looking to replace my 11th gen i5 laptop with another laptop (no space for a full spaceship desktop atm) the old one still works fine but is full and i dont want to wipe it or upgrade ssd, im debating weather to try mac or stick with a trusty pc as for my sins i use some cracked stuff regularly as some software are way to over priced for me on my humble means unless i go pro i havent made money off music in years and im not sure how warezed stuff works on mac anyway (does anyone know this?) , i have teenage and elderly dependents so im on a tightish budget ,the best deals i found so far were actually new laptops as opposed to used which id prefer but am open to good referb deals although i had a bad experience with what looked like a great used deal on what turned out to be more of a stinkpad than a thinkpad
so far im looking at just a bit confused which cpu work best with my daw (ableton ) like ai / ecore and so on or just stick with ones with traditional cpu numbering (eg8840HS) id prefer smaller but is there cooling issues etc please halp with my quest to find a deal that will keep me in the game for years to come

lenovo has a sale today so these seemed ok
ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 (AMD)
£840.0016% offinc. VAT
AMD Ryzen™ 7 PRO 8840HS Processor (3.30 GHz up to 5.10 GHz)

• No Operating System
• Integrated AMD Radeon™ 780M
• 32 GB DDR5-5600MT/s (SODIMM)(2 x 16 GB)
• 1 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 Performance TLC Opal

IdeaPad Slim 3 Gen 10 (14" AMD)
£472 (more like 590 after "build your laptop")
AMD Ryzen™ 7 8840HS Processor (3.30 GHz up to 5.10 GHz)

• Windows 11 Home 64 upgrade to pro £90?
• Integrated Graphics
• 16 GB DDR5-5600MT/s (8 GB Soldered + 8 GB SODIMM)
• 512 GB SSD M.2 2242 PCIe Gen4 TLC
• 
  
• or
• m4 mac for 850 or wouold older pro unit be better

APPLE MacBook Air 13.6" (2025) - M4, 256 GB SSD, Sky Blue
Apple M4 chip
RAM: 16 GB / Storage: 256 GB SSD
Liquid Retina display
Battery life: Up to 18 hours
£849.00

ACER Nitro V14 14.5" Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 7, RTX 3050, 512 GB SSD

• AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS Processor
• RAM: 16 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB
• Full HD screen / 120 Hz
• Battery life: Up to 8 hours

just looking for advice £850 is an absolute price ceiling but cheaper is better any advice is gratefully received

 

Last edited: Sep 12, 2025 at 9:57 PM

Stick to what you know and do best. Windows is also much cheaper than Apple. Lenovo has a great design, a good keyboard, a sharp display, and is affordable – it also has good thermal management for the CPU. The CPU is sufficiently fast! A clear recommendation to buy.

 

yeah that lenovo p14 amd one seems like a deal but no os i would have to get a windows key i guess but it seems like a good spec, i just had to return a used p14s 4th gen that had i7 13th 64gb ram and a a500 gpu i only paid 500 for a laptop still sellin 1300 on amazon but there was a problem it wouldnt run smoothly even offline and after updating drivers ect was taking 10sec just to open a windows folder so as the return period was running out and despite big effort trying to identify the fault i decided to return it i guess its back up on uk cex waiting for smone else to buy it and return it if anyone knows how to fix that
just the mac thing everyone keeps saying theyre better but idk thanks for the advice