laptop they love

anyone have a new laptop they love that's around $1,000?

preferable if 17.3 but ok if 15.6

my acer too slow...

thank you

Usually what's inside matters a whole lot more than the brand that puts it all together. Intel i5 will generally handle software for practitioners. Make sure it's not older than gen 6.

SSD for storage and 8 GB of ram and it should be fine and sub $500.

I'm loving my Lenovo Y520. It's a 15.6" gaming laptop. It's well under $1000 at this point. I upgraded it from the default 8 gb RAM to 32 gb and upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. Next up is a 1 TB SSD. Comes with an i7 processor. It has a 10-key pad, but the key layout is a little off. It also comes in a 17" model.

IMHO before you buys any laptop you need to ask what is the primary purpose of the laptop? If you want a general business use laptop to run your tax prep/accounting software then a i5 with 8GB memory will do just fine. On the other hand if you are editing videos or music, playing online games then it is a different story. I NEVER use cost/price as the primary deciding factor. I do like a SSD as the boot drive to load the operating system quicker.

I have a Dell i3 laptop purchased a few years back that works just fine with my tax prep and other business software but is slow with Youtube etc. and it is just fine with me.

If you want a general business use laptop to run your tax prep/accounting software then a i5 with 8GB memory will do just fine.

I think that is dependent on the software you use. Drake? It'll be fine. UltraTax? You probably want more horsepower.

Few things bother me as much as a computer that is slow when I'm trying to be productive, so I would personally overbuy a computer. But that's just me.

good advice...thank you...my blood pressure rises too much with these slow laptops

i bought some acers that were 17.3 and only 5 or 600

but too slow

making me crazy

I'd doubt you'd see much improvement in an i7 over an i5 for any tax software. I'd be shocked if UltraTax takes advantage of hyperthreading.

Regarding the comment about editing music and playing online games, those also arent very processor or RAM intensive, instead they require higher end GPUs. For us tax guys the integrated graphics chips would be fine.

As far as speed, having everything on an SSD would be your biggest noticable difference.

i like to leave a couple of browsers open...one for email..one for google sheets...one for a to do list......in addition to having tax software running

would an i7 be better than an i5 for that....

When I buy a laptop, I plan on keeping it for 3-5 years, though it may get demoted to a backup. So I tend to buy the best available configuration that can be upgraded in the bargain (sub-$1000) range. It may be overkill today, but, three years out, it will probably be middling at best.

Prices of name brand laptops have come down quite a bit compared to desktops. I am in the market to upgrade one of my desktops and the prices for the specs I am interested is about the same as 2 years back??

Any idea why desktop (Dell) prices are holding steady?

Prices of name brand laptops have come down quite a bit compared to desktops. I am in the market to upgrade one of my desktops and the prices for the specs I am interested is about the same as 2 years back??

Any idea why desktop (Dell) prices are holding steady?

Desktop prices have generally bottomed out. They are about as cheap as they can be except when you are upgrading/customizing everything to the newest technology

PC prices overall are holding steady. I can still build a superior, custom system for less money than any of the mass produced machines.

Laptop? I'd be looking for metal case for durability, touchscreen (once you have it, you will hate not having it), larger mouse trackpad, SSD mandatory, at least 8GB RAM (I prefer 16GB--software is becoming very resource intensive). GPU and CPU depend more on intended use. Avoid HP, they still love to overheat and suffer premature deaths. ASUS is my preferred brand outside of Microsoft's offerings. Dell is almost as bad as HP but their support and simplicity make them popular. I do not trust Lenovo after some stunts they have pulled with security and unknowingly installing software.

I have a Microsoft Surface Pro and an Apple Macbook Pro. Would I want to do work on either? Certainly not anything pertaining to numbers, but I can when needed.

touchscreen (once you have it, you will hate not having it)

Not my experience. I've had a laptop with touchscreen for several years, I rarely use it -- I am tremendously more productive with mouse and keyboard (my laptop has two critical keyboard features: adjustable back-light for keys (to use in darker environments), and full size numeric keypad.

If I'm at a tax seminar and following along in a PDF document, that is when the touchscreen is most helpful, along with the "flex" configuration (screen can fold all the way back up to 360°).

I am tremendously more productive with mouse and keyboard

I agree with that. I am clumsy with touch screen. I guess after many many years of using the QWERTY keyboard it is hard to relearn a new skill. I am amazed how many young people can use touch screen to fast type.