David Chartier
Need recommendations for a solid mid-range Windows laptop. My wife likely needs one for work, building curriculum and messing around with AI. Maybe some video editing too. She’ll be using Articulate, FWIW.
May 7, 2025 at 1:51amWeb
Show threadC-richMay 7, 2025
@chartier
I assume AI like Claude or other cloud-run LLMs
Show threadocdtrekkieMay 7, 2025

@chartier I believe in two classes of Windows laptop. The $350 Acer which you can replace when you drop it and it snaps in half. And a Dell Latitude (now Dell Pro Plus) which is designed to survive a decade in the business world.

Buy nothing in between.

Show threaddomserioMay 7, 2025
@chartier Lenovo T series. ThinkBook if you really need the price to go down. Yeah, they’re not gorgeous, but they’re built well.
Show threadJeff ClatworthyMay 7, 2025
@chartier Hit up @film_girl for recommendations?
Show threadAlex HoffmannMay 7, 2025
@chartier Because I did the same thing for my partner a few months ago: get a used Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga. I managed to find one for €350 that barely had any signs of usage, the battery was still at 99% original capacity, it runs Windows 11 like a champ. It has a 1TB SSD, LTE, a Core i7 CPU and 16 GB of RAM. Cool thing is that it’s a convertible that can be used as a tablet when she needs one to annotate a document. Fingerprint reader and facial recognition for Windows Hello is also there.
Show threadDave GullettMay 7, 2025
@chartier FWIW The Surface laptops are surprisingly nice.
Show threadJonas WisserMay 7, 2025
@chartier What does "mid-range" mean here? It's kind of a squishy term. Could a Framework do?
Show threadChristina WarrenMay 8, 2025
@chartier Budget? The new surface devices announced yesterday look great.
Show threadDavid ChartierMay 8, 2025
@film_girl Maybe up to 800? Could go more if necessary
Show threadChristina WarrenMay 8, 2025
@chartier this just was announced this week - the Surface Laptop 13 is $854 for a 256GB/16GB RAM model with the student discount that anyone can get https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/buy-surface-laptop - this would be a contender in my recommendation
Show threadChristina WarrenMay 8, 2025
@chartier essentially a MacBook Air but with Windows. Asus might have some good ones too
Show threadChristina WarrenMay 8, 2025
@chartier you might also want to consider an M4 MacBook Air and then run Windows in Parallels. The experience is pretty good tbh. It doesn’t look like Articulate has a native ARM64 app but there are reports it runs well under Parallels which indicates it’ll work well on a Snapdragon machine too
Show threadDavid ChartierMay 9, 2025
@film_girl Thanks for all this. Yeah I assumed it could run in Parallels too but Jess thinks she heard somewhere the company recommends against that. We'll have to look into that since it might be an easier option