Learned gentry, which laptop? (I'm a power whore)

consultech

Hey all,

I am in the process of researching a new lappy purchase, which will be used predominantly for the usual, as well as: Typing notes in college, Extracting large .rar archives, the odd conversion of ~100mb audio files, occasionally watching high-res movies on the go. I'm not a big gamer, and I prob won't be, save the odd interesting title (nothing too graphically-exhaustive like C.O.D. etc tho).

I was considering getting a decent netbook with ~2GB RAM for all note-taking and commutes home, as well as a seperate bigger laptop to use at home (maybe 15", I'd go as small as 13.5-14"). My budget for everything is €1200-1500. The more I think about it though, the more a lone small-enough laptop will do, and I can spend on one very good unit as opposed to two mediocre. No point in being frustrated by both an impotent netbook and a middle of the road lappy.

The thing is; I know I don't need anything special at all, but future-proofing is big with me, and I like having the power there if I need it. I'm ideally looking for something with over 2.5GHz CPU (i7 if poss, but can someone tell me how i7 stands up to 2.5GHz C2D etc???), 4GB/8GB DDR3 RAM (or upgrade space for 8GB) / >320GB HDD / >6 hours battery life (nb). Assuming half decent graphics card, the rest isn't all too important (correction welcome).

I've been looking at HP Envy's, Kobalts, Toshiba Qosmio's, Lenovo thinkpad's etc. I'm not interested in Acers for personal experience reasons!


Can a learned fellow suggest a decent unit/source for my intended purposes? As said, I know a €400 1.8GHz/2GB DDR2 would probably do the trick, but I'd like somethin special. It should also be noted that my purchase wiull prob be around July, so I'm not sure how this interacts with upcoming releases etc.

Thanks in advance!

Overheal

what year of college are you in and what kind of home-commut situation are you in?

After my 1st year of college I bought a pretty beefy laptop because living out of the US there was no practical way to operate a desktop and I needed the power. I also planned on needing it for at least 3 years.

But like you said if youre an hour or two away from home, and you do a lot of work from the bedroom etc. then I would go with the 400e netbook and spend the rest on a powerful desktop, which will do most of your work and can easilly be carried by car.

The desktop will have better price : performance and is much easier to upgrade over time. Laptops as you probably learnt are hard to upgrade and susceptible to accidents; putting too much money into them can prove risky. I've already spent an additional $400 on new power cables, memory, and a new lcd screen; and im just entering year 3 with this thing.

consultech

Im doing a 4 day week course each night, living about an hour away from home. Will be commutin to work/from college nearby. Desktop probably not really a runner, I think I'd like everythin on the one laptop. I'm not really a sit-upright-at-a-computer-desk kinda guy, more a laptop-on-my-lap-in-front-of-the-telly.

I must also mention that it's not likely to get damaged etc, as it's not a pile the bags in the corner of the student bar-type of course, but I know accidents can happen, but I've never had one in 4 laptops.

AIR-AUSSIE

I have been looking at this sony here

Looks sweet think its only out in a week or so. Although they seem to be available on amazon.

consultech

I had a look at that Vaio Z (held one earlier today in Sony Centre), looks fairly sweet alright. I just have a natural scepticism about Vaio's though. This opinion was formed during some research 5 odd years ago when they were an exorbitant rip-off compared to similar standard specs/hardware for the sake of glossy finishes and illuminated Sony logos etc. Perhaps Sony have priced them more competitively these days, but I still consider them in the Macbook/Alienware etc bracket, they still seem to be priced as such anyway.


Has anyone got any more ideas?