UKH

Looking for input from the hive mind:

My wife is leaving her job and going freelance, and needs to buy herself a laptop.  Our intention is to buy once and get something that will last her for many years.  Her needs are not great but we'd rather over-spec it now (or at least leave upgrading a possibility) to future proof it.

She is basically just doing lots of office tasks, but they do tend to be quite complex and it's not unusual for her to have 15 windows on the go - Word, Powerpoint, Excel, browsers and so on.  No need for massive processing grunt - she won't be doing any photo editing or gaming.  Some video playback required.

She really wants 14", not 15.6" or above.  She also wants a metal body for toughness.

I'm looking at a Fusion Studio 14 from PC Specialist.  For just under £1000 that will get her an aluminium body, good 1800p screen, i5 11300H with integrated Iris Xe graphics, 16GB 2666MHz Corsair RAM (on one stick, so I can add a second if it's ever necessary).  Two drive bays so I'd get a 512GB M.2 SSD and a spare 256GB backup drive.

I have two main worries.  Firstly, for her usage, would she be better with an AMD machine rather than Intel?  

And is integrated graphics going to turn out to be a problem in the future?  I am hearing good things about Iris Xe, but I would be more comfortable with the potential to stick a GPU in at a later date if it ever became necessary.  I wonder if running an external GPU over Thunderbolt is going to become a mainstream solution to this?

For the money, am I overthinking it?  It seems that getting AMD and/or dedicated graphics in a 14" body is much more expensive...

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Basically doesn't matter. Given what she'll be doing, its untimely demise will be effected by Microsoft's crapness and built in bloatolescence. Spend twice as much for the same spec machine from Apple and it'll last a decade or so (there's a 2009 MacBook still trucking not far from where I'm sitting). Alternatively buy whatever and go Linux with the same result.

Integrated graphics will be fine. GPUs are the easiest way to burn money currently so probably don't worry. It'll handle even the most vigorous spreadsheeting.

Intel/AMD is of no consequence for editing documents. You're probably overthinking it. It'll be fine for what you're asking of it for many years, and it'll be bloating OS that kills it in your use case. Some OSs take longer to do that than others.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I think you might need to think about why she is going for a laptop; will her use mostly be mobile (and therefore actually working with the laptop as a standalone device), or will she mostly end up working in fixed locations (home, employer location)?

If the latter, then a docking station, real keyboard/mouse & monitor(s) will give a much better experience of comfort and use.

If, as you say, she will not be needing high performance, or any major video performance, I don't see the need for a very powerful GPU. But do consider the ability of the integrated graphics to drive multiple, high resolution monitors, which ease the handling of multiple open documents (provided you can read them with the tiny pixel size of a very high res monitor...).

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

If longevity is what you're after then you could do much worse than go for a MacBook.

The same £1000 will get you a base model Air new, or something a bit more powerful refurbed though only at 13.3", if that'd be an issue? It will have a metal body, which will take a life time of prangs very well - my current one is 4 years old and has lived a jobbing photographer life at the side of football pitches in all weathers on all surfaces and doesn't have a scratch or dent on it, despite no protective cover.

My old one from 2011, that got hit full pelt by a ball and has a knackered screen is now my home media centre and hooked up to a projector and small display. Fully capable of playing locally stored video and streaming it too, and runs the latest MacOS without a problem despite it's age.

Upgradability is obviously low though, with pretty much everything soldered in place these days.. but as I say, my 10 year old model would be quite capable of running Office so I can't see this being a problem in another decade. As above, I think you're overthinking the spec if it is going to be an office machine with the odd bit of video playback. 

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Thanks, both.

About 2/3 of her work is from her desk, where she already has a good keyboard and monitor.  But 1/3 of her time is mobile and that's why she needs laptop.  I have suggested a big PC and a chromebook but she hates the idea...

She also really wants Windows - not Mac.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Overthinking it I reckon.  

For that use case, general office use, you don't need to spend £1000 on it ... and even if you do ... I've found plans to keep it future proof tend not to work out that well in practice.  

If you're dead set on a windows machine you can pick up, powerful, certified, 1 yr guaranteed Amazon Refurbished 2nd hand machines for a fraction of the price.  Keep regular full backups and if it breaks - replace it.  That's what Amazon Prime next day delivery is for.  That's what I do for my OH.    She partners it with an iPad that she uses most of the time when on the move.

