u/xAcex28

LAPTOP QUESTIONNAIRE

Country
Netherlands

Budget
€5000

Are you open to refurbs/used options?
No

Screen size
16"

Weight limit
Any — lowest priority, lives on a dock most of the week

Purpose
Professional software development for multiple freelance clients at once. Docked at a 3-monitor desk most of the time, carried to client sites occasionally.

Form factor
Standard/Clamshell with touchscreen. No pen support or 2-in-1 needed.

Intended usage
Simultaneously: multiple instances of full Visual Studio, VS Code, several Claude Code sessions, Docker containers, and a local SQL Server instance, plus Teams and a heavy browser session. Currently on a client-issued i5 vPro that can't keep up. No gaming, no GPU-accelerated workloads.

Desired battery life
6-8 hrs light use; 2-3 hrs acceptable under full compile/Docker load

Please list, in order of most important to least important, the priority between Size, Weight, Performance, Battery life

Performance, battery life, size, weight

Info/Requirements
- Professional look (XPS/MBP class)
- x86 only, no Snapdragon/ARM (needs full Visual Studio, Docker, local SQL Server)
- 32GB RAM minimum
- 1TB SSD min
- Thunderbolt 4/5 required — need to drive 3x 1440p external monitors, one of which has a KVM (all peripherals + charging) that connects to the laptop over a single USB-C cable
- Decent webcam (1080p+, IR/Windows Hello a plus), mic irrelevant (always on headset)
- Shopping around Black Friday timing

Am I just crazy or what’s going on? I am looking to get a laptop that has somewhat decent specs for my own business to code on. One of the laptops I saw was the Dell Pro Max laptop and an 8gb gpu is €1k+??? Whats going on???? Am I missing something?

I just want to be able to connect my laptop to 3 1440p 60hz screens at home and work properly with multiple coding projects/browsers at once on a non-apple device that looks a bit professional but these prices make absolutely no sense.

What are y’all biggest annoyances with power pages which you either need PAC for or some other weird way to be able to build your power page?

Weet iemand toevallig of er een doe het zelf garage in Almere is?

There is lots of light in my room and with the new monitors coming up im looking for something that will tidy up my cable mess and help when I link the monitor to my work laptop. I have a personal pc which I want the monitor to connect to via usb-b for kvm and hdmi/dp to my pc and when I work I want to connect my laptop to a usb c for charging and getting all the peripherals working on it. Does someone know which of the new gen qd oleds will satisfy my needs? Looking at the websites there is almost no (good) info.

Ps: I can also go up to 32” (preferably not) but curved and ultrawides are a huge no-no.