Any way to find a laptop with particular spec/style/etc?

telove

Hi all I need to get a laptop but I am a bit fussy about what I want and I find it hard to find suitable ones. I looked through 50 on Amazon but they seem deceptive and there are no search criteria for what I want.

For example I want one with a trackpad that has buttons at the bottom rather than the top, I want it to not have a DVD drive because I don't use one and could do without that weight, need an SSD and a decent battery life, not too noisy. I find ones with good reviews and then notice someone says it only has a 1 hour battery life, etc.

My buddy bought a refurbished laptop that works fine but the fan is very noisy and it gets hot so I suspect the fan is full of dust and gunk so he paid a lot of money and yet will have to take it apart at some point or it will die. I found a "laptop selector" website but it didn't really work. Anyone got any tips?

EndlessWaves

Buttons at the top of the touchpad? The only time I remember seeing that is laptops with a trackpoint, and most of them had seperate touchpad buttons or a clickpad too.

DVD drives are also rare these days, and don't contribute much to the total weight (around 0.15kg). Weight variation between similar models is at least that big. There's no reason to exclude laptops with DVD drives on the basis of weight.

Battery life will depend on what you're doing with it, so off-hand comments that it only has x hours without the detail of how it's being used are meaningless. Almost all laptops will only last between one and two hours if used heavily, even those that'll run for ten hours or more with more typical uses like web browsing or video playback.


Notebookcheck is one of the best sites out there to compare laptops.
Search

harry66

Just as a general suggestion, if you are interested in 2nd hand/refurb - take a look on  Ebay for a Thinkpad T series -with some Manufacturers warranty remaining and see if they fit your budget.

I have bought several Thinkpad T series (at around half the retail price) with typically over 2 years onsite warranty. All of them have been in almost new condition - with almost new batteries (e.g. less than 10-20 battery cycle count).
Never really had to use the warranty on any of them - except when a HDD failed several years ago and was replaced by Lenovo with minimum of fuss.
Or if you want really slimmer / smaller then a Thinkpad X series - depends on your budget.

If the Ebay listing does not mention the warranty details, try asking the seller for the Serial number and part number and then just stick the details in here

Thinkpad T series are the Lenovo corporate range - solidly built. If you want to spend less, then consider a used L series or E series - not as solidly built but still great quality - only thing is they usually dont have more than 1 year warranty. But then none of my Thinkpads over the years have ever developed a fault (I have owned at least 10 - home and work)