Ask Slashdot: Which Laptop Should I Buy For My First Employee?

vikingpower writes: Until now, yours truly has been running a one-man freelancer show. However, since January 1st the first employee is here, and of course I'm mighty proud of a stellarly clever young person working for me. She works remotely (I'm in one European capital; she is in another) and I need to buy her a laptop. Since she's straight out of college and a non-techie, she basically only knows one OS: Windows, although she could get comfortable with macOS. However, as a long-time (server-side) programmer, I feel Apple hardware is seriously overpriced. Also, my brilliant first employee will mostly do research and hardly needs anything more than a browser, Office or Office-like software (yes, I'm looking at you, Libre Office, and I love you!), and bibliography software. Should I get her a Chromebook or a mid-level laptop running Windows? Any thoughts?

Comments

Re:Let her decide

[93 Escort Wagon]

Why should she have to use (and possibly upgrade) her personal equipment for work? She might own a computer that works fine for her personal stuff, but doesn't measure up to whatever the job requires - like running a Java-based word processor and spreadsheet. :-P

Re:Let her decide

[argStyopa]

As a small employer myself (I have 4 employees) I'd ENTIRELY DISAGREE.

The new employee may know NOTHING about what they need. That just screams "Best Buy Geeksquad Gangbang Underbody-Rustproofing pricing".

There is a big difference in quality of components between 'home laptop' and 'work laptop'. Some shitty HP Envy is *not* going to be durable enough to run 9+ hours daily week in, week out without issues. I'd recommend the business caliber lines from ASUS, Toshiba (maybe?), Dell.

I know reviews can be gamed, but I don't disagree with most of the discussion here: https://www.techradar.com/news...

It also depends on how much of a road-warrior she's going to be? Is she going to be working from a single place (mostly) with the laptop being a laptop for the "just in case" convenience? (I assume this.) I'd offer other recommendations if she'd be constantly working on the road, from cars, coffee shops, customer sites, etc.

I'd set a minimum target around $600-$700 for a decent Dell laptop, plus if they're going to be working at a desk, I'd plunk to dock a decent size monitor 24" or so, a decent keyboard and real mouse (etc will cost probably another $250) so all in about $1k. So much less eyestrain. Oh, and a decent CHAIR is going to cost comparable to that.

Re:Let her decide

[ediron2]

Let the employee advise, but don't let the choice be silly, and **ABSOLUTELY** get something with deep warranty and 3 years on an industry-leading service contract. AppleCare, Microsoft's equivalent plan for Surface Pros, Dell's business support, etc. And if employee tries to be frugal and buy a cheap laptop via a retail channel, redirect them to something business-rated for quality of build. You want her to have a phone number or support counter she takes her laptop to, to have it fixed for free and without your involvement. Otherwise, it's like a wounded guy in a platoon: you're both somewhat incapacitated because you're trying to remotely wrangle support to get her back to work.

Be willing to pay for accessories like a dock, plenty of memory, plus 1 or 2 additional screens. Eacch boost productivity vastly.

Funny thing is, it'll cost you about what a mac does. And you'll want to budget for refresh each 3 years, to keep a live service contract.

Last of all, in my experience, surface pros are flimsy compared to business laptops. I love 'em as a user, but you should expect broken screens and other nuisances. 2-in-1's have similar 'gadgety, not rugged' modes of failures: keys getting knocked off, hinges damaged, I/O elements suffering.

YMMV internationally, but in the US I budgeted $3k for hardware and software was another thousand for those 3 years.

   

Re:Let her decide

[Bert64]

If the business owns the computer, then it owns the data on it, can dictate how the hardware is used and can demand its return once the employee resigns. It's also your responsibility to maintain it and ensure it remains functional and secure but you also have some level of control over that security.

If the hardware belongs to the employee then you have a lot less control, you cannot dictate what the employee does with the hardware, or who they allow to use it etc. Your company data becomes at serious risk.