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

Let her decide

[CohibaVancouver]

Tell her your budget and requirements (e.g. "Windows") and let her go buy what she likes.

I would automatically say Microsoft Surface, with pen + dock + monitor + keyboard + mouse, but empower her.

Re:Let her decide

[bernywork]

Absolutely, it's not like you've got to manage 20,000 of these things. It's just another laptop, ignore the price tag (You still own it) just get her whatever she feels comfortable using.

In previous experience, whatever it costs for mice or keyboards or whatever else is nothing compared to employee satisfaction and keeping staff (And when they're good, you want to keep them!)

Re:Let her decide

[pigwin32]

No - she's a "non-techie". Don't just ask her to do it herself - if you've got a budget and there's some hardware you like then suggest that's what you're considering and ask for her feedback/confirmation. As a new employee out of college, you will gain a lot of kudos as an employer by buying her a decent laptop. How would you feel if your new employer bunged you a second-hand laptop or a chromebook? I'd be checking the job boards. When we hired we used to buy refurb Apple laptops until we needed more current hardware so shelled out for new MacBook Pro's. The employee we wanted to keep has been with us now for 8 years and we are stoked.

Re:Let her decide

[aaarrrgggh]

Yeah... for your first employee you have to look at what it costs you to hire the person and/or to replace them if they leave for some random reason like "shitty computer." Generally, $500 isn't going to make or break the company, but can have a huge impact on employee perception.

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

[houghi]

I own several computers. If an employer even sugests I use them for work, I would think he was joking and joke back "Sure, and I can use your bankaccount in my private life."

No way will I use personal stuff for work. Not even my phone.

Neither Windows or Mac?

[bjwest]

Since she's straight out of college and a non-techie...

For a safer environment, I'd give her something with Linux on it. It's not totally immune, but one hell of a lot more so than Windows and OSX, with the plus side of not reporting back home everything she does (Win10, not OSX as far as I know). If all she needs is email, web access and office (you've already said LibereOffice will suffice), she should have no problems with it, and can open just about any email without infecting the thing.

Easy choice

[grumpyman]

Of course it is Raspberry Pi with Slackware. This encourages and tests your employee's problem solving skill!

Cost of a laptop

[Solandri]

As someone who runs a business, I've always hated it when employers skimped on employee equipment costs. The cost of a business laptop isn't just the purchase price. It's the purchase price + training costs + software cost (which you're trying to make zero) + setup costs + maintenance costs ( - sale price if you manage to sell it at the end). In most cases, these other costs far exceed the purchase price.

On top of that, the cost isn't really a one-time expense. It's the cost divided by the number of months you'll use the equipment. So even a $2000 laptop with $3000 in other costs used for 3 years ends up costing your business just $139/mo. If you're paying your employee $3000/mo, this is a mere 4.6% increase. Less if you manage to sell the laptop at the end. You're already paying your employee a (relatively) huge amount of money. It's counterproductive to skimp on weak equipment which lowers their productivity. Unless the Chromebook will do everything and anything your employee needs, don't skimp. Spend a little more to get a nice system that will maximize her productivity. (And no I'm not trying to justify the cost of the Macs, which I think are overpriced unless you're in an art/photo/video/music/print business. There's a reason the just-as-expensive Thinkpads are so popular among businesses. Two-day turnaround for warranty repairs via overnight delivery is a huge plus if you're trying to minimize downtime.)

Don't forget to budget for a file sync and backup system. If you don't have one yet, you'll need some sort of file server at your end, which her laptop connects to daily via a VPN to backup her work to your server. And that file server will need a backup system (preferably at least 2).

Also, technically this should be a company laptop, not the employee's laptop. Unless you plan to make it a gift or part of her compensation package, it should stay with the company after she moves on or moves up. Avoids the awkward situation where the employee quits after 3 months and takes the laptop with them.