I can’t remember how much I’ve written about it here, but I’ve talked at CLE’s about my strong recommendation of using a Microsoft Surface Laptop as a work computer. Wired has a review of the latest model, the Surface Laptop 2.
As far as options, if you are an attorney, you want the most expensive one. I’m quoting a professional technology consultant to law firms here.
And I agree. The problem for attorneys picking out how powerful of a computer they need is that the retail descriptions are written for the mass public–not attorneys. So the descriptions say things about gaming and playing a lot of videos and stuff, which we don’t do.
But we do run a lot of software programs at the same time. That’s why you want the latest and fastest processor and a lot of memory.
Do you really need 16 GB of memory instead of 8? Maybe not. But get it any way and don’t worry about it.
It took me a long time to figure this out, but you get what you pay for with computers. If you hardly ever use one then sure, you don’t need a high performance model. But if like most attorneys you are on it all the time, get a great one.
As far as screen size, go with 13″ instead of 15″. I’ve had both. I’ve researched it a lot. The 2 extra inches is not worth the weight and size difference. Plus, most people will dock it and use monitors most of the time anyway.
When I had a 15″ screen, it was too big and heavy to travel with. The 13″ Surface laptop is about like packing an I-pad.
This computer, Microsoft Office 365, Adobe DC and Clio case management software. I can’t recommend these enough.