Does what I'm looking for even exist?

J

Jesse B

[H]ard|Gawd
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May 30, 2010
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I've been considering replacing my laptop as of late, just for the reason that I want something that would better suit my needs. I've been fairly discouraged however, as I can't seem to find what I'm looking for. I'm starting to question whether or not such a product even exists!

First things first, I'm not looking for any mind-blowing performance. The extent of what I do on my laptop is as follows (with the more common things at the top):

- Basic web browsing/e-mail/IM/forums
- Programming/Web Dev
- Occasional light Photoshop/Sketchup use

I don't do any gaming, I don't have any need for ridiculous computing power, I just need something that will work.

What I'm looking for is battery life (I'm tired of getting 4 hours on my current laptop), lightweight and thin, all in a somewhat attractive chassis. Cost is also somewhat of a concern, as I'm a student and I don't have a lot of money to throw around. I've found a few possibilities, but they all seem to be around the $1000 mark (+/- $200), which is about twice what I'm hoping for.

Anyways, I'm not sure if I'll realistically find what I'm looking for or not, but I'm just seeing if anybody has any suggestions; I'm not too well educated in the laptop market.

Thanks,


- Jesse
 
I know there are some Windows 8 tablets coming out using the Tegra3 processor. I do not know how well these work for much anything else than your first bullet.

Another possibility are the Ultrabooks that are coming out. Extremely light and thin with great battery like. Some where around 6 hours or so. The ASUS Zenbook UX31 gets about 5:40. The Samsung Series 7 tablet computer gets about the same battery life as well.

I don't really know much about the performance of laptops, besides graphics cards, that I can really give a more informed opinion on.
 
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If you can live with Mac OSX, I'd suggest you get the low-end 13" MBP. It can do any of the things you list and it has better battery life and performance than the ultrabooks, but it's also heavier. My point is, it has a bigger battery. But you can't run Windows on it; battery life will suck then.

As a student, you might be eligible for a discount on Apple products. In my country, I pay almost 40% less than other people.
 
Thanks for your input guys.

SlayVus said:
I know there are some Windows 8 tablets coming out using the Tegra3 processor. I do not know how well these work for much anything else than your first bullet.
Click to expand...

I saw a Tegra3 based tablet that fit into a laptop base, and I thought that was super awesome. I'd be willing to go with that root assuming A) It provided enough processing power, which I'm sure it would, and B) I could install something other than Windows on it, which again, shouldn't be an issue. I'll definitely look deeper into this option as I never really considered it.

SlayVus said:
Another possibility are the Ultrabooks that are coming out. Extremely light and thin with great battery like. Some where around 6 hours or so. The ASUS Zenbook UX31 gets about 5:40. The Samsung Series 7 tablet computer gets about the same battery life as well.

I don't really know much about the performance of laptops, besides graphics cards, that I can really give a more informed opinion on.
Click to expand...

Ultrabooks are basically what I was wanting, but I've yet to see any with a suggested retail price under $1000, and most (that I've seen) are higher than that even. If I've missed something by all means let me know!

/rant/ said:
If you can live with Mac OSX, I'd suggest you get the low-end 13" MBP. It can do any of the things you list and it has better battery life and performance than the ultrabooks, but it's also heavier. My point is, it has a bigger battery. But you can't run Windows on it; battery life will suck then.

As a student, you might be eligible for a discount on Apple products. In my country, I pay almost 40% less than other people.
Click to expand...

I will have to go talk to my school about this one, because I do know they are solid computers, and if I could get a good discount then it'd definitely be a possibility. There's always virtualization if I want anything else.
 
Jesse B said:
I've found a few possibilities, but they all seem to be around the $1000 mark (+/- $200), which is about twice what I'm hoping for.
Click to expand...

To clarify, are you only looking to spend $500?

What exactly is your budget?
 
While the Samsung Series 7 Slate (S7S) might be outside of your budget a bit, at least for the 128 GB version, I'd say that it might be a great device for you. You mention that you are a student and that you use Photoshop/Sketchup though only lightly and occasionally. The S7S has a digital pen and is geared for artistic used with a pen plus using something like OneNote you can take notes when pen and even search the handwriting without conversion to text. The S7S also can b docked and use a bluetooth keyboard and thus work like a conventional laptop though its not a folding dock like the Transformer Price Tegra 3 machine. It has the power to run development tools, I run Visual Studio 2010/11 on mine. Essentially it is an ultrabook with the same CPU/GPU as the base model Macbook Air with no integrated keyboard but with a pen and touch digitizer.