(1) Lenovo ThinkPad T430 Core i5 16GB 240GB SSD DVD WiFi WebCam USB 3.0 Windows 10 Professional 64-bit Laptop PC (Renewed) ... £275.  At that price you might even be able to buy a wide screen monitor, stand , wireless mouse and keyboard for when working at home ... all for that same £1000 you were originally going to spend.

Agree with what others are saying though .. if you want to spend £1000 on a laptop .. buy a MacBook.

Come back and tell us what you end up buying pls.

(1) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Windows-Professional-Renewed/dp/B0...

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

My wife was in similar position with similar needs about 4 years ago.  We spent about £600 on a refurbished HP from laptopsdirect and it's still chugging along doing everything required today.  I'm not up to speed with current specs, but I would have thought a similar spend will get you equivalent performance level today.

Wherever you buy, would definitely recommend looking at refurbished from a reputable source, the savings are massive and risk of problems low.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Hewlett Packard 3168ngw  really good value. Stood on a Easy Riser Notebook Cooling Stand. Plus usb keyboard and mouse. 

Complete workhorse for my wife. Get the business models, they are cheaper because they are not specd for gaming. Little crap in them. Perfectly ok for streaming. 

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Again, thanks, all.

The other thing I should have said is that she absolutely demands reliability.  The situations she will be working in when she is presenting are quite high pressure and demanding, so her equipment failing is not something she will countenance. For this reason we'd been looking new rather than refurb (it's also a reason I'm looking to over-spec a bit).  But maybe I should be thinking about a refurb...

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Older machines will work happily with older software indefinitely. Unfortunately your interface with the world include browsers, email and probably social media. These are on a very short timescale as they are continually being updated and once they stop working properly (which they will) you are fecked.

Macs are not immune from this as I'm learning to my cost. I can no longer upgrade as all my best and most expensive software will stop working, leaving me with just a browser. Great.

The only other thing which is vital is continuous backup - which the mac does provide. But make it external. Your mac might self destruct or be nicked. Don't know what pcs offer on this front but it's absolutely essential.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

and

together is off the table. It's one or other. As others have said if you want reliable and you have £1k to spend, go apple. Then she won't have to try to stall a room full of pissed off people while it gives you no choice and buggers about doing updates.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

When I worked freelance I had a couple of identical Dell laptops with my documents synced between them via the cloud. I’d bought them second-hand and upgraded them with more memory and ssd. If one of them had blown up / been dropped / been stolen etc it would have saved me at least a day’s fees. I also used a docking station at home with an external keyboard to prolong the life of the laptop’s keyboard (I’m an angry typist). Having just one brand new laptop might have provided more reliability but wouldn’t have covered other risks. When I worked for a big company we just had a cupboard full of new laptops ready to go.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Apple refurbs come with a warranty, generally opened and returned rather than ‘used’ as such. If push came to shove then you can even install windows on Macs these days, no idea why you would mind you! 

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

My Dell XPS is just as good as my other half’s Apple. I prefer Windows because of 100% compatibility with MS office, particularly some of the esoteric dark corners of excel, and some specialised engineering software only works on Windows, the XPS is very reliable and portable. I use an external monitor and USB wireless keyboard & mouse at home

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Your suggested solution sounds fine. Also other posters' suggestions about reconditioned, HP or Dell will be fine, if suitably specc'ed.

The main addition I would suggest from personal experience would be a really big second screen for home working, plus an external keyboard and mouse. With those you effectively get the best of both laptop and desktop (given that she doesn't need the extra power and/or capability for additions).

The fanbois do irritate me tho The client wants Windows, so the OS of your choice is not suitable /rant.

Please post the end result!

ff

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Intel or AMD both have suitable CPU/GPU offerings. No need to just consider one of them. 

You absolutely dont need a seperate Graphics card for that use case. 

If total budget is £1k, keep back £200 for seperate keyboard, mouse and 27" screen for home use. It will give you better posture and more usability. Also reducing use of the inbuilt trackpad and keyboard by two thirds will help life span. 

A half-decent laptop from a major brand should give you 5 years use without skipping a beat. More than that is in the lap of the gods, knowing what new Windows/office/internet browser/security hardware requirements will be that far ahead simply isn't realistic. You might be fine for longer, or maybe not.

If failure is absolutely not an option, the best solution isn't a more expensive item of kit, it's redundancy. A cheap chromebook with the killer presentation loaded onto it the night before helps you sleep easy.

