Advice on buying a lightweight(ish) laptop

EmmaHill

For the first time in my life I'm going to have to buy myself a laptop rather than just using what work has provided. Despite the fact that I'm pretty geeky this is proving to be a pain in the behind as the various online sites can be rather coy about the exact specs and I'm tired of getting patronised in shops (I'm looking at you, The Laptop Shop in Steven's Green shopping centre).

Here's what's important to me:

• windows - MacOS irritates me and I can't be bothered with Linux, despite the fact that the OS I've used most is unix. Most of the programs I use at home run on Windoze and I don't want the bother of running an emulator.
• fairly lightweight - it's going to be the machine I take with me when I travel, and no, I'm not interested in a tablet or notebook, the ones I've played with are too slow and don't have the hardware I want.
• fairly small - see above, and I'd like it to be able to carry it in a largish handbag rather than having to use a specific laptop bag. Yes, I have girly moments, also most laptop bags scream 'expensive s**t inside, please steal me'.
• and on that note a port for a cable lock - I've no idea if these ports are standard but since I'll be sometimes leaving it in hotel bedrooms I want to be able to secure it.
• a CD/DVD read/writer - yes I know that rather contradicts the above but I'd want to watch DVDs on it and play CDs and I don't want the hassle of an an external drive. I also want to be able to transfer stuff to disc
• built-in webcam - I have way too many peripherals and I'd like to minimise that
• more than 2 USB sockets - and ideally not in a stupid place like on the Toshiba M5 I'm currently using where they get in the way of the mouse. I'd like to avoid having to use a USB hub if possible
• decent battery life - because I like to watch movies on long plane, train and ferry journeys
• do I need to state that I want a reasonable amount of RAM?

And here's the don't needs:

• I'm not a game player, so ultra fast or high-end graphics are not worth paying for.
• Not interested in expensive warranties/contracts. If I can't fix it I know plenty of people who can.

What would I use it for:

• email, web, skype (yawn)
• watching DVDs, playing CDs
• office docs
• occasionally some maths/stats/analysis geekery (Matlab, R, SAS, Jmp, Mathematica etc etc)
• I do tend to run several apps at the same time

Price? Don't want to spend silly money but prepared to throw up to say 800 euros at it if the spec it warrants it. On the other hand if there's something much cheaper available that would make me very happy.

So, laptop-specialists, what should I be looking at?

thanks in advance
--Emma

marco_polo

The 14" Acer Aspire TimelineX 4830 seems to tick most of those boxes and is very reasonably priced, not sure about a few of them like the cable lock. It would be better with 4GB of ram but 3gb is usually plenty for most people, if you find you could use a bit more it is easily upgraded and RAM is pretty cheap nowadays.

I think PC World stock them currently so you could pop in to see one in the flesh (and then shop around online for the best price of course )

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_TimelineX_4830T_1091458.html

rusty_racer94

I got a Dell N5110 a month ago, a very good laptop for the money!

EmmaHill

Thanks marco_polo, that Acer looks really promising. It even has the port for a lock

dazzday

The TimelineX is a very solid option.

Another similar option would be the Toshiba Portege R850. Pros over the TimelineX would mainly be the Matte Screen (ideal for traveling with reflections etc). Also slightly lighter and better real-world battery life.

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Toshiba_Satellite_Pro_R850-16H_1077316.html

rusty_racer94

PS: The Dell has a 500 GB hardisk and 4BGB ram and it's got an i3 processor and Windows 7.