Laptop Characteristics to Maximize Excel Performance

[alexaronson]

Hello,

I am going into the consulting business and will be buying a laptop for the business as the work is at the client site. I will be using Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access, Viso, and other stuff. But Excel is the money maker as it drives the analysis and the program I care the most for to run fast and smooth.

In the past, I have used any laptop the my employer provided. Some were great, others not so much. I do not want to be sitting waiting for Excel to be crunching numbers on a file update while on the clients dime. With that said, which characteristics should I look for in a laptop. I am going to be staying in 32 bit excel as 64 bit I know can cause problems for other programs.

I know I want the following:
Solid state drive with 500GB memory
4 gb ram at a minimum.
17 inch screen
10 key pad option
Function and End Key that are separate from any other key

What else to consider?

Thank you in advance

 

[MrKowz]

As far as processors, an i7 might be overkill - the current gen i5 processors are pretty solid. However, the better the processor, the faster things will calculate.

For RAM, I'd honestly recommend 8GB Minimum. 4GB is getting to be too little nowadays. If you can swing for a 16GB, you'll be happier in the long run.

Other things to consider:
* Battery. If the laptop has a removable battery, consider picking up an extra to have on hand for emergencies. Even a 4-cell or 6-cell tossed in your laptop bag will help when you direly need it.
* External keyboard/mouse. I don't know about you, but I work at a fourth of the speed when I have to use a laptop keyboard and touchpad. Though that really does come down to personal preference.
* Personal cloud storage. This is less to do with the laptop and more to do with your ability to access files that you don't have with you at the time. You can get external hard drives that have a cloud application which you can keep at your home or office. Or you can subscribe to a cloud storage service. One is a larger up front cost with no physical disaster recovery option (i.e. if the device is destroyed, your data is destroyed), one is a perpetual recurring cost with disaster recovery (your data is usually replicated across multiple servers and can be recovered).
* DisplayPort. Try to get a laptop with DisplayPort. This will allow you to get adapters (or even a multi-use adapter) to connect the laptop to all display types (VGA, DVI, HDMI). Handy for if you are onsite at a client location and they only have one type of connector for their projector in their conference room.

Hope this is some helpful insight for ya! I've worked in IT and IT Procurement for a handful of years, so if you would like some opinions on specific machines you have an eye on, lemme know!