A Very Well-Timed Upgrade: Why I Finally Bought a New Laptop

 

Acer Swift Edge AI 14

Finally, a new laptop. It's been five years since I last purchased (upgraded?) my main laptop. The device that I purchased back then was the Apple MacBook M1. That M1 chip, I tell you, it's one of Apple's best ever releases, and probably in all of tech too.

Over two years ago, I sold the device to my wife, and she's been using it since then. I wasn't using a laptop much back then, so it was better for the machine to be with someone who would be using it. A few months after that, I purchased an old but refurbished Dell laptop.

The Dell laptop had an ancient Intel i5-8325 CPU, but thankfully, because it was a machine designed for a corporate environment, it had some security features enabling me to use Windows 11 with it, barely.

I never really got along with it. It was a decent machine, don't get me wrong, but the major painpoint for me was the battery life. It would last just barely over an hour in Battery Endurance mode. I've upgraded it to have 32GB of RAM, so it's still going to be used at some point in the future.

So what made me purchase this new laptop? Here are the main factors:

• Intel Core Ultra 7 258V - A processor on the Lunar Lake platform. What was an initially expensive proposition from Intel that didn't match competitors' price/performance ratio actually excelled in efficiency. The new platform is Panther Lake, and it's going to be a departure from Lunar Lake.
• OLED Matte Anti-Reflective 2880 by 1800 resolution screen. After using this laptop for a few weeks now, I am going to find it hard to go back to anything else as my main laptop.
• The price. What used to be a £1500 laptop, I was able to get it for £680!
• But the biggest factor that made me pull the trigger: the current RAMPOCALYPSE. This laptop comes with 32GB RAM, and that somewhat future-proofs this. Another thing - because this is running on Lunar Lake, the 32GB of RAM is LPDDR5X!

Yes, it's the RAMPOCALYPSE that's ravaging the tech world at the moment, that pushed me to make this purchase. And I'm very glad that I did as the situation has become dire. So much that businesses that refurb laptops/computers are also feeling it. That's the second hand market!

So far, I'm really enjoying using this computer, more so because this was such a very well timed purchase.