battery efficient 13-15" desktop replacement

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pwrusr

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I'm looking for a decent laptop that can be good on batteries with at least (the more the better) 4-6 hours run time.
I'd like to see something other then the crap rez of 1366x768 if 15" is recommended. seems like everywhere I look that's all I see.
hard drive is something I don't really care too much about since I'll likely toss it into a external enclosure and put a ssd in the laptop.
Ram, 4-8GB should be fine.
CPU, i5 should do though a c2d may work for what I need it to do which is mostly surfin the web. I will likely game every so often and i might also do some basic virtualization for testing ad such.
OS? I really don't care too much. I'm even considering a macbook pro 13 mainly for it's very nice 8+ hour run time and apple says 10 hours is possible.
Though I'd really like to see a laptop that can run linux with ease.

Budget wise? $800-1200.

Let me know what you guys think will work well for me.
 
Almost forgot, a HDMI port is a must.
The ability to play back 1080p smoothly through the HDMI port is also a must. as it will likely be doing part time duty as a HTPC.
 
any dell laptop from the lattidude line should do you nicely if you are frugal enough. I have a studio 2558 with ati and get just a tad under 5 hours of use with the 9 cell battery and normal settings. would prolly get over 5 if it had intel intergrated craphics
 
I think I'm going to wait until we see more on sandybridge powered laptops. I'm really interested to see how they do with battery/performence ratio.
 
power envelope is better than C2D without intergrated graphics (less than 35W with graphics enabled)
 
Honestly, MBP will do it. No HDMI out, but it has display port, which you can pickup an adapter off Monoprice.

OS-wise, OSX is basically a specially built linux-distro (though of course linux fans disagree!)

I've gotten 8+ hours out of my 15" MBP, and the 15" MBP's can be ordered with 1680X1050 screens (CTO/Apple Store only though) (But they are more expensive)

That said, the 15" MBP is out of your budget. The 13" MBP isn't as good a deal IMO, but it's still pretty good, and it really does get 8-10+ hours battery life. I expect there will be a refresh shortly with a Sandy Bridge in the 13" MBP's, so if you can hold off a bit.

TBH, I know everyone says "don't wait for the next thing" but I would probably wait a little bit and see what laptop manu's do with Sandy Bridge. The integrated graphics are supposed to be ~Nvidia320m ish, which isn't a "gaming" chip, but is pretty decent. I think given a month or two a number of new laptops that are more portable will be available. As it stands now, Sandy Bridge is still rolling out.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
power envelope is better than C2D without intergrated graphics (less than 35W with graphics enabled)
Click to expand...
That's great to hear. Hopefully laptop makers will put a good batt under the hood to really give some good runtimes :)

Zumino Zufeilon said:
Honestly, MBP will do it. No HDMI out, but it has display port, which you can pickup an adapter off Monoprice.

OS-wise, OSX is basically a specially built linux-distro (though of course linux fans disagree!)

I've gotten 8+ hours out of my 15" MBP, and the 15" MBP's can be ordered with 1680X1050 screens (CTO/Apple Store only though) (But they are more expensive)

That said, the 15" MBP is out of your budget. The 13" MBP isn't as good a deal IMO, but it's still pretty good, and it really does get 8-10+ hours battery life. I expect there will be a refresh shortly with a Sandy Bridge in the 13" MBP's, so if you can hold off a bit.

TBH, I know everyone says "don't wait for the next thing" but I would probably wait a little bit and see what laptop manu's do with Sandy Bridge. The integrated graphics are supposed to be ~Nvidia320m ish, which isn't a "gaming" chip, but is pretty decent. I think given a month or two a number of new laptops that are more portable will be available. As it stands now, Sandy Bridge is still rolling out.
Click to expand...
I can pick up the MBP 13 for $1,000 at the local microcenter. I must agree that's not exactly the best bang for the buck. However the hardware/software is so well integrated it's almost worth the extra change.

BTW, OSX is NOT Linux! OSX is a UNIX operating system that is based off of BSD.

Look under "Development outside of Apple" and check out the picture they have there to see how things branch out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mac_OS_X
 
Sk1Zy said:
Lenovo t410 with i5 and 9 cell battery is my reccomendation. Love my t410 to death, it's light, it's fast, it's not nearly as hot as my last laptop and it's very comfortable to use

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...-category-id=24ABE3A59126498186434450AAAFE461
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I am looking for the exact same laptop as the parent, and the first place I looked was the t410. Unfortunately, it does not have an HDMI out, and the battery life is bad if you get the nvidia graphics chipset.
 
I'd say a Thinkpad or a decent E-series Latitude. They have docking station options, which is a plus if you're using it for desktop replacement.

My Latitude E6410 has dual-mode Displayport, so HDMI with a cheap passive adapter should be possible.
 
Pylon said:
I'd say a Thinkpad or a decent E-series Latitude. They have docking station options, which is a plus if you're using it for desktop replacement.

My Latitude E6410 has dual-mode Displayport, so HDMI with a cheap passive adapter should be possible.
Click to expand...
Nice!!! Though not really needed I do like the idea of a docking station quite a bit :cool:
 
I'm liking this right now: http://www.amazon.com/N53JF-XE1-15-...minum/dp/B00492C6TI/ref=reg_hu-rd_add_1_dp_T2

Pretty much looking for the same thing you are. I've got a seriously powerful but very heavy Sager and want something lighter before my shoulder gets ripped off at the airport.

This even comes with a year of Accidental coverage included, but I'm just not sure about Asus when it comes to warranties. I've never had a good experience with them on their other products and I'm not sure about how they'll do on these if it's needed.

Either way, I'm thinking I'll take the chance on it. Sounds like just what you're looking for.
 
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And nevermind...no idea why given the specs, but apparently the battery life on that thing really sucks.
 
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