In reply to kevin stephens:

I have a Dell XPS 13 previous generation and it is of extremely poor build quality.  Have had two repairs that basically replaced everything but the motherboard and SSD, and it still has a very uneven keyboard and display backlight.

Not impressed at all - clearly they have a QC issue and lack of attention to detail. Doubt I would buy another Dell.  They probably get away with it because business users don't care.  The service was good, but that is clearly needed for a reason.

As for Macbooks, many of us can't stand MacOS.  I hate it, it is incredibly dated even though the back end architecture is good.  Windows for me any day.  I also dislike the absence of Home/End/Pg Up/Pg Dn keys on Macs, I always use them when reading through documents.

But overall I'd go for anything with 16GB RAM and as large an SSD as reasonably affordable.  A plastic body might actually be preferable (see my rant about Dell above) and will be more resilient to knocks than ally without visible damage.

Wouldn't bother with an internal backup drive.  Better to get cloud storage for that purpose.  If all you are doing is office work, web browsing and streaming video, almost nothing else spec wise really matters - it's gaming and video editing where you need to worry about GPUs and the likes.

Only other thing worth considering is a higher screen resolution if working on it a lot, but an external display renders that fairly unimportant.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Laptop & docking station are a reasonable solution; that's what we do at work, even more so since WFH under Covid. We even have 'engineering laptops' that have enough poke to do FPGA layout at manageable speeds.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Have you considered a retro encabulator addition to your spec?

youtube.com/watch?v=RXJKdh1KZ0w&

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

You're overthinking it. Laptops die full of coffee, dust or because the bendy wires to the IO can't take it. If the battery doesn't die first. Bloated OD can be re-installed. I'm still running Win7 on a low end desktop, a few goodies and a bit more RAM last year refreshed it and has it running like a machine 10 years its junior. I do quite a bit of 3d CAD plus all the office/web stuff, no GPU (won't fit the case and no need so far).

I'd get the memory on 2 sticks, 16G is plenty and it'll probably run faster and it'll be cheap as chips to replace it in the future if her useage changes.

Make sure the SSD is actually as fast as the port will support. 

Jk

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Thanks, all.

She already has a lovely 1440p monitor and a good mechanical keyboard which she uses with her current work laptop.  She's being made redundant so the University will want that laptop back but the rest of it is hers!  There is no fixed budget - a healthy redundancy payout will more than cover this and some other stuff she needs to set up as a freelance consultant.

There is no way she'll go to Mac OS.  She's been working with Windows since 3.1... and it's so standard within her field that not using Windows would be a problem.

The docking station that a few have suggested  is this basically just a one-connection solution to all the external gubbins?  Her headset, mouse and keyboard are all wireless so all she has to unplug to move the laptop is the multi-adaptor with the dongle in and her HDMI cable.  Or am I missing something about this?

I will forget any concerns about onboard graphics and the Intel/AMD question - thanks for the reassurance on that front.

I've had a quick look at refurb and will continue to look.  But she wants 1440p or higher, and all the refurbs with higher resolutions are either very expensive gaming systems, or have older CPUs and are limited on RAM.  I'll see what else I can find...  

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I think you need to ask yourself the likelihood of the University getting the laptop back. It'll probably take about two missed emails before it's yours...

In reply to Removed User:

Oh god we are desperate to get rid of it!  It's an insanely high specced machine that she has been issued with to work from home... but it is utterly locked down so we can't change anything about it, and all it can do is connect up to her bog standard desktop PC in the office and drive that as a remote terminal.  Our broadband is sketchy at best and she frequently spends a minute or more waiting for a document to open or save.

Of course, if they did forget that we had it, I'm sure I could get the SSD wiped with a fresh install of Windows.  Hmm...

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I'm sure you could... There may even be a factory restore partition on it somewhere...

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I'd get something like a Dell Latitude from the Dell Outlet. We supply a lot with work and they are pretty bombproof. We very rarely see any issues with the Dell kit.

The AMD Zen 3 chips are fantastic, they have the edge over Intel for power/performance however I don't think they're available in the Latitude, although realistically, any modern processor will do what you require it to do with ease. Hell, I still use an old 3rd gen i7 Dell XPS for work that runs VMs etc. If it's just for general desktop use, integrated graphics won't be an issue.

The Latitude 7000 series are aluminium and you should be able to grab one for about £1k off the outlet.

