Recommend me a laptop that's...

L31mr0d

...

light
has a great battery life (6hrs+ of continous use)
not a mac
pretty good spec (i.e. can play games from, at most, 4 years ago, wifi, DVD player/burner... etc)

with a 12"- 15" screen

Where should I be looking? Budget, lets say ballpark of 2k.

I really have no experience in laptops so what makes of them should I be looking at. Reliability and battery life are high on my requirements.

majiktripp

Theres the Dell Latitude D430,nice 12" widescreen laptop with a good battery life (you'll get your 6 hours if you get the extended battery) or you could go the route of the (slightly more pricey) Sony Vaio's and IBM's/Lenovo's. Sony's aren't the best value for money but they'll meet most of your criteria being around 13.3" screen wise but lacking in the battery life department.
I recommend highly the IBM X61 range as they're robust as ya like and have outstanding battery life, but maybe not the graphics capabilities that your looking for.
Then there is also the new Dell XPS M1330 which has a 13.3" screen again but wouldn't (as far as I know) have anything near a 6hour battery life unless extended batteries are optional.
In short shop around on Dell and your local PC World (DONT BUY IT THERE THOUGH!,just to window shop!) and see what you think yourself! Then we can give fair opinions on the models you suggest.

TerrorFirmer

Dell Vostros 1500 my friend. For 1K, you can have a 15.4" Screen laptop with 5-6 hour battery life and good games playing abilities, and the remaining 1k to do whatever the hell you'd like. And I'm talking new games - you mention games from 4 years ago, the good news being that the latest IGP's can run those sort of games at higher settings. But the problem then being that with the cheaper laptops, battery life tends to be much poorer with far less capacity.

Here's my 950 Euro 1500 in action

Although people might think I'm ruthlessly pimping the Vostros line all over the place, you have to hand it to dell, nobody else can offer anything as powerful for the same price. However if you're not a gamer it's not anything special, given as the video card is what makes it such a bargain.

A budget of 2k seems like alot for what you want - so you could look at a more expensive portable like the M1210, nice and very compact and still OK for new-ish games like Half Life 2 etc at high settings.

L31mr0d

What about HP, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Acer laptops?

Of those 4 which would be the best. Regarding graphics, it doesn't have to be amazing, just enough to play some older games when i'm on a flight.

Like I said battery life means the most to me. 6hrs is a minimum. What is the MAXIMUM battery life I could get out of a laptop with a continuous use. Plus portability is a must.

Maybe I should organize my list of requirements

1. Battery life
2. Weight
3. Reliability
4. Robustness (can take a few knocks)
5. HDD space
6. Internet
7. Games
8. Movies

Thanks for the advice HavoK, Dell definitely is on my shortlist but i'd like to get a broader picture of all laptops out there. I'd prefer to have a shortlist with 3 laptops from 3 different manufacturers.

TerrorFirmer

Ah, ok. Sorry, when you said games, I thought you might want to play some newer stuff too. In this case, the 1500 wouldn't really be any kind of a bargin. Out of that list, I'd be inclined to go Toshbia or Acer.

I hate HP laptops, had a bit of trouble with a few, and I don't like Fujitsu Siemens either. Generally, they feel very flimsy to me and look tacky. But to be fair I've never had any hardware problems.

Also consider IBM/Lenovo, I can't really look up anything in particular now as I'm in a lecture . But They are extremely well built and rugged laptops and very reliable. A thinkpad was probably the best machine I ever owned. Last time I checked, there were some very good value ones on Laptopsdirect with low end but capable video cards (like Go7300, perfect for the older games) in the 700-950 euro range.

Battery life, you're looking very ambitious. 6 hours is ALOT to consider minimum. Most standard laptops would come with a 6-cell. I have a 9-cell, and 6 hours would be the MAX I could get with just word processing and OS browsing on low screen brightness. I'd get about 3.5 with full brightness, wifi on and net browsing. You can get laptops with 12-cell batterys though. But I'm not sure what models. Hopefully someone else can fill us in.

L31mr0d

Yeah well for gaming i'd say the highest spec i'd be running would be HL2. But mostly on flights it would be pop cap games and maybe worms mayhem.

I'm really looking for a backpacking laptop that I can store a fair amount of data on for the road but will also last me long periods of time without recharge, i'm probably going to be getting a second battery anyway, but i'd like both of them to last as long as possible.

sunny2004

would you not consider a spare battery ?

B00MSTICK

You can get a zepto 6234, a 14" for around a grand atm, which takes a 12 cell. Not sure how long that'll last as its built for performance really. I should be recieving my a 6624 (same model in black) in the next few days so ill let you know.

Black Swan

You might want to include new games someday with heavy graphics and RAM demands? Plus movies when the inflight selection sucks? Why not boost your specs and then buy an extra battery? Have the best of both worlds.

Robustness? Can't remember the issue (PC World or PC Mag), but Toshiba sustained the least damage when dropped three feet onto a hard floor in a test conducted. Dell, HP, or Compact (HP owns them) did not do so well.

delllat

the dell latitude line has 10hour battery life because you can install a second battery in the optical drive area
I have a D630 with 14.1" screen but you can go smaller with the d430 or bigger with the D830(12" and 15.4" screens)
worth having a look as not many laptops can hold 2 batteries
at your budget id look at the lenovo thinkpad t61 aswell
its solid as a rock but im not too sure about battery life

L31mr0d

thanks for all the replies, I will be getting a second battery. Is there any 12"-15" screen laptops out there that take 12 cell batteries but don't require them to awkwardly jut out the back of the laptop (something thats putting me off the Vostros which requires the optional 9 cell battery to jut out 3/4")

RobbieMc

Dell sound fine and looking at the specs these days they look cool, but when you've got a problem, who you gonna call, DELL. More like HELL . Their Tech support is a joke;OK most tech support is a joke and PC world would be top of the list of stores that provide little or no proper support.(don't get me started about how many times I've provided their techies support when I go to my local PC world )
At least if it's bought from a store ( like the laptop shop, Dundrum and Stephens green SC) You can at least have some were to go if you've got a problem.

And no, I don't work for them, I have bought from them and found aftersales service very good.
I have two laptops one for work and the other from the store in question. My work (DELL) cause's me nothing but hassle, my home laptop (Packard Bell easynote) is still going strong and it gets some abuse from me, the wife and my son(himand his Doodlebops website):eek:

Have a look around ALL stores to get a feel for what you want, Ask about aftersales service etc. then make decide.

Good luck