It was time. I'd owned Verity, my current laptop - a Microsoft Surface Book - for over nine years. She'd been a premium purchase in her day, and had proved durable, reliable, capable and very pleasant to use. Her main job was to process the many, many thousands of photos I took each year. And to retrieve whatever I wanted to see from my vast Photo Archive. She was still very good at it, but I knew that a modern and much more powerful laptop would speed up all the viewing, editing, organising and backups necessary. However, the main (and unavoidable) reason for replacing her was that she ran on Windows 10, an OS now defunct, and was unable to upgrade to Windows 11.
She'd had a temporary stay of execution: thankfully, I had qualified for a further year's free security updates from Microsoft. But I would have to replace her with a new Windows 11 laptop by mid-October next year. It would be a major purchase, though long foreseen.
When should I spend the money? Now or later on? And what to buy?
First, when. I ran through the considerations. Who knew what might happen to world laptop prices in the months to come? Especially the cost of powerful laptops with the latest components in them. Those prices might well prove volatile. But in any case they would only tend to increase. If I waited, then the kind of machine I'd really need might get beyond my means. Then there was our own Labour government looking for extra tax revenue in the upcoming Budget. I wondered whether the Chancellor might be tempted to increase VAT on 'luxury goods', such as fancy laptops.
Was I in a position to buy? Could I afford to spend a lot of money in November 2025, or must I wait until later on, until well into 2026? This boiled down to cashflow. I made some detailed forward financial projections, and decided that I wouldn't run into difficulties. True, my savings would dip in December and January, but then they would recover. And there was no other big purchase on the horizon, not in 2026 nor for a long while to come. I'd already replaced my car in 2023 and my phone in 2024. If I replaced my laptop in 2025, I'd then be looking ahead at a long (and hopefully uninterrupted) spell of financial improvement as I built up my savings for a big deposit on my next car, maybe in 2030. Yes: I would go for it.
So what to buy?
I was sticking with Microsoft, and not migrating to Apple. Another Windows laptop then.
Verity had been a 2-in-1 laptop, meaning that she had a detachable screen that could be used independently as a kind of tablet, or just left attached like a regular laptop. But I had never detached her screen for tablet use. It wasn't a feature I needed, and next time around I'd do without. However, I definitely wanted a larger screen. Verity's had been a 13 inch. 15 or 16 inches would be better, now that my laptop was my only way of viewing TV programmes. Besides, reading small text would be easier on a larger screen. A larger screen meant a larger and heavier machine, but it would still be portable. I would be doing no more than carrying it between the lounge and the study in my house, and between caravan and car when on holiday. As before, I needed an OLED screen, a powerful processor, and a proper graphics card for my daily photo work - the best I could afford. I'd also need a good selection of ports for attaching my external SSDs and other things, and a very good keyboard and trackpad. A touch screen too. All those things in a tough, quality chassis.
The major online review websites seemed in agreement as to which high-end 2025 Windows models would be right for my needs. There weren't more than two or three to mull over. One in particular drew me. It was on the expensive side, but really no more than I'd reckoned I'd have to pay in the end. But it was by no means a no-brainer. It was absolutely necessary to study the specifications with close attention. I read (and re-read) what the reviewers said: there were nuances to understand. Exactly how enthusiastic had they really been? What had excited them? What had turned them off?
This had to be a laptop that was not only entirely up-to-date and super-capable for 2025, but would remain so for years to come. I'd kept my first laptop (an Asus W3V) for ten years. Verity for nearly as long. This one would also be a long-term investment. I might not buy another until 2034 or 2035, when I'd be over eighty! (Gulp)
My final choice: the Asus ProArt P16, the latest 2025 version with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card. Here are the links to the reviews on TechRadar (https://www.techradar.com/computing/asus-proart-p16-h7606-2025-review) and Digital Camera World (https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/tech/laptops/asus-proart-p16-2025-review). I bought it a few hours ago from John Lewis online. They wanted £2,799, which is not exactly a bargain price. On the other hand, they are a gold-standard trusted retailer from my point of view, and part of that price is for a proper two-year guarantee. I also get next-day collect-from-store convenience (i.e. I will simply pop into Waitrose in nearby Burgess Hill and take it away). I'll be unboxing it tomorrow afternoon.
And what to call the new laptop? It has to have a name. I have a shortlist. It includes names like Constance, Patience, Lydia and Martha. I tend to go for old-fashioned-sounding names for my tech equipment. Well, the right name will occur to me at the ritual unboxing. I'm sure there will be a post all about that!