For all the people saying Apple are the only option for reliability.. I see just as many issues with Apple laptops as a decent model from another brand.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I would consider asking them how many pence they want for it, and getting their IT department to wipe it for you.

Also, if there will be a lot more wfh, make sure the wifi/broadband is as good as it can be, and that there's a suitable "office" space etc.

Edit:

In this context the correct number of external monitors is n + 1. I have two

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Might be personal choice ... but I haven't shot for a docking station at home in the past.  The issue I have with docking stations is that they tend to be both brand and version specific.  So if the current laptop dies and you decide upon a different brand or a materially different laptop within the same brand range next time... maybe because you spot a good deal ... you're left with a redundant bit of kit.   They make sense in a workspace environment when your employer is committing to a brand for a large population for a long period of time where people are going to move about between desks and you don't want to rewire for every new start setup.  Not really the case, IMO, at home.

Instead, in the past at home I've gone for - full size wireless keyboard & mouse, dual monitors and couple of HDMI/DisplayPort cables + basics laptop stand (1) and you have almost the exact the same thing.  

It is true that there is a convenience in a docking station .. you can wire up the docking station with all your peripherals and just park the laptop down on top of it.  However, if you're actually taking your peripherals with you when you move the laptop (i.e. if you're on the go a bit and you need the keyboard, mouse with the laptop) .. then you're fiddling about with wires anyway to pull them out the docking station.  Sort of defeats the purpose.

I'm sure there will be others that will tell you there are a god send. 

(1) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monadikos-Portable-Adjustable-Aluminum-Ventilated-...

I recommend buying one that can definitely run Windows 11 because Windows 10 goes end of life in October 2025.

In reply to Street:

I'd second the suggestion of a Dell Latitude. I have one as my work machine and it's been excellent - very reliable and handles all the normal business programs without any problem, including some fairly hefty Excel work and vast amounts of Teams sessions, along with some picture and video editing. For the type of work you're suggesting it'll be used for, a simple "business" machine will do it all. 

I went for a higher spec refurb Latitude as my own machine. My only notes of caution are 1) don't bother with a touch-screen (the refurb has one, and it simply doesn't get used on laptop), and 2) if going down the refurb route, pay attention to the quality of the webcam as the one on my slightly older machine is nowhere near as clear as the one on the newer work machine.

In reply to Neil Williams:

If all you are doing is office work, web browsing and streaming video, almost nothing else spec wise really matters - it's gaming and video editing where you need to worry about GPUs and the likes.

^^This. Drive speed and RAM will definitely be the bottlenecks for her, so eliminating those will be key. Windows will love to cache stuff in RAM, so as she'll be working on lots at once there's be lots to cache. I find MS Teams especially uses loads of RAM.

To the OP - consider how she uses the machine - if it's mostly at the desk then a smaller-screened machine which is more portable used on a dock with big monitor(s) could be preferable to a larger-screened machine which is a pain to move around. I was initially annoyed when my big work laptop got replaced by a smaller one, but now prefer the portability of the new one.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Seriously looking at the refurb Dell machines now.  Away climbing for the weekend but I will report back with our decision next week!

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

OK, so after an hour looking at the Dell outlet website, I reckon these are the three options I'm considering.  I am certain I could get a machine that will do the job for less, but we have her redundancy payout in our pockets, and she is very keen to spend the money on something that will have a decent chance of lasting.

PC Specialist Fusion:  i5 processor, 11,300 on CPUbenchmark.  16GB 2666MHz RAM, upgradable to 64GB.  500GB NVMe SSD (Intel 670p).  Integrated Xe graphics.  14" 1800p screen, 308mm width, 1.06kg.  One TB4 port, WiFi 6.  £953 (or £988 with a 1TB drive) new.

Inspiron 7000:  i7 processor, 10600 CPUbenchmark.  16GB 4267MHz RAM, soldered down.  1TB 'class 40' drive (which I think is NVMe and probably comparable to the one above for speed).  14.5" 1600p screen, 322mm width, 1.3kg.  One TB4 port, slightly slower WiFi.  £760 refurb.

XPS 9310:  i7 processor, 10900 CPUbenchmark.  16GB 4267MHz RAM, soldered down.  500GB 'class 40' drive.  13.4" 2400p screen, 302mm width, 1.16kg.  two TB4 port, WiFi 6.  £960 refurb.

I think we are heading towards the last one; the small size and that screen are tempting.  Is Dell telling the truth about those RAM speeds, and am I ever going to regret not being able to add more than the 16GB..?

