[chesebert]

My T61 gets 7hrs of battery life with the slim bay battery...and that's with wifi on and 30% brightness

 

[minimelody]

Looking for an affordable, light and small laptop for school use any recommendation? is there any cons to mini laptop? would prefer to have different colors to choose from

 

[MD1032]

Quote:

Originally Posted by minimelody /img/forum/go_quote.gif Looking for an affordable, light and small laptop for school use any recommendation? is there any cons to mini laptop? would prefer to have different colors to choose from

Sony Vaio Z, SR, or SZ series are all pretty small. The SZ's are a good value when they go on sale.

Thinkpad X series is a really nice laptop, but it's only one color.

I would stay away from the really really small laptops (11" or smaller screen) because it's just so frustrating to use something that small. 12" is pushing it, and I'd say for ultimate portability, 12" is it, and buying anything smaller is futile (might as well get a PDA beyond that like my HP 210). I think a 14" screen is very usable and worth the tradeoff in size and weight compared to a 15". When I compared my 14" T60 to my friend's 15" R60e, I was surprised by exactly how much bigger a 15" laptop really is, especially with the extended battery sticking out that he had.

In my opinion, if you're buying a small laptop, you should get a docking station and bring your monitor, keyboard, and mouse along with. I do this with my Thinkpad and it's great, plus it allows me to run a dual-screen setup.

If you can't stand to use docking stations or monitors or anything like that and want just a laptop that'll sit in your dorm for the majority of the time, I would undoubtedly say just go for a 17" laptop with a keypad because when it comes to doing work, especially in MSOffice, bigger is better. A small laptop seems great until you try to do any actual work on it. I cannot stand to use my Dell D600's 14" 1024x768 screen, while I can get loads of work done very efficiently with the huge real estate of my T60's 14" 1400x1050 screen.

That's the other thing you need to look out for: Whatever size laptop you choose, get THE BEST, highest resolution screen for that laptop.

 

[bonkon]

If you have limited budget, check this back to school guide. Any of the laptops will do fine. If you have a budget of at least $1000 then I would go with the mini laptop/netbook + desktop combo.

As for cons of a netbook is that it is not meant as your main working station. It is great for taking notes, browsing etc... and the weight of this things makes it a joy to carry around. But again nothing beats a real desktop with fullsize keyboards for real work.

 

[3X0]

I'm just taking a Macbook and a keyboard, mouse and monitor with me. I think I'll live leaving my gaming rig at home because I'm not really going to game at all in school, and besides that it's gigantic. The Macbook does everything I need to (I went for the top-of-the-line black model and upgraded to 4GB of G-Skill RAM from Newegg for multi-tasking and running Parallels with a customized XP Pro).

Think carefully about your needs and what you're actually going to realistically do. For many people, a decent laptop will suffice. I figured I'm not really going to want to sit around in my dorm and game on my free time, so the Macbook perfectly suits me.

A close friend of mine has a Sony from the SZ series and it is VERY nice as well.

 

[ShinyFalcon]

Argh this is difficult! The Sony SR model I'm looking at took a price dive from $1419 to $1299... irresistible!

Looking at what I did last year, I never tried playing games, but only because my Inspiron had integrated graphics. I probably would not find time to game anyways, since all I did was read Head-fi. I find myself leaning towards getting a dedicated notebook... but I do want to build my first desktop rig.

My final desktop rig is around $1050 with shipping, and although I didn't intend for it to be a gaming rig, it came to be so. E8400, ATI 4850, 2GB, 500GB, 19" WXGA+. And for my netbook, I really don't know, but the wireless quality is what's important for me. I wouldn't want drop outs while I download.

 

[tohni]

Right now I own a 14" HP laptop which is more than enough. After longer reading though, my eyes get really tired and I wished I had a brighter screen. The thinkpads do have fairly bright screens though. If I were in your position, I'd get a x31 Thinkpad (12" and absolutely silent) and a Macmini. That is the combo I am dreaming of right now.

 

[-=Germania=-]

I can tell you that for me - I would have loved to be able to own one of those little computers - trust me!

But, having an iPod touch and being in a dicipline that requires teh use of a large amount of computing power....means that I have most bases covered.

The EEE PC is a really easy thing ti use and very durable. I would reccomend that and then buiklding your own computer. That will mean that you can get a very nice and large monitor. I have a 21" and could not live without one now.

