Laptop advice (unfortunately mainly for work)

[suicidal_monkey]

Anyone seen a nice, small, laptop recently? The word ultrabook seems appropriate, but notebook is fine too

Fast booting from cold or standby/hibernate, so some flash memory probably needs to be there somewhere. Ssd, Ssd+HDD, or SD+HDD?

Enough power to effortlessly run a typical suite of windows business apps, possibly within a VM. Is that 4, 6, or more GB of ram?

Reasonably portable with a decent battery. 13" maybe? 4+ hours real use would be good but is not absolutely essential.

Blu-ray and HDMI out would be nice.

Enough resources for running a Linux dev environment in a VM would be useful, and enough gpu for some light gaming would be a bonus.

Budget might stretch to a ~1k Mac if it really really has to, but I would obviously rather keep it closer to 500 :beer:

Any suggestions welcomed :thumbup:

[TeaLeaf]

I've been very happy with my 15.6" Asus N55SF which meets all those requirements including HDMI.  I've got the i7 version with 6GB and decent GeForce GT 555M graphics.     Build quality is excellent and they come with the a nice fast boot from sleep/RAM.

Take a peek at their current range, you should find something similar in the £500-700 range.

[sulky_uk]

im with tea on this...got one of the above, cant complain at all

[T-Bag]

I recently got a Acer Aspire S3, ultrabook. It's about £500 for the i5 model. 13.3" Screen, 4GB Ram, great touch pad and keyboard, easily managed 5 hours batter (I got 8 out of it once). Unfortunately I put it away for 2 weeks and when I went to boot it next it was completely and utterly dead. Didn't ever get to the bottom of why, simply returned it for a refund.

I was very impressed with it whilst is lasted though and googling the problem doesn't turn up anyone else with the same problem so I don't think it's particularly prevalent, but it's something to be aware of.

[suicidal_monkey]

Thanks for suggestions, the n46 range look pretty nice (almost the same as the n56 but 14") only nowhere seems to sell them! n56, which I assume are the successor to the n55 are around 750-900 by the look of it. gpu is probably better than my "gaming" laptop :doh:

So many people baulk at the word "acer" it almost puts me off, though my little netbook is going strong (slow though). That I can find in the shops, ...in champagne gold

[T-Bag]

Thanks for suggestions, the n46 range look pretty nice (almost the same as the n56 but 14") only nowhere seems to sell them! n56, which I assume are the successor to the n55 are around 750-900 by the look of it. gpu is probably better than my "gaming" laptop :doh:

So many people baulk at the word "acer" it almost puts me off, though my little netbook is going strong (slow though). That I can find in the shops, ...in champagne gold

I had a first generation acer netbook which lasted me well so I gave them another chance. For the budget nothing else came close which also helped my decision, everything else in the price range was either 11", 14" or 15.6" screens. 11" is too small, 15.6" too big, and the 14" is a size chosen to stretch the definition of ultrabook, so you get a slightly larger screen with the same resolution, but they can get away with it being thicker and heavier and still class it an ultrabook.

If I were to buy another one I'd still consider the S3 i5, because it's an extra £100 to get the equivalent Asus (Zenbook) with near identical specs and very similar rating on Revoo, and and extra £200 to get an equivalent Samsung or Sony offering which have substantially worse reviews. There's plenty of choice at the £1000 price point, but go much under that and you're stuck with those two main candidates which seems a shame because for £1000 you can get a macbook air, which, my feelings about apple aside, is a well put together laptop, no compromising on things like the trackpad etc which is often the case even in high end ultrabooks (although the specs are lower that the completion - but personally I'd trade a good interface for a little performance any day.).

[kregoron]

The Asus range is incredible, knowing quite a few that purchased em and all couldnt be more happy

[TeaLeaf]

Thanks for suggestions, the n46 range look pretty nice (almost the same as the n56 but 14") only nowhere seems to sell them! n56, which I assume are the successor to the n55 are around 750-900 by the look of it. gpu is probably better than my "gaming" laptop :doh:

Think the best I can see for an N56 is £709 for the Asus N56VM-S4110V, next one up is the ASUS N56VJ-S4164H at £764.   The latter is in stock at quite a few places, the cheaper £709 seems to have sold out in most places.