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Is the hard drive on the XPS a SSD? I'm no expert but my preference would be SSD on a laptop, as I understand they're far less likely to become corrupted/damaged when being lugged about. 

In your OP you asked whether you're perhaps over-thinking the whole thing - I'd suggest that may be the case. Trying to get a machine which is future-proof beyond even a few years feels like an unwinnable task, and any current laptop (proper laptop rather than Chromebook) is likely to carry out the work you described without any major hassle. Seeing what my bog-standard, mass-issued Dell Latitude work machine can achieve make me think that anything more would be unnecessary.

In reply to rj_townsend:

Yep, it's the same Class 40 SSD m.2 NVMe drive as the Inspiron.  Dell don't give actual read/write speeds but I think it's pretty fast.

I know what you mean - it does feel like the alternative (and I know a lot of people go this way) is to get a relatively lowly specced machine and plan to replace it every few years.  But we would rather buy once and get maximum lifespan, for a bunch of reasons, not least environmental.  Hence over speccing it now to ensure it's still good enough in years to come.

My PC was built in 2008 and, following a few upgrades, is still going strong.  Maybe I'm over optimistic in hoping for a decade from a laptop, though? 

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

6-8 years from a Dell is the average I've got from my laptops over the years. The firm are supposed to replace them every four years, but usually wait until I scream, then I use the old one as a backup for a few years until it becomes obsolete. In terms of laptop death: PSU (1) battery (2) graphics card (1) became too slow owing to software bloat (several).

I never upgrade the OS, just buy another machine; even if they claim the new version is faster than ever before, they pile in with more diagnostics, instrumentation and the latest wonderful features, and shoot themselves in the foot.

The Inspiron would be fine, but at this stage, it may be down to the one your wife likes the look of?

Edit: don't forget to factor in the cost of the required office/productivity software, which can be substantial!

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Good, that'll keep her data safer. I've gone down the Office365 route with everything saved in OneDrive, so actually very little data held permanently on laptop.

I can see where you're coming from. The environmental side was one reason I went for a refurb of my own (as well as better spec for less money) - it felt better to get something that would work for "long enough" without necessarily being at the cutting edge.

In reply to freeflyer:

Just as a guide, I pay £5.99 per month for Office365, which also allows up to five other users to have their own access and OneDrive storage independently from mine, which feels like quite a bargain.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

We'll almost certainly buy a one-off copy of Office 2019 for £120; cheaper in the long run.  I am extremely careful about physical backups.

She wants the XPS, mostly for the slightly smaller form and the higher res screen.  I just hope that I won't end up wishing I could add more RAM in a few years, but surely 16GB will keep her going for a while!  My old warhorse of a PC is still happy with its 12GB of 1600MHz memory.

In reply to rj_townsend:

Though that is a home licence which I don't believe covers business use.  Yes, you might (read "probably will") get away with it, but legally it's no better than just pirating it.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Good luck getting one that isn't a bit bent, though.  Dell don't have the attention to detail Apple do.  If things not being perfect annoy her it is a bad choice, at least unless they've sorted the issue out with the latest model.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Out of those three, I'd go for the XPS. Spec wise they are all pretty similar, but the chassis on the XPS will be slightly nicer.

For the general desktop type usage you've specced, 16GB is overkill and you're very unlikely to ever need more during the lifetime of the laptop anyway.

I've just checked the service tag on my XPS and it shipped in August 2013! It's still going strong, but it is starting to show it's age and it looks dated now. Also, it is a big power hungry beast compared to newer laptops and things have moved on a lot since. For example the Ryzen processor in the laptop I'm looking at replacing it with draws a third of the power, while having massively more grunt.

In reply to Neil Williams:

Oh, bugger.  I hadn't looked too far into Office yet - sorting out the hardware first!  I'd not realised that the 'business' packages were more expensive.  Teams is critical for her work and it looks like a business plan is necessary to get that.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Teams is totally free for download.  It's the usage the main Office packages are licensed for that is the issue.  As I said you'd get away with it but it's no more legal than just ripping off a copy from your mate.

In reply to Neil Williams:

Is it legal to use Teams professionally via free download?  I've not looked into it.

We do still have a legal product key for the professional version of Office 2013, I think... but she'd like the newer versions.  I don't know why - I am still perfectly happy with Office 2007 on my machine!

