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I have several older Gateway laptops that recently bit the dust. These units are/were regularly used in an engineering test environment. I’m looking to replace them with a similar, newer, inexpensive business-class laptop and I’m looking for suggestions. First thing that came to mind was Lenovo, but I’d like to hear what everyone else recommends.

Hard drives will probably get replaced with inexpensive SSD’s shortly after purchase, and memory can be upgraded after the fact as well. I would prefer to have i5 processors, but if they are solid machines I might consider i3’s.

@Dell_Technologies @Lenovo

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Depends on how cheap. We really like the Dell Latitude E5440. Runs about 600-700 depending on warranty requirement, and is pretty quick even on the default Dell configuration.

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/latitude-e5440-laptop/pd?ST=dell%20latitude%20e5440&dgc=ST&cid=263756&lid=5173504&acd=12309152537461010

@Dell_Technologies

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Not cheap necessarily, just inexpensive. And that seems like a reasonable price point. How many of these units do you have in the wild and for how long? Any quirks?

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We currently have 8 of them in the wild for 2-3 months now. No known issues, but I suppose time will tell haha.

I’ve always been a dell business laptop fan … dealt with them at 2 different jobs.

Get the warranty though. I had a user take theirs home and was cooking in the kitchen with it. Spilled flour in the fans (like, it was seriously caked on the fan) and Dell came out and replaced the Mobo and fan, no questions.

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@Natepiano

Thank you for the Dell mentions sir!

@Will224

You might consider the Education Series. ( Latitude 3440 )

Note: You have to remove the bottom cover, to replace the hard drive.

Info:

“Durable by Design

Take the hard knocks of school and keep on going with superior shock absorption provided by the rubberized LCD trim and an SSD with no spinning parts. The Latitude 13 Education Series can handle it all. Work without worrying about spills. The exclusive sealed keyboard and touchpad provides the industry’s best protection against spills on a student laptop. For easy collaboration, students can use the 180-degree hinge to lay the screen completely flat without worrying about it breaking—it’s been tested for student wear and tear.

Get outstanding scratch-resistant protection with the optional 13" touch screen3 and Corning® Gorilla® Glass NBT™, designed for exceptional durability and vivid color.”

Note: We sell these to many sectors, not just educational.

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I highly recommend the HP ProBook 4540. We have 26 of them at our district. Half of them are being used by the students to do their work on in labs, and the other half are being used by teachers. The teachers take them home and bring them back everyday. We have not had a single problem with them yet. We have had them for a year now. I won’t lie the teachers are pretty rough on them. They tend to shove them in a book bag with 3 or 4 text books and then take them home like that. No hardware failures or anything like that.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834257091 (you can probably get better pricing through your supplier, this just had a good spec list and photos).

http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/kb/docDisplay/?sp4ts.oid=5229455&spf_p.tpst=kbDocDisplay&spf_p.prp_kbDocDisplay=wsrp-navigationalState%3DdocId%253Demr_na-c03349886-2%257CdocLocale%253D%257CcalledBy%253D&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken (HP’s own spec list, oddly though no pictures). Hope that this helps.

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While in my time with enterprise we were a IBM/Lenovo shop due to excellent support and a strong partnership. Never had an issue. As a non profit IT I hate IBM with a vengeance for DIY repairs.

Personally I dont think you can go wrong with:

  • Lenovo
  • DELL
  • HP

Don’t do what I did and choose Samsung, ASUS and Panasonic and other off name brands for the cost savings. It isn’t worth it. Plus Spiceworks does a damn good job of scanning those 3 for warranties.

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Will, if 13.3 is what you were looking for, the education models linked above should work. Just don’t let yourself get too cheap with them. Get at least an i3 and preferably >6 GBs of RAM. You can never have too much RAM …

It’s worth paying a little more and getting something that will work well versus just something that will work.

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Thanks for considering Lenovo in your search! A couple of options that line up with your wants:

  • ThinkPad T440 : i3-4010U processor (but can upgrade up to an i7), Windows 8.1 64bit, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, and you can get it installed with a SSD if you want to skip over that process later
  • ThinkPad T440s : i5-4200U processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, also has the capability to upgrade to a SSD with us, along with a touchscreen
  • ThinkPad E440 : i3-4000M processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, can upgrade to a touchscreen

If you have any additional wants/needs, definitely let me know and I can try to find the right product for you.

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+1 for Dell E5440s as a relatively inexpensive mid-range business laptop. Get an in-stock config with Core i5, 8GB, and a 3 year basic warranty and you’ll be set for just about any common LOB application.

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Have you taken a look at Samsung laptops? The Chromebook is a small, lightweight but powerful business laptop that might fit your needs. It’s also one of the more price friendly laptops. You can find more information here: Chromebooks for Schools | Business Chromebooks | Samsung Business . If you have any questions feel free to send me a PM.

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I’d argue against the 3440; we’ve had users complain of overly sensitive touchpads and a slower process time. I’m currently using a E5430 though, and I love it; super fast, can handle a heavy load with minimum slow downs, and seems nigh indestructible.

One of our users was in a car accident and her Dell was fine; just a slight separation on the screen which we popped back into place.

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Lenovo Edge for $450 and install an SSD.

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@ACG 200 and JScharbrough,

Thank you for your E5xx series mentions and your feedback.

Hi Andre S. Good to see you again.

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Yes, I actually own and regularly use my Samsung Chromebook both at home and work regularly; and I am a pretty big fan. Unfortunately, the Chromebook will not meet the system specs that we require for our laptops that we use in a lab/testing environment.

At the moment I’m leaning toward the E440 and thinking of doing just that. The i3 looks like it will do everything we need; especially after bumping memory and adding an SSD.

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