One of the most challenging aspects of my recent hunt for a new portable computer is I've yet to decide how to decide what machine to buy. Perhaps even worse, I don't even know what type of computer to buy. I've got a few different ideas for the machine itself, but as with previous computers I've bought, I want it to go through a sort of vetting process.
It's hard to decide between whether to buy based on a set of tasks I'd like to accomplish, or based on a set of physical properties I would like the machine to have.
Back in 2009-2009, I set up a wiki page called "Computer Upgrade 3" and set a few machines I liked up on a table to see what properties were there to compare the machines on. I ended up comparing available display technologies, processors, graphics processors, certain expansion/flexibility criteria, and a few other things. Perhaps the easiest part about that process was that I had a relatively clear idea of what I wanted, even if I didn't write the priorities directly on the page. I was looking for my only computer, and I wanted something with a reasonable combination of durability, being smaller than my old laptop, and ideally being faster than what I had before.
Today, the machines I might look at are so different I feel like there may need to be some other stuff I look at before I look at machines. Plus, changes in the overall environment (such as general ability to trust that Lenovo will build a reasonable machine) mean that I'm looking in some places I wasn't before. I can pick out a machine and run benchmarks on it in a store or read reviews, but it's difficult to put different machines in context and evaluate them because I don't know exactly what I'm searching for.
The trouble, and perhaps I should just start laying down comparisons, is that I'm really tempted to just put something like a 3:2 display at the top of the requirements list, which forces a very specific set of machines to float to the top.
On the other hand, there's the question of how necessary that display is. I can obviously complete work without it, even photographic stuff, but it would be helpful to know what stuff I'm going to be doing with the machine. The needs on a machine whose life will involve Office and a web browser and not much else are different from something I expect to play games on or use for photo and video processing.
Although I love the idea of being able to whip out my powerful laptop and render video wherever I happen to be, high definition video is near trivial to edit and render these days, I bet the Surface 3 could do it if I bothered installing some attendant software on it. The real trouble is that those capabilities make a machine bigger and shorten the battery life. I also don't strictly need that functionality. I have powerful desktop computers at home on which I can easily edit video, run virtual machines, do programming tasks, etc.
This makes me lean toward getting something optimized for Office use on the go. If it can run remote desktop, my SSH client (for chatting), Office, and a web browser, then it should have no problem with any of my on-the-go needs. My actual needs are minimal enough that the Surface 3 generally handles them very well, the only real problem being of course that the Surface 3 appears to be on its last legs.
Almost certainly the thing making the process more difficult is this notion that my laptop should somehow be my main computer, and that it should also be purchased with an eye toward keeping and using it a very long time – over five years.
My reality is almost certainly that barring some kind of physical problem with it, my next computer will be kept five years or longer (unless I elect to go for something insanely inexpensive, or to use an iPad) but if industry trends of the past few years hold, I don't think even relatively low end computers today will have trouble with Office and web apps in the next several years.