In reply to Neil Williams:

That's true. My use is home use only - work machine is obviously covered by their corporate package. But yes, the OP will need to find a package which suits their usage legally.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Me too

MS would dearly love her to be on an auto-renew subscription package, and the most suitable one is likely to be the basic business one at £9.40 a month; this would be the least hassle for you... With licences of unknown legality or 'free downloads' there is the risk that she would get audited, but to my mind that is not very likely.

If she has specific customers in mind, it would be worth making a list of what they use - and need her to use etc.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I think so; the money is made on connecting it to the corporate 365.

In reply to Street:

Debatable - see my notes above on the quality of the previous-generation XPS (build quality and screen quality - it's very high resolution but the backlight is not consistent, and I've had a warranty swap so they must all be like that to some extent).  I would go for the other one if going Dell, particularly as it has a 1TB HD.

In reply to StuPoo2:

This isn't really true for the modern style of 'dock', where you don't so much dock the laptop as just plug in a single USB lead. I've got a Dell-branded dock which has worked with a Dell, an Acer (on Windows and Linux), a Macbook and a Chromebook. The most up-to-date ones with USB-C can even power your laptop as well, so you potentially only have to plug/unplug that single cable. Mine isn't USB-C so I have to plug/unplug power as well, which is technically a slight downside compared to the old-school docks, but does make the whole thing extremely versatile to get around your other qualms.

Yep, that's me! Current count of cables plugged in to my dock is 9. Would drive me spare having to do all of those every time I moved my laptop. And I'd need at least two other adaptors of some kind to plug all of those in anyway. Can see your point about if you're taking some of the desk stuff with you but I don't tend to do that. My desk keyboard and mouse wouldn't pack that well anyway.

In reply to Luke90:

Having just googled it ... you are absolutely correct.  Clearly I need to do a much better job of staying current. 

(My work is still pressing laptops down in their branded docking stations with the bar on the underside.)

https://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-laptop-docking-stations

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

On a machine I bought over the summer I finally moved over from a fixed price Office package -> Office subscription package.

On the face of it .. it wasn't immediately obvious the differences between fixed price vs subscription .. but the more I dug into it - there's quite a lot.  

It's a mixed bag.  Extras only available in the subscription packages: (1)

"Advanced security for email and files" .. I don't really know what that means or how I benefit from that.

"OneDrive cloud storage to back up files and photos 1TB" .. that's nice .. I use that.  But I already had google drive - so it wasn't a decision maker.

What really made the difference for me was the versions of word, excel, powerpoint etc .. you get bundled with classic vs premium

Below (2) has a decent write up of the differences between Excel in Classic vs Excel in Premium.   

Can be summed up pretty simply as "as the new features functionality are in premium ... very few if not zero of the new features exist in Classic".

I don't regret the subscription version, its very shiny, but it will cost me more in the long run.  It's a good buy if you've got a family with 6 machines in the house that all need Office on them.  Not such a great buy for personal.

(1) https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/buy/microsoft-365

(2) https://www.mrexcel.com/news/what-is-the-difference-between-microsoft-offic...

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

So we've ordered the XPS Dell.  I'll resurrect this thread in a decade to report back!

The Dell is very short on ports - the compromise of such a thin machine - just a TB4 on each side, including for charging.  So I've also ordered what is effectively a small docking station with an HDMI and a string of USB A and C ports which can handle charging.  Should help to keep the desk free of clutter.  When she goes away she just used the laptop itself so all the dongles and cables can stay there.

Now need to have a good think about Office.  Clare did mention that there are features in Office 2016 (which she has on the current work machine) that she needs over our own lifetime copies of 2007 and 2010.  It might be easiest to get her the subscription...

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Glad you've got a machine sorted.

The ability to work on files from phone, tablet etc rather than just on the laptop is great - I've been really pleased that I went for the Office365 subscription (I'm actually on the £7.99 per month one, not the £5.99 I mentioned up-thread), and save everything in OneDrive. The Microsoft 365 Business Standard package looks like a good bet for your wife - £10ish a month which seems quite reasonable, considering it sorts out cloud storage and backups, and gives the ability to get access from any machine should hers be damaged/lost/stolen/knackered.

The web versions of Word, Excel etc are surprisingly powerful and more than enough for everyday use if working on another machine, but I find Powerpoint on web a bit clunky. Opening files in the desktop versions is definitely better, but having the ability to do either via the subscription is useful.