LAPTOP QUESTIONNAIRE Total budget (in local currency) and country of purchase. Please do not use USD unless purchasing in the US: Budget is $2,000 USD, purchasing in US Are you open to refurbs/used? No, I need it to be new How would you prioritize form factor (ultrabook, 2-in-1, etc.), build quality, performance, and battery life? Most important to me is battery life and performance, I also don’t want a 2 in 1 How important is weight and thinness to you? I want it light and like medium thinness? Do you have a preferred screen size? If indifferent, put N/A. 14 in Are you doing any CAD/video editing/photo editing/gaming? List which programs/games you desire to run. Planning to do CAD, I also use photoshop but for leisure in free time, only games I play r retro so that kinda runs on anything lol If you're gaming, do you have certain games you want to play? At what settings and FPS do you want? Not planning on doing any heavy gaming on this Any specific requirements such as good keyboard, reliable build quality, touch-screen, finger-print reader, optical drive or good input devices (keyboard/touchpad)? Would like a keyboard comparable to mac, finger print reader sounds cool. Leave any finishing thoughts here that you may feel are necessary and beneficial to the discussion. I’m also worried about how hot it may run More on reddit.com

Well, first define your operational needs other than "performance": display size - i usually recommend 15" or 16" unless you know exactly why not keyboard - do you need a number pad for your work/software? Both might be irrelevant if you're using from a docking station, because then you'd use an external keyboard and an external display, so... But if not, that'l limit your models... Then the technical ones: Do you need a dedicated GPU? If yes, specific ones, e.g. "must be a nVidia xxxx" or so? Because some cards/families are only avauilable in specific models. Do you need more that one SSDs? Again, check this for the interesting models Then think about the model lines' "target group" XPS -> shiny, hip, expensive. usually top technology, but functionality compromises for the design that may hinder your work. E.g. the XPS extra-thin construction has two main drawbacks: cooling issues, especially but not limited top models with high-end CPUs and graphics cards under long, heavy load (video editing?). There's simply not enough airflow... higher noise in opersations due to the same issue XPS have only three or four Thunderbolt/USB-C ports. no HDMI, no USB-A, no RJ45 for network. Technicalkly not a problem, but you'll learn to haul a lot of adapters with you, which somehow defeats the purpose Precision -> basically the "workstation/workhorse" version of Dell's notebooks. Top-end technology like the XPS, but designed for high-performance operation through the day, engineering stuff etc. Far more expandable than the XPS, and usually mnore robust all Precisions have USB-C/TB, Network, HDMI and USB-A ports few millimeters higher chassis and suddenly airflow is much better - cooler temps, less noise, longer render sessions without excessive throttling... Latitude -> for good reasons, the "Business workhorse" in Dell's portfolio. Usually stable, no nonsense design, and some expandability. This is usually the way to go for "normal" all-purpose stuff. Inspiron -> that's the basic consumer line, which leads to some compromises ion components and might have influence on build quality. My most pressing reason to avoid inspirons is a completely brain-damaged hinge design that ensures early breaking if pressure is applied to the back end of the opened laptops. Check this picture from a Vostro (basically an Inspiron with AMD CPU) - the hinge lifts the back end of the chassis (with the rubber feet) from the table and all load applies to the hinge. Vostro - what i see is basically Inspirons with AMD CPUs...? ...and see what's your line(s) In the Office, we use Precisions and Latitudes, depending. In the "Boss" range, we had XPS, all Precision now... Inspiron are not used, mainly due to the "low-end" status and the hinge design. If you go for this, i'll guarantee you the list will shrink fast... More on reddit.com

You can write code fine on a raspberry pi, I wouldn't sweat it if you can't upgrade immediately More on reddit.com

I was anti-Mac until the M1 came out and blew everything else out of the water when it comes to laptops. I have an M1 Pro MBP with (i think) 16gb RAM, and most of my work (mostly frontend) is completely fine on it. I'd probably recommend a step up in RAM from that, but I haven't had any catastrophic issues so far. More on reddit.com