We’ve spoken with several employees of the Big 4 Consulting Firms: PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Ernst & Young (E&Y), Deloitte, and KPMG; none of them appears to have set on a business laptop that they use throughout the company. An incoming grad may be given a Lenovo Thinkpad while others a Dell Latitude. Each company hasn’t settle for a brand nor laptop model. But across the four companies, we do see these models, and we are going to review them quickly:
Lenovo ThinkPad T490
Lightweight (3.23 lb) and slim, the Lenovo ThinkPad T490 is ideal for portability. It is an excellent laptop to travel with, has a long battery life, touchscreen option, and a fingerprint reader for an extra layer of security. We know KPMG consultants love it. The design is the least simple. The keyboard and touchpad are unique to the ThinkPad series. They have had this design for years. If you are used to it, you probably will find it hard to use any other touchpad layout.
Dell Latitude 7300 Business Laptop
This laptop had top-notch security features: a fingerprint reader on the power button or with the optional IR camera. Another great feature is the modern standby capability; you can resume work quickly when waking your system since Wi-Fi is running in the background. The Dell Latitude 7300 is the smallest 13″ Premium business-class notebook. EY employees are not very enthusiastic about the design of this laptop, not to mention that it has many different configurations. If you don’t like the design of this model, you can look into the Dell Latitude 7310 model, which has a screen that fully folds and turns it into a tablet:
And if you are interested in exploring other Dell business laptop models, we suggest checking our Top 5 Dell Latitude Laptops 2021 edition post.
HP EliteBook x360 Convertible Laptop
We know this one has been a favorite for Deloitte, but for its employees, not so much, mainly because its battery drains too quickly. That aside, its design is elegant. It is the lightest of business laptops (2.2 lbs), and its folding screen makes it comfortable to use on pretty much any surface area.
This model comes in many configurations, so as you climb up the corporate ladder, the better configuration you’ll get!
Used Business Laptop Trade-In Value
If properly maintained, business laptop models don’t depreciate quite as much as their home-use counterparts. Let’s check the resale value of the laptops we mentioned above:
- A used Lenovo ThinkPad T490 with a touchscreen display and Intel Core i7 processor yields an estimated value of $350.*
- The offer on the Core i5 version would be significantly lower; still, you can expect to get up to $216 for it.*
- Being a more affordable brand, the convertible version of the Dell Latitude 13 7000 series with the Intel Core i7 8th generation processor in excellent working, and the cosmetic condition gets a $206 cash estimate*.
- And finally, the newer HP EliteBook x360 830 G7 model with the 10th Generation Intel Core i7 processor will score a $733 quote; not bad for a used laptop.
If you are a business looking to upgrade your company equipment, please feel free to reach out for a bulk laptop estimate.
Bottom Line
Suppose you want to buy a business laptop and want to know what the big four consulting companies use. In that case, your finalists are Lenovo ThinkPad, Dell Latitude, and HP EliteBook. You can configure your notebook to suit your needs and budget. And remember, you can save some money by buying pre-owned laptops and then reselling them when it is time for an upgrade with Gadget Salvation.
*Priced on 06/24/2021. Subject to change.