There's not a better mobile computer out at the moment for students that need the ability to do any and everything jut about on the go and it'll of course support Windows 8. About 5 hours of runtime in the 1 lbs. 15 ounce package with up to 7 possible using battery saving mode. Just a wonderful device.
 
Acer TimelineX 3830TG

I own this and I would recommend it. Its light, very attractive design, and great performance for the size. The only drawback is that it does not come with an optical drive. For the price and performance, I dont think that you will find any better.
 
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Bomo said:
To clarify, are you only looking to spend $500?

What exactly is your budget?
Click to expand...

I don't have a definitive budget, as I won't be purchasing anything until the end of the semester, so we'll have to see how money is then. I was just looking around, and found it strange that there doesn't seem to be any reasonably price notebooks out there with portability in mind; they all seem to be quite pricey. I anticipate I'll be spending $500-$600 at the end of the semester, again, money permitting.

heatlesssun said:
While the Samsung Series 7 Slate (S7S) might be outside of your budget a bit, at least for the 128 GB version, I'd say that it might be a great device for you. You mention that you are a student and that you use Photoshop/Sketchup though only lightly and occasionally. The S7S has a digital pen and is geared for artistic used with a pen plus using something like OneNote you can take notes when pen and even search the handwriting without conversion to text. The S7S also can b docked and use a bluetooth keyboard and thus work like a conventional laptop though its not a folding dock like the Transformer Price Tegra 3 machine. It has the power to run development tools, I run Visual Studio 2010/11 on mine. Essentially it is an ultrabook with the same CPU/GPU as the base model Macbook Air with no integrated keyboard but with a pen and touch digitizer.

There's not a better mobile computer out at the moment for students that need the ability to do any and everything jut about on the go and it'll of course support Windows 8. About 5 hours of runtime in the 1 lbs. 15 ounce package with up to 7 possible using battery saving mode. Just a wonderful device.
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty neat, I'll take a look at that!

MGDMN said:
Acer TimelineX 3830TG

I own this and I would recommend it. Its light, very attractive design, and great performance for the size. The only drawback is that it does not come with an optical drive. For the price and performance, I dont think that you will find any better.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your suggestion, I'll look into that as well!
 
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As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
jeremyshaw said:
On the counterpoint vs the 3830TG from Acer, is the ASUS U31SD.
http://www.amazon.com/U31SD-AH31-13-3-Inch-Light-Laptop-Black/dp/B005SRZATG/ref=pd_cp_pc_1
has a nVidia GPU (connected via Optimus - so long battery life when wanted, GPU power otherwise, would help in some cases with Adobe software), decent build quality, and about 7 hours of office/web use (we have a few around the office, now) before the battery requests more juice.
Click to expand...

Ooh, that's starting to get a bit closer to what I'm looking for... thank you for pointing that out!

Microsoft did as we all feared and confirmed that all new ARM tablets running Win8 will be locked down via UEFI, making us unable to install other OS's. I'm not pleased with this. Unless somebody finds a hack for it, can't see myself buying one of these.
 
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Not like any other tablets come locked, at all :p Not only that, the vendor is not prevented by MS from unlocking it's BIOS/UEFI... (similar to Google requiring a locked bootloader by default on ICS tablets, but also allowing OEM, like ASUS to unlock bootloaders of tablets like the Transformer Prime).

well, if you were reading from the "software freedom blog" then they might imply as such, since it's in their interest to bitch about anything that pushes their anti-MS view.
 
Jesse B said:
Ooh, that's starting to get a bit closer to what I'm looking for... thank you for pointing that out!

Microsoft did as we all feared and confirmed that all new ARM tablets running Win8 will be locked down via UEFI, making us unable to install other OS's. I'm not pleased with this. Unless somebody finds a hack for it, can't see myself buying one of these.
Click to expand...

