others as well.

Other than Office (primarily Powerpoint and Word) she does some very light photo/video editing for presentations and minor updates to her website. Accessibility is important too, she travels with it so built in hotspot would be good as well as the ever important balance between an easy to carry machine that doesn't have a tiny keyboard.

Thanks for any tips.

 

[UCFBS]

Here's what I personally do, and I've been nearly 100% travel for the past 12+ years (until just last month) ...

• I use a professional class notebook when I have the space and WiFi, tether using my phone if I need it.
  
• When I need to work on the go, I have a Tablet with LTE, and a Bluetooth Keyboard if I need to type.

Regarding tablets, I haven't bothered to buy one in 2 years.

Spoiler

I have my circa-2014 nVidia Shield Tablet LTE, which was the most under-valued, under-rated tablet that most sites agree was the best tablet that year. Unfortunate, because Apple, Google and Samsung lock up the retail markets, nVidia didn't sell many, and they tried to use the "gamer tablet" to break-in via GameSpot and other, alternative retail outlets, and that turned most people. approach actually turned most consumers off.

The only reason I bought one is for my wife as a gaming tablet. Then I discovered it destroyed any Apple or Google tablet at the time, and even the Nexus 9 was taking too long to come out, and was $200 more for the LTE version ... using almost the same nVidia chip! The Shield Tablet LTE also offered a MicroSD, so I wasn't limited to 32GB of storage, along with the stylus, speakers, etc... Unfortunately they've discontinued it due to lack of sales, but not because of design or performance issues.

For a Bluetooth keyboard, I use the Logitech K480. It has a 3-position dial so I can use it with my phone, as well as a PC.

SIDE NOTE: I did buy a $49 Amazon Kindle, but that's literally just for Amazon Video. That way I could watch movies on the plane, and not suck down my Shield Tablet LTE's battery in case I needed to work from it for a 10-12 hour/day. Yes, I worked 100% from it at clients at times, especially when I didn't have a desk and was only there a week or two.

Regarding notebooks ...

Understand you'd like to touch'n feel. Totally understand that. But if you're looking to get the most value for your buck, in a business/professional use notebook ... consider refurbished units. Most of these are high-quality, business class units, unlike a lot of cheap consumer ones at the retail and super stores.

Spoiler

Seriously, unless you're a gamer and need the latest GPU**, there's little performance difference between the old 2010-era Intel SandyBridge (ix-2xxx) and latest SkyLake (ix-6xxx) products. Many Dell, HP, Lenovo and other, Tier-1 units come off-lease after 3 years, so SandyBridge (ix-2xxx) and IvyBridge (ix-3xxx) units are a fraction of the cost, and usually in great shape, when reconditioned by the OEM itself (e.g., Dell Finance) or one of the major houses (e.g., ArrowDirect).

Look for coupons/sales on DealNews, especially for those off-lease Finance deals that are another 35-60% off, of an already knocked down price.

Professional-wise, I currently have 15.6" Dell Precision m4600 and m4700, true quad-core i7 (8 thread) units with 32GiB RAM and a 1TB mSATA cards (plus the 2.5" and 5.25" slim bays) that literally destroys most notebooks, performance-wise (sans the older GPU**). If you want something more portable, with less power, then there are lots of Latitude and other models, as well as the Lenovo Yoga series (my wife has a Yoga2 13"). I've been disappointed with most HP models as of late, but they can be a good deal at times.

BTW, I even dropped one of my m4600 notebooks on concrete ... and it survived! The case was bent, but it took it all. The display was fine. Nice to have a 'cheap' refurb that I can always migrate from if it gets messed up physically (even if the components survive).

**Mobile Gamers Note: If you need the latest GPU, I've found that going whitebox is actually better. The problem with Tier-1 Dell, HP and Lenovo is that they customize their firmware and you're stuck using their official drivers, and not the AMD or nVidia generic drivers. So instead, I'd look at the #1 Whitebox ODM -- Clevo - who's biggest reseller in North America is Sager, and rebranded as many OEMs. E.g., all Alienware units were Clevo, until recent after Dell's purchase.

Accessibility is important too, she travels with it so built in hotspot would be good as well as the ever important balance between an easy to carry machine that doesn't have a tiny keyboard.

BTW, if you want 4G built-in into a notebook, I highly recommend whitebox over Tier-1! Lenovo is notorious for whitelisting specific cards, while Dell and HP can be a mixed bag, with carrier tie-ins and exclusivity with 24 months (that utterly make the notebook cost chump change in comparison). If cost is not an object, then maybe Tier-1 might be the best option if you just want 4G AT&T.

Spoiler

Most Clevo-Sager resellers can get you a specific M.2 card (M.2 keyed E card, typically 2242 size) that has your provider-compatible 4G/LTE, along with WiFi (most notebooks have the WiFi in an E slot, which provides the UART for 4G). There may be options for older systems with only Mini-PCI slots, but if you want 4G, then going newer is probably better. Acer, Asus, MSI and others also offer whitebox notebooks that can be found with various resellers.

I.e., for those of us with T-mobile Unlimited plans, the first 5GB/month at full LTE is free, and we can up that for a fraction of a cost. Hence why I point this out.

 

[DHodges34]

Thanks for the info, I'll pass it along!

 

[UCFBS]

Thanks for the info, I'll pass it along!

All I can offer is what I use personally. And I did it as 100% travel too.

Regardless of what you buy, have her get a good Blutooth Keyboard. It's always that backup for her phone and/or tablet, when she doesn't want to pull her notebook out. Just make sure you have a 1080p (or higher) capable phone and/or tablet display resolution. Google Docs (or MS Office 365 for that matter) on a 720p phone/tablet won't cut it. 720p is fine for movies and saves a lot of battery, but for doing documents, spreadsheets and any presentations with detail, you need at least 1080p.

Spoiler

Unfortunately, the tablet isn't on the market any more, even though it competes with tablets even designed 2 years later. nVidia got out, recognizing they cannot compete with the "retail lockout" of the "Big 3." But they still make the chips for others.

Side Note: Oh ... my favorite thing about the Shield Tablet? A real Mini-HDMI output! No "casting" compatible TV or device attached to it required. That saved my butt so many times when there was just an old LCD TV or a projector that took HDMI. I even had a HDMI to VGA converter for older projectors in my bag. Yes, presented from my tablet to a projector.

And notebook-wise, I need a lot of power and memory. I run a lot of VMs. My wife has the 2 year-old Yoga2 13". She folds it over a lot. I haven't opened it to see if I can put in a 4G LTE card+WiFi. Lenovo is notorious for whitelisting cards, and everything else won't work.

One of the reasons I love T-mobile. I get 5GB/month free having an unlimited account, my wife as well. And plans up to 22GB/month are much, much more reasonable than the others, while the new 700MHz Band 12 LTE that T-mobile bought from Verizon has let them leapfrog Sprint in LTE coverage.