My aging Asus G14 laptop is… aging. It was once an impressive little beasty, essentially an RTX GPU with a screen attached. But Asus also designed some bits of it poorly, making the aging process particularly annoying.
So basically, wondering what folks around here use that might be in the same general class:
14” screen… or maybe up to 15”, but I value a good balance of portability vs huge “gamer” laptops or “portable workstations”.
4K resolution if I can get it in that form factor.
Don’t need ultra-top-of-the-line CPU+GPU, but want to be able to very comfortably run modern Inventor/Fusion and that level of tools.
I purchased a Asus ROG laptop a while back for the smaller form factor, with a GPU. Has a touchscreen, and is a tablet form factor with detachable keyboard.
It is on the heavier side and battery life isnt amazing, but it handles fusion well. Overall I’m very happy with it.
Hmm. If you don’t mind sharing the particular model info, I’m curious to take a look, thanks.
I’m not necessarily looking for the touchscreen/tablet mode features, but not against it if it’s actually well designed.
I gotta say I’m a bit inclined against Asus. I know folks have had good experiences with them, but the Windows services that Asus installed on mine are pretty glitchy (and unfortunately tricky to live without because of this particular model’s idiosyncratic hybrid GPU setup).
My main machines are always Macs, but I recently added a 13” Framework PC to my collection. The build quality isn’t great but I take comfort knowing I can change my video card, RAM, HD, main board when I need an upgrade.
I’m a fan of Thinkpads. Their T14 (not T14s) is supposedly pretty robust, and they coordinated with iFixit to make them more easily repairable (swapping RAM, SSD, and keyboard are supposedly fairly easy) (just make sure the listing says SODIMM with the RAM, some models are soldered).
I looked at the Framework laptop, and the T14 is definitely not as modular as that, but I think it’s the closest you can get from a major brand (that is affordable). I’m unsure if you can get a 4K display on it, that would be my main concern based on your requirements. I know Lenovo also has nicer models that may have it if the T14 doesn’t. Can’t guarantee they’ll be as easy to fix/upgrade though.
Hmm, I’ve heard some other folks speak suprisingly highly of the HP Omen line. Traditionally, I’ve been skeptical of HP laptops, but mostly that comes from their decidedly mid “business” machines from years ago.
I’ve also been a bit hesitant about OLED for something like this, but again I admit that might be based on old/inaccurate info. I do have a home 4K OLED display that I love/hate because it’s wonderfully clear but also does all sorts of “smart” dynamic brightness/color adjustments that I can’t turn off that that drives me nuts.
Sounds like you’ve found it to be fairly decent build quality and reliability, though?
I’m with you on both topics, @J-LoM
I’ve always hated HP especially for their stupid plastic chassis and absolutely terrible hinges, so when I bought this laptop I went to a store to actually get a feel for it and I was gladly surprised to see it’s all metal and it’s turned out to be way more robust than I ever expected from HP. It almost looks as if high-end HP laptops came from a completely different company at this point.
Regarding the OLED, I’ve seen that behavior in TVs, but never noticed anything on my computer… if anything I would say that the blacks are way too black and the night mode works a little too well, so you have to limit how much blue goes away… two good problems to have.
I always carry this computer with me, so I can show you if we run into each other at Asmbly soon.