[suicidal_monkey]

So, my shortlist has evolved a bit...

Macs and 1k laptops are off the agenda as I can get what I want for quite a lot less.

The i5 version of the Acer s3 is definitely a contender, is the cheapest at around £470, and is by far the lightest. Main compromise is no Blu-ray or dedicated gpu, ...and having to put up with people telling me Acer are terrible.

The Asus n56vj-4031H is on pre-order at scan for £621 which seems pretty good and is probably the opt option right now. Compared to the s3 it has double the memory, a faster cpu, full HD, dedicated 635 gpu, and blu-ray so still good value. Downside is mainly the increased size and weight. Oh, and the many different model numbers to confuse me! I think the N56VJ-s4164H (as mentioned by TL above) is almost exactly the same but has an  i7 instead of the i5 in the one I linked to - would an i7 be that much quicker?

The Asus n46 range is what I am looking for as it should be almost the same spec at the n56, but slightly smaller. No indication of which way the price would go though and I cannot find for sale anywhere...

[TeaLeaf]

but has an  i7 instead of the i5 in the one I linked to - would an i7 be that much quicker?

Intel Core i5-3210M (PGA) vs Intel Core i7-3630QM

In reality you'd prob not see huge differences unless the application being run can really use multiple cores.   That having being said, the i7 should typiclaly run a little faster with its bigger L1/L2/L3 caches and double the number of cores.

[suicidal_monkey]

Right, decided to go for the extra power and blu-ray, so narrowed the choice to the N56 range, mainly because the N46 is nowhere to be seen in the shops :g:

~£625 for N56VJ-4031H (i5, 8Gb, 635M) - edit: stock never arrived, removed from site, they're checking other models for me
~£765 for N56VJ-S4164H (i7, 8Gb, 635M)
...or even...
~£810 for N56VZ-notspecified (i7, 8Gb, 650M) - details a bit sketchy, could just be typical ebuyer typos? - res say 1600x900 not 1920x1080 and cpu says 2630 not 3630

aaargh, choices. Save money on the i5 (if they get stock) or splash out a little for an i7, or risk the sketchy details of the 650M...

[TeaLeaf]

Tbh, on a laptop I'm not sure you need more than bluray resolution (1920x1080) but afaiaa the N56VZ is still 1920x1080 not 1600x900 .  

I think ebuyer got the PCU wrong as well, from my web search the N56VZ has the 3630, so no worries there.

As for graphics, the 650M is Kepler and way more powerful than the older 635M Fermi.   For me, that would tip the balance towards the N56VZ given that there is so little difference between them in price.

[Vargen]

I think the Asus would be a good buy for the money. And it's Asus so you know what you get.

For work we recently bought a few Lenovo X1 Carbon machines, but they aren't for everyone, and really not for gaming. Small, light and shiny though. They even ditched onboard wired ethernet to make it smaller.

Also Acer? Just no. Don't even..


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[suicidal_monkey]

Is there any benefit in getting Windows 8 over Windows 7HP? The simplyAsus site has a few N56VM-4089V around £600 depending on the ram

Such a pity they don't come with an SSD :/

[T-Bag]

Is there any benefit in getting Windows 8 over Windows 7HP? The simplyAsus site has a few N56VM-4089V around £600 depending on the ram

Such a pity they don't come with an SSD :/

Windows 8 is much faster to boot and comes with a bunch of incremental upgrades like the file manager and performance manager. Many people don't like the start menu though. If you're someone who spends their life browsing your start menu rather than typing your way though it might be an adjustment. They've also move the shutdown button to a stupid location, but on a laptop that doesn't tend to matter.

As far as SSD goes, if it's a true ultra book it has to have a SSD drive built in. The Acer S3 has something like a 20GB hybrid drive built onto the traditional 500GB drive to enable quick booting and faster performance. Part of the specifications of ultrabook say it much resume in 7 (?) seconds. Something that's not really possible with a standard harddrive.