Hunting down a laptop for a travelling geek

I’ve an old Sony Vaio as my laptop. It’s ancient and has Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 installed on it during its life and while it’s struggling now two of my original decision factors for it were spot on. At the time, the Sony Vaio was one of the lightest around, given that I use my laptop almost exclusively when I travel the weight is a big factor. Secondly, I was thinking about tablets when I bought my Vaio and it has a touch screen.

I think this is a hard question; “If I needed to replace my laptop tomorrow, what should I buy?”

Why is it a hard question? There’s so many competing options. There’s Microsoft’s Surface series; which seems to get better with each release. Google’s Chromebooks have been Christmas best sellers and I’m often tempted by the proposition. There’s even the “go Mac” option and consider a MacBook Air.

There is, of course, also the traditional laptop option to consider. The Dell XPS laptop range is a consideration, given how light they are and their battery life.

YouTube reviewer Andy Slye put together this 9 minute review of the pros and cons of the Dell XPS 13.

One of the travelling considerations, beyond the weight, for the XPS laptop collection are the machined aluminium and carbon fibre materials as laptops in bags, especially ones that pass through airports, can take quite a few knocks. It’s worth thinking about the Corning Gorilla glass the screen uses too as that’s equally important.

Given that a travelling laptop isn’t likely to be used as a video archive – though a few downloads for long train trips are useful – the solid state drive is nice. This laptop will need to be good enough for my gaming habit while also being one I can use in meetings and presentations. There’s nothing more awkward than waiting for the laptop to start so the speedy boot is useful.

The wildcard in the XPS laptop family is the new XPS 12. That’s the one with the 2-in-1 experience that allows you to go from tablet to laptop through the magnetic connection. It’s the XPS 12 that takes on the latest and most powerful Surface.

What about the gaming? The XPS laptops come with Intel 6th generation processors. Right now the two options are the i5 and i7. The Core i5 automatically speeds up when the PC needs it the most. The i7 takes that to extreme by adding in four and eight-way multitask processing. You see Core i7 Extreme on some Alienware devices; but would you really ever expect a travelling laptop to go that level? The i7 Extreme offers up to 12-way multitasking and I can’t yet imagine a scenario when I’d ask my laptop to do that.

A more common use for my laptop is watching Netflix or Crunchyroll from the hotel room on over night trips. The XPS laptops offer a choice between integrated or dedicated graphic card. Combine that with the screen resolutions and you’ve happy overkill for simple screening.

I also find myself thinking ahead to my next gaming console purchase. I’m also a generation behind there. I like the way Xbox integrates into the PC ecosystem – which gives Dell and other PC manufacturers an edge over Apple. It’s also interesting to note that Microsoft has indicated that the future of Xbox is really to consider it part of the PC range. Throw in their offer of cross-platform compatibility with PlayStation and machine choices get even more interesting.

Google could help. I’m not convinced the strategy of having Android as one operating system and Chrome OS as another is entirely working. The original explanation was that Chrome OS was for anything that had a keyboard. Hmm. Maybe that’s the case but I wouldn’t want to invest in a Chromebook only for Google to announce they’re going all-in with Android.

I suspect it’ll be a little longer yet before I finally lay my Sony to rest; though it depends on how much travelling I need to do. The 2-in-1 style laptops are certainly attractive as are ones with solid state memory.

This post was sponsored by Dell. The thoughts, typos and considerations in the post are all mine.