~£800 ultraportable: what would you do?

Mattus · 24 Sep 2011 at 06:07

Hi all,

Becoming a student again soon, so in the market for a new laptop! Looking for a 12-13 inch machine, to be used mainly for MS Office stuff, web browsing and perhaps the odd episode of Peep Show on the train. Budget is about £800 after educational discounts, although I could probably stretch to £900 if necessary.

Usability and portability are much more important than performance. I'd like a "proper" processor rather than a crippled low-voltage one and a 7200rpm hard drive, but the slowest standard Core i3 and integrated graphics would be fine. Things which are particularly important to me are:

Long battery life. My previous Vaio was good for about 6 hours of browsing/Word. I'm looking to at least match that (and preferably to beat it).
Low weight. Again, my previous machine was about 1.8kg. I don't want to go any heavier than that.
Quiet. The Vaio had a really whiny CPU fan, and it drove me to distraction. I'd like as close to silence as possible when doing non-CPU intensive tasks.

Good display. Not looking for massive resolution, but want the screen to be reasonably bright, with decent viewing angles.
Good build quality. This is going to be schlepped around on the train and to lectures all week, so it needs to endure a reasonable amount of day-to-day abuse without falling apart.
Integrated 3G would be a nice bonus.

The machines I have in mind at the moment are:

Lenovo ThinkPad X220. This ticks a lot of the boxes: superb battery life, portability and build quality. Can also be configured with 3G and the premium IPS display, which is apparently fantastic. Main problem is that it's so damn ugly! Whilst looks aren't a massive factor, If I'm blowing nearly a grand on a laptop, I'd rather it didn't look like it's nearly as old as me.

Dell Vostro V131. Much prettier than the ThinkPad, with similar spec, 3G and excellent battery life. But considerably heavier, and apparently the display is rubbish.

Toshiba Portege R700. Attractive, very light, excellent battery, 3G. But mediocre display, and reports of a noisy fan (which is an absolute dealbreaker if true).

MacBook Pro. Stylish, well-made, good screen, reasonable battery. But actually quite heavy compared to the competition; plus no 3G and the requirement to learn OS X.

MacBook Air. Drool-worthy, very light, well-made, excellent display, good battery, SSD. But over budget, comparatively slow, completely non-upgradable and a distinct lack of ports.

So is there one of the above which I definitely should get? Is there one of the above which I definitely shouldn't get? Or have I missed something else which is perfectly suited to my needs?

"andy" · 24 Sep 2011 at 07:25

macbook with student discount

both will be in budget and if its the same as it used to be when student discount is involved both will have a 3 year warranty .

certainly don't let 'weight' (go pick some up , youl never notice) and 'learning osx' (it hardly that different from windows7 imo and you could pick it up in an hour) put you off.

Scrutinize · 24 Sep 2011 at 08:09

for your budget, the mbp with student discount ^^^ is the way to go.

for £899 though you can get the Sony VAIO S series VPCSB1X9E/S which if you can go up to this price would be the ultimate winner....

Part Number: VPCSB1X9E/S.CEK, Stock Code: 6072706,

Intel® Core™ i5-2410M Dual Core Processor, 13.3" HD Screen, Windows 7 Professional Edition 64-bit, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB HDD, DVD Rewriter, Dedicated AMD 6470M Graphics, HDMI, Webcam, Bluetooth, USB 3, 2 Year Sony Warranty, VPCSB1X9E/S.CEK

Mattus · 27 Sep 2011 at 00:18

Thanks guys.

Must admit that the MacBooks look tempting. I'm still not sold on OS X, though. Andy, you're undoubtedly right that I could pick up the basics of OS X in an hour. But it'd take quite a while for me to gain the same level of familiarity that I have with Windows, given that I've been using Windows for nearly 20 years and am still learning stuff! Then there's the inevitable problems with software availability - not so much with major software packages, but more with the kind of random little utilities you download from the web. Plus I quite like Windows 7. I need more convincing

On reflection, I don't think I could buy the ThinkPad. Features-wise, it's all there - but I'd struggle to hand over that much money for something which I'm not going to enjoy using because it's so boxy and ugly. If the technology you use is an extension of your personality, then the ThinkPad's just a bit boring.

On the plus side, just seen Samsung's new Series 7, which is supposedly out this month. It looks a lot like a Windows alternative to the MBP. Providing they can keep the price down and the battery life up, that might be just the ticket for me.

