If you had to pick a laptop or mini-PC, which one?


I've been using an old Lenovo laptop as my server/streamer and continue to have issues getting it to work correctly.  So, I'm thinking of replacing it with something more updated.  

Considering another laptop or a min-PC.  Any opinions on good ones to look at?  I don't really care about the cost because I doubt it could be more than some of the music server/streamers that are out now.  




soundchasr
Doing more research and I'm reading some people saying that laptop sound can't compete with a dedicated streamer/network player.  I don't understand how this could be - they're all computers, right?  
NUC is a computer, streamers are basically computers optimized for one purpose so it won't have as many processes running the CPU is usually ARM based, less noise which might be noticeable. I use a NUC and I never noticed the sound being worse than a Node2i with external DAC or an integrated amp I had with streaming built in. 
Never noticed any problems. Just wanted confirmation I’m not missing something.

What do you use to avoid Windows audio mixer?