What desktop environment to choose for a laptop?

Question

linux

Good day. A friend asked a question, and in the end, I myself thought! :)
The fact is that the abundant customization of all kinds of DE puzzles me, because they are all interesting in their own way, but not one of them in the database suits me completely.
It's a matter of taste, of course, but I really liked the interface from the Apple system, and, perhaps, nothing closer to it than Canonical's Unity with a couple of corrections - I haven't seen it. However, Unity was buggy in places, and they have already abandoned it. And what to choose and what to advise a friend (tastes are similar) I can’t even understand. the DE must have a Global Menu, or the DE itself must be holistic (like Gnome). Further about the DE that I tried, and what I didn’t understand about them:
1 - Gnome Shell - no global menu, too "fat" both in terms of resource consumption and in terms of element size (such as window titles are too healthy, etc. Maybe 1366x768 plays a role), but it is quite coherent, has some an idea (such as an ecosystem, I can’t explain). By rustling through gnome-look, I realized that the themes in it do not really solve the problem with bold headings. The big + is that there is no tearing. In general, something is wrong with him. Distribution FEDORA 30-31.
2 - MATE - quite close to the idea and my Wishlist, but there is an ugly tray with icons and INTEL tearing. I was not able to completely defeat tearing in ubuntu 16.04 after reading a bunch of forums (it disappeared for the most part, but it is still present in places, although not so noticeable). I tried MATE for the last time on Ubuntu, the kernel was 4.XX, perhaps there will be no tearing on distributions with version 5 of the kernel.
3 - Cinnamon - better than the gnome shell, at least the headers are normal, but it seems to be built on gnome and, judging purely visually, it is strongly dependent on it. What is important, there is no tearing, I don’t know what kind of manager it is, but the fact that there was none pleased me. No global menu :(
4 - XFCE - suffers from the same as MATE, but I don't remember the global menu there. Tearing was there too. I once saw the Voager 12.10 distribution kit, and I even liked how the rat was prepared there, although the collective farm and a lot of deprivation.
5 - Budgie - tried on old versions of Solus, not impressed, taste :( I don't like what I saw in new versions.

To my shame, KDE didn't try higher than 4 plasma :( so many years have passed, but in my heart an unpleasant memory of such falls and gluttony was branded.In this case, if "sneakers" then on which distribution kit is the easiest to try?

Iron specs
Both laptops on intel processors with integrated graphics (on my 4000, on a friend's 4400 or 4600 laptop).RAM 10 and 8 gigs, ssd drives.The screen resolutions on both are identical to 1366x768.

On Windows, the path is personally closed to me - my native 7 regularly suffers from the dumps of all USB ports after sleep and spontaneous overheating of the processor, 8 - the dump of the native intel centrino wifi, 10 is a quiet horror.
With age, I began to drown for licensed or open source software, because I prefer Linux, especially since it feels just fine on a PC.

I’ll add that I only got the touchpad on Linux. Only in it, Natural scrolling works fine for me (on Windows, the touchpad behavior is generally creepy, not responsive, with unswitchable dead zones at the edges, scrolling is miserable) and the touchpad as a whole can be used. Even nice.

Therefore, I ask for help from knowledgeable people, somewhere to correct, somewhere to criticize, somewhere to poke a finger at something that I don’t know or that I lose sight of.

Answer 1

KDE
Version 3.5.10, which was about 10 years ago, IMHO, was the best.
Version 4 - something so-so, it was buggy at first, but it seemed to be cured with updates, and then it can be different in different distros.
Version 5 (KDE Plasma) is quite normal, but managing multiple screens annoys me, especially when you disconnect and connect them, and some need to output sound via HDMI ...
Definitely need to try. Moreover, the latest versions (well, already a year or two somewhere) consume resources very modestly, less than a gnome, but of course they cannot be compared with XFCE (although it was written somewhere about this shell that everything got bad there, but I have long did not watch).

Answer 2

Install 10 windows under your laptop, you will get no problems with firewood, normal sleep, the same set of programs, no problems converting different office formats.

Answer 3

Manjaro KDE.

Answer 4

xfce mate

Answer 5

7 or 10
but 10 is better to optimize and everything will be ok :)
I have a 12-year-old laptop somewhere native 7 but I'm sitting on 10-tke
4 GB RAM 2.4 x4 cpu and 1366x768 screen :)