LPC-6 · 27 Sep 2011 at 13:14

No one has mentioned the Acer Timeline X series, but I'd suggest that... I have an Acer Timeline X 4820, mine doesn't have 3G, but there is a model with a 3G module, great battery life and very nice aluminium look to it.

Amp34 · 27 Sep 2011 at 13:41

The series 7 doesn't have anything smaller than 14", you want the series 9, which is already out although possibly a bit over budget (and a good alternative to the MBA).

As mentioned by mrk the S series is a good bet, although there are two versions, the SB and the better, more expensive SA. I guess for your budget the SB it would have be.

There is no reason why you cant install windows on the MBs, yeah it gets all the apple fanboys in a tis alongside all apple haters but it is a sensible thing to d IMO as it is just a laptop, a well built laptop that can be had reasonably cheaply with student discount.

Mattus · 27 Sep 2011 at 16:06

Amp34 said:
The series 7 doesn't have anything smaller than 14"

Aye. The marketing spiel talks about a 14" screen in the body of a normal 13" laptop. If true, that would be great, especially given the high resolution. In practice, though, I reckon it will be quite heavy.

As mentioned by mrk the S series is a good bet, although there are two versions, the SB and the better, more expensive SA. I guess for your budget the SB it would have be.

My last laptop was a Vaio SZ series. Really nice machine, with one fatal flaw - the constant whining of the fan drove me crazy. It even put other people off in the university library. Even my brother's bargain-basement Dell laptop is much quieter than the Vaio. I was hoping that Sony would remedy this in their newer machines, but most of the S-series reviews I read still mention fan noise as an issue.

LPC-6 said:
No one has mentioned the Acer Timeline X series, but I'd suggest that... I have an Acer Timeline X 4820, mine doesn't have 3G, but there is a model with a 3G module, great battery life and very nice aluminium look to it.

Looks like a pretty good machine. I'd have to get over my distrust of Acer computers, though. Two of my friends had Acer laptops and they both stopped working or fell apart within a year! The build quality doesn't seem to be the best.

I'm leaning towards the MBP. I'd probably use OSX on it day-to-day, as I hear using Windows does bad things for the battery life. It'd be good to have Windows available when I needed it, though.

Amp34 · 27 Sep 2011 at 16:36

Mattus said:
Aye. The marketing spiel talks about a 14" screen in the body of a normal 13" laptop. If true, that would be great, especially given the high resolution. In practice, though, I reckon it will be quite heavy.

That's interesting, I may have to go and compare the two side by side. I'm guessing the 7 will be a lot heavier and thicker though.

Scrutinize · 27 Sep 2011 at 19:38

Mattus said:
I'm leaning towards the MBP. I'd probably use OSX on it day-to-day, as I hear using Windows does bad things for the battery life. It'd be good to have Windows available when I needed it, though.

if you want an MBP, i fear you may be disappointed with the other options then, esp as you mentioned the vaio s fan noise. there is no real competition for the MBP, unless you have to have a windows os and even then you can install it.

Wishy · 28 Sep 2011 at 13:31

Thinkpad X1? Most of the functions of the X220, but less fugly?

Mattus · 1 Oct 2011 at 23:34

Scrutinize said:
if you want an MBP, i fear you may be disappointed with the other options then, esp as you mentioned the vaio s fan noise. there is no real competition for the MBP, unless you have to have a windows os and even then you can install it.

Think you're right. I bought the bottom-end MBP today

Pretty pleased with it so far. Obviously a bit of a learning curve with OS X, but it's all reasonably intuitive. I'm finding the machine itself to be very well-made, and almost silent unless you hammer the processor. Battery life is excellent - just browsing the web, I think I'm actually getting a bit more than the 7 hours Apple specifies.

The keyboard is aggravating me a little, though! Some special characters in the wrong places and no page up and down (though I've just discovered Ctrl+Alt+Up/Down. Half of learning a new OS is learning the keyboard shortcuts!)

Aod · 3 Oct 2011 at 18:49

The X220 is ugly? :confused:

best looking laptop on the market! not to mention the most durable out of all the laptops you listed by a really really wide margin.

achitophel · 5 Oct 2011 at 19:35

Mattus said:
Thanks guys.

Must admit that the MacBooks look tempting. I'm still not sold on OS X, though.

On that basis, you could do what I do, and have a bootcamp configured MBP, which usually boots into Windows, unless I'm doing media editing...