Hey all,
I am incoming ibd summer analyst and prior to joining I wanted to start doing some excel, ppt, and other financial modeling courses that were given to me by other people. I wanted to get a new laptop just for this that would be under $900, any recommendations? I know Black Friday sales are about to start so if there is any deal anyone would recommend, I would highly appreciate it!
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Thinkpads are the way to go IMO. Wait a bit and you might be able to grab a decent one for ~$800
tbh anything that can run windows is fine…I picked up a decent Lenovo (i5, 4gb RAM, SSD) for a few hundred dollars at Walmart and it works extremely well
You don't need anything fancy if you just want to run Office and browse/stream. I'm a fan of Dell laptops. Go grab an XPS or Latitude. I disagree with the ThinkPad comment. They were the de facto business laptop a decade ago, but quality has definitely gone down over the decade.
Is there a specific one you'd recommend? Sorry, I'm not too much into specs and stuff like that.
Any of these will give you everything you need and more. They're roughly in your budget. Can use them as your daily driver.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/2-in-1-laptops-tablets/new-inspiro…
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebooks/new-ins…
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebooks/xps-13-…
depends on what your use is,but I'd definitely recommend getting at the very least 8gb of ram,256gb ssd and an i5 preferably 9th generation or higher/alternatively if you can find ryzen processors anything starting with 4 or above is pretty good eg 4600h try to avoid the ryzen processors that start with 3, although if you want to budget,and only care about using Excel 4gb of ram and an older i5 processor will work,get an ssd tho(todays day and age hard drives suck.) honestly try to prioritize that,i think you could get a good deal for about 600 dollars but if you were to spend 900 you could get a lot better stuff that you might not need,depends how you are financially,how long you plan on using it for,by any chance you into gaming?if you are i could recommend you some steals for 900 dollars, although looks unlikely from the post, anyways keep in mind that getting a good size usually 14/15.6 is good and try to get a good screen if you can with 300 nits of brightness,250 will be okay but 300 is just better.see what fits your budget
definitely into gaming! honestly, i was looking at this computer as something i'd use for 4-5 months before the internship starts, but i don't mind spending a little over the budget if it means the laptop can be of multi-use.
oh thats cool,with gaming laptops there will mostly be a few cons on budget:
1)the screen wont be bad but wont be good either(in most cases)
2)battery will suck(3-5 hours)lesser if you're gaming without a charger, which you mostly wont be able to do because the power wont be enough
also what sort of games are you into,that will play a huge part,do you want to play newer titles or older ones?are they fps titles;eg apex legends cod etc,or more demanding story games:eg control,rdr2,cyberpunk?
You could probably get by with any relatively-modern windows desktop off of Craigslist.
That + a keyboard with a numpad and I can guarantee you'll want to kill yourself like 55% less than you would taking modeling classes on a laptop.
When your internship starts you'll probably see some drag on that 55% number.
Highly recommend any Lenovo Thinkpad with a number pad + ideally 16gb of RAM if its not too costly. 8gb is fine as long as you are somewhat proactive with not leaving too many apps running. Excel & chrome can take up a lot of memory if you aren't actively closing out all unused windows.
Definitely get a mechanical keyboard and a mouse, because ideally you will never have to go without those two. Logitech for keyboard & wireless mouse is a safe pick
Would personally not recommend a number pad as it's going to be a fairly big laptop that way. OP should just get a separate keyboard.
Currently own a Mac. Will this be fine for a summer analyst and beyond or will I need to get another computer?
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