[Paul R.]

Heh, my laptop is a Dell 5490 gen8 and Win 11. Very similar: You have a bit better display and the 7490 is IIRC slightly lighter and thinner. The 5490 has a VGA output which was / is handy for some service work jobs I still do on occasion. (Haha - the last couple were non-profit, for my wife's classroom at the church school she teaches at.) You may have received a NVme drive in yours? Mine was SATA but I swapped in a NVme and use the SATA drive as the data drive. I also boosted the RAM to 16 GB (started with 8 GB IIRC.) Price was ~ $120 B4 the upgrades, so overall it looks like you got a little better deal. But that may have been timing -- at the time I was looking, the 7490's were higher (and I wanted that VGA output.) :-)

In any event, I don't risk sensitive info. on the laptop, not even encrypted, since it could get stolen, etc., in my "travels".

I do have one of those big bulky high power Dell WD15 / K17A 130 watt docking station / hubs that has all sorts of outputs but its so much to add to the laptop case that I bought one of the Acer 7-in-one hubs for the laptop case. :-) I guess I should see how the USB C to 4k (supposedly) HDMI conversion works on the Dell, as that might solve the HDMI output problem on some of these desktops I'm looking at!

[ansel12]

I don’t actually use laptops as laptops, they are just PCs to me, I plug in a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and speakers, or I have them in rooms with quality speakers plugged in to use as a stereo while I’m working in that area.