My use case: I’m an engineering student, I need something with a lot of storage, hopefully SSD (right not I have MatLab, Anaconda and KiCAD taking up most of my 128 GB HD, and I had to uninstall the STM32 cube IDE from lack of storage), and reasonable processing performance so I can actually run these things at a reasonable rate. I need to stay within the windows/ms office world to simplify collaborating and file sharing etc. I’m not using it for gaming. Don’t need a massive screen, or touchscreen or anything fancy. HDMI port would be reasonably important.
I want it to last me at least the next 4-5 years, and I’m hoping to not spend more than about £300.
I know a lot of people reccomend ThinkPads, what’s a good model to get cheap at the moment? Or any other suggestions?
Is Windows 11 so bad that I should only be looking at ones that come with Windows 10 installed?
Thanks for any helpful advice!
Edit: Thanks to everyone for taking the time to advise me, I’ve ordered a refurbished T480 with 1TB ssd, plenty of ram, and a 1 year warranty for £340.
Thinkpads are a solid choice, and since all the software you listed runs on Linux as well, it’s a good option if you change operating systems to extend the lifetime of your laptop down the road.
If you get one, try to buy one without the RAM soldered on (i think most of the s models). When jt breaks, you basically brick the device - i had to throw out a Samsung notebook because of that.
From what I could find out I think most T480 have 8 GB soldered and a slot for replaceable ram. But then the seller I got mine from was offering them with 16, 32 or 64 GB ram, so hopefully that means two non-soldered slots.
Yeah I’m planning to install Linux on my old laptop for just home use so I can get familiar and learn a bit of command line stuff, and hopefully make the switch fully at some point. But for now I don’t feel confident that the Linux learning curve wouldn’t slow me down to much, so I’m about to face the horrors of Win 11 Pro (-_-)