 

[bonkon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShinyFalcon /img/forum/go_quote.gif My final desktop rig is around $1050 with shipping, and although I didn't intend for it to be a gaming rig, it came to be so. E8400, ATI 4850, 2GB, 500GB, 19" WXGA+. And for my netbook, I really don't know, but the wireless quality is what's important for me. I wouldn't want drop outs while I download.

$1050? Where are you buying? Try newegg. I helped my collegue build a system similar to yours not so long ago and it cost him much less with a good samsung 22" screen. He build from scratch, the only thing he didn't buy was, keyboard, mouse and DVD drive. With the mail in rebates everything costs him less than $900 from newegg. He got a deal for the 4850, $170 and free 2GB Ballistix gaming memories.

You know that your final rig is an awesome gaming rig. I mean on a 19" resolution there is no game that you cannot run at max settings including crysis (I think). If you are not interested in overclocking and crossfire you can cut costs on the mobo or even a micro atx one.

As for netbook and wifi, I never had any problem with my asus eee 700 when I had it. So I will not hesitate getting either the acer one or the msi wind, which I will.

 

[ShinyFalcon]

Yes I built my rig at Newegg, but maybe you can help me lower down the cost a bit. The 19" is one of the Samsung screens as well.

Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg

Shipping brings the price up to $1070.

 

[YamiTenshi]

I just got the Thinkpad R61i in May and love it. I got the extended battery and have been able to get over 6 hours of battery life. It's smaller than my old HP 15.4" and much easier to carry around. I figured out I didn't need a big screen on the go anyway, but 12" was just too small, so 14.1" was perfect. It also doesn't stand out when compared to my classmates HPs, Dells and Sonys. Everything seems to be in order except the fact that Vista eats all my memory, but that was expected.

I also suppose having both a laptop and a desktop. I have a six year old HP desktop that runs just fine for its age. Sometimes I find XP actually runs faster than Vista for simple programs. But its especially important to me to have a back up whenever one computer crashes or acts up and I need to get work done.

 

[bonkon]

The trick with newegg is to go for mail in rebates and combo deal. At the end my collegue paid $980-$90 mail in rebates, total of $890 shipping included with better screen, bigger HD, OC and crossfire capable mobo.

The wishlist thing doesn't work so here is a pic



He got the same case and screen, both are excellent and regarded as one of the best in their category. I have seen his screen and have to say it kicks my 19" big time in size obviously and quality. I also use an older Antec case myself and love it, the sonata III is even quiter than mine and the PS is also very good. Don't cut on HD, you will always need space and the difference between 250 and 500GB is $15. DDR 1066 is a waste of money, buy 2x2GB DDR 800 instead but if you want to save cash this memory will do fine. 2GB will meet all your gaming/working needs and you can always add another 2x1GB for cheap in the future. Your choice of mobo is good and OC friendly. Get the powercolor on a combo deal with E8400, saves you some money. All HD4850 available now have the same specs, so no difference really. Get the Asus one if you want a well known brand, but no combo deal there. Total shipping to TX $933.36 - $75 mail in = $858.36.

Now if you want to go even cheaper, then cut cost on processor first and graphics after if gaming is not your priority and want a quieter pc. Taking for eg. E7200 will save $50, it is a more recent processor and can be oc with your mobo easily and savely/stably to perform better than E8400 (of course the E8400 can be oc too). You can easily squeeze out $100-150 from proc. and graphics (taking 9600GT or HD3850/70 is another $50-100 saved) and still have a good $700 rig with an excellent 22" screen that can play games and kick the crap of all the laptops mentioned here by far. Case and screen are the base and you will keep it for next upgrades, so better not to cut there.

For bang for the bucks, I would keep everything and add $30-40 for a P45 mobo with crossfire capability to have the possibility to add another HD 4850 in the future. That's because I like gaming on the pc

and the wii for a change. Hope that helps.

 

[Zuerst]

laptop + laptop dock + lcd monitor ftw

 

[Akabeth]

ShinyFalcon, I think to have a laptop and desktop running will increase your productivity. I'm on the 2nd year in my university too.

 

[Breakdown]

I plan on getting a Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 when it's released in a month. Always wait before you need the laptop to buy.