Looking for a personal laptop, which will mostly be idle, but will be used for heavy data crunching, and accessed remotely

[alpha_3432]

1. What is your budget?
~800$

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Size/fancy features (screen-size, touchscreen, touchpad, keyboard)/battery life are not very important.

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Size/fancy features (screen-size, touchscreen, touchpad, keyboard)/battery life are not very important.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
More like a desktop replacement laptop.

5. How much battery life do you need?
Size/fancy features (screen-size, touchscreen, good touchpad/keyboard)/battery life are not very important.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
very rarely, but might. Not the most important thing.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Mostly a lot of heavy excel use, a lot of data crunching/simulation. Possibly a little bit of photo/video editing, but I rarely do these.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
Not very important. 500 GB should be enough. I have an external harddrive for storage.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Nothing specific.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
5 years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Not very important. Most things these days (OS etc) can be installed using USB drives right? Can just get an external optical drive if necessary.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Just looking for a reliable fast laptop. if it is reputable, and has good quality to last 5 years or so, that should be good enough.

13. What country do you live in?
US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I have a work laptop, and plan to access this personal laptop remotely (using Windows Remote desktop/3rd party remote desktop applications such as TV, Anydesk).from my work laptop. I have a lenovo t450 for work which is very good for work and mobility. But I plan to do a lot of excel data crunching/Microsoft Office use/potentially a little bit of video editing/CAD software on my personal laptop. The laptop will be primarily stationary and be always connected to the internet. Wont be using the screen, keyboard/touchpad most of the time. But since I might need to carry it around for presentations/other work, i am looking for a laptop and not a desktop.

 

[hang-the-9]

So you want a system better than the T450? For your budget, that won't happen, may as well use your work system unless you mean you will start something on the other computer to keep your work system free of the processor use.

For calculations a quad core i7 is best, I've compared i5 and i7 systems, and the i7 wins every time. http/www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Description=quad%20core%20laptop&Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100006740%20600003982

 

[alpha_3432]

So you want a system better than the T450? For your budget, that won't happen, may as well use your work system unless you mean you will start something on the other computer to keep your work system free of the processor use.

For calculations a quad core i7 is best, I've compared i5 and i7 systems, and the i7 wins every time. http/www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Description=quad%20core%20laptop&Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100006740%20600003982

Actually I am not necessarily looking for a system better than my t450 in all its features. Its very good in terms of battery, keyboard, durability etc, which is preferable for a work computer which I need to move around with quite a lot. Because of the its added features, I am thinking there probably exists laptops which are much faster, for the same price (~800$) if I am willing to compromise on the battery, keyboard, durability etc.

What I am looking for in my personal computer in short (as i explained in my OP) is 1. it should be a laptop (Because I would need to move around with my personal laptop potentially in future, might not have access to my work laptop/cant use my work laptop) 2. it should be as fast as possible (battery, keyboard, touchpad, design, peripherals are not as important/not important at all)

Would you have any suggestions for any specific laptops?

i know of some gaming laptops usually match this description (compromises on battery, keyboard design, bulkiness etc) with higher powered processors/GPUs.

But I am guessing that even though gaming laptops probably have to do a lot of numerical computations they are usually using a high powered GPU, while excel and any other simulation softwares probably use the CPU, right?

 

[hang-the-9]

So you want a system better than the T450? For your budget, that won't happen, may as well use your work system unless you mean you will start something on the other computer to keep your work system free of the processor use.

For calculations a quad core i7 is best, I've compared i5 and i7 systems, and the i7 wins every time. http/www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Description=quad%20core%20laptop&Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100006740%20600003982

Actually I am not necessarily looking for a system better than my t450 in all its features. Its very good in terms of battery, keyboard, durability etc, which is preferable for a work computer which I need to move around with quite a lot. Because of the its added features, I am thinking there probably exists laptops which are much faster, for the same price (~800$) if I am willing to compromise on the battery, keyboard, durability etc.

What I am looking for in my personal computer in short (as i explained in my OP) is 1. it should be a laptop (Because I would need to move around with my personal laptop potentially in future, might not have access to my work laptop/cant use my work laptop) 2. it should be as fast as possible (battery, keyboard, touchpad, design, peripherals are not as important/not important at all)

Would you have any suggestions for any specific laptops?

i know of some gaming laptops usually match this description (compromises on battery, keyboard design, bulkiness etc) with higher powered processors/GPUs.

But I am guessing that even though gaming laptops probably have to do a lot of numerical computations they are usually using a high powered GPU, while excel and any other simulation softwares probably use the CPU, right?

The powerful CPU thing, almost every single system with a fast CPU will be paired with an equaly fast or at least higher end video card. I don't know of any really good laptop with a quad core i7 CPU that also did not have either a gaming or a pro level video card.

This HP fits the bill, fast CPU no video card, but reliability would be lower on this http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9JJ4780658&cm_re=quad_core_laptop-_-1TS-001P-000F1-_-Product

Really you are looking at $1,000 then you can get a fast CPU and higher reliablity than the HP Inspiron or Acer models. http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834234041&cm_re=quad_core_laptop-_-34-234-041-_-Product

Touchscreen
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834261740&cm_re=quad_core_laptop-_-34-261-740-_-Product

Really in the price range, they are all fairly equal, some had touch screen, some have a level higher or lower video card, larger screen vs more battery life, SSD vs larger regular drive, pick a plus or minus you are OK with and there you go.