The 3830TG has an i5 2410m, optimus techonology with a GT 540m. 4 gigs of DDR3, and a 500gb HDD and has battery life up to 7.5hrs. What is more appealing about the Asus U31SD-AH31?
 
MGDMN said:
The 3830TG has an i5 2410m, optimus techonology with a GT 540m. 4 gigs of DDR3, and a 500gb HDD and has battery life up to 7.5hrs. What is more appealing about the Asus U31SD-AH31?
Click to expand...

Nothing at all, I'm apparently on drugs and thought the price of the Acer was considerably higher than it is. Oops!:D
 
Also, while I'm here, does anybody know which manufacturers offer Student discounts?
 
MGDMN said:
The 3830TG has an i5 2410m, optimus techonology with a GT 540m. 4 gigs of DDR3, and a 500gb HDD and has battery life up to 7.5hrs. What is more appealing about the Asus U31SD-AH31?
Click to expand...
Not the laptop you linked. The 3830T has about the same price as the U31SD (comparitively), but NO GT540m (which is a good thing, since the GT540m model, last I heard of it, throttled like hell due to an undersized [-massed, technically] cooling system). The 3830TG is either above 1000usd, or not avalible on Amazon.

The GT540m model, is either unavalible, more expensive, or flawed. I wouldn't of responded with the ASUS model otherwise (because on the surface, save the price, the 3830TG is a helluva machine).
 
I have played skyrim, on high settings with 4x AA, for several hours at a time and I havent seen it throttle yet. It does get hot, but thats the drawback to gaming on a thin and light laptop. I do see what you mean about lack of availability at amazon, or pretty much everywhere I looked. Its a shame because I really like my 3830tg. The size, weight, and battery life are very nice features, and having the horsepower to game a bit, if I feel the need, makes it very convenient.
 
I really have no interest in gaming on my laptop. That seems like a horrible idea, considering I'm on my laptop at school all day (and will be for 3 more years still, oh boy!). Lectures could become a bit, erm, fuzzy :D
 
asus, best bang for the buck.
my wifes laptop purchased 2 years ago runs 8hrs on battery.
asus ulvt50
 
Jesse B said:
I really have no interest in gaming on my laptop. That seems like a horrible idea, considering I'm on my laptop at school all day (and will be for 3 more years still, oh boy!). Lectures could become a bit, erm, fuzzy :D
Click to expand...

Yes, I realize that. I was just pointing out that its nice to have the option to handle some very light gaming if you ever wanted to. Like, killing some time if your bored in between classes. Some other things I didnt mention are that the 3830tg can playback 1080p without any problems at all, which im sure most, if not all, current notebooks in the 13 inch category are able to do, and the speakers are also very impressive for any notebook, let alone one of this size.
 
Jesse B said:
I've been considering replacing my laptop as of late, just for the reason that I want something that would better suit my needs. I've been fairly discouraged however, as I can't seem to find what I'm looking for. I'm starting to question whether or not such a product even exists!

First things first, I'm not looking for any mind-blowing performance. The extent of what I do on my laptop is as follows (with the more common things at the top):

- Basic web browsing/e-mail/IM/forums
- Programming/Web Dev
- Occasional light Photoshop/Sketchup use

I don't do any gaming, I don't have any need for ridiculous computing power, I just need something that will work.

What I'm looking for is battery life (I'm tired of getting 4 hours on my current laptop), lightweight and thin, all in a somewhat attractive chassis. Cost is also somewhat of a concern, as I'm a student and I don't have a lot of money to throw around. I've found a few possibilities, but they all seem to be around the $1000 mark (+/- $200), which is about twice what I'm hoping for.

Anyways, I'm not sure if I'll realistically find what I'm looking for or not, but I'm just seeing if anybody has any suggestions; I'm not too well educated in the laptop market.

Thanks,


- Jesse
Click to expand...

If Asus releases a version of the TF-700 for the Windows 8 platform, you may want to give is a look. It's the high resolution, Windows 8 version of the Eee Pad Transformer Prime with 1920x1080 display and a 5-core processor that currently is available with Android 3.2, in a lower res version. It has up to 16hrs battery life, keyboard etc so it may suite your needs quite well. It's supposed to be available in 2nd quarter of this year (March to May timeframe)
 
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