Help with laptop choice

cuttersblade · 27 Apr 2009 at 20:54

I have been looking at getting a new laptop, something thats light and easy to carry about and has a good battery life, around the 4 hour mark.

I originally looked at 13.3" laptops such as;

Fujitsu Siemens Amilio si 3655
http://ts.fujitsu.com/home/products/notebooks/amilo_si_3655.html
and the Samsung Q310
http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/detail/detail.do?group=itbusiness&type=notebookcomputers&subtype=qseries&model_cd=NP-Q310-ASS0UK
But i have recently seen the Sony Vaio NS series and wonder if they would be a better choice. I know they are a 15" screen but thats still reasonably mobile.

So bearing in mind this laptop is mainly going to be used for taking to lectures storing music and the odd video, no real gaming only football manager, which one will over the best performance and battery life and be best suited for my needs?

Many thanks

philjohn · 27 Apr 2009 at 21:41

I'd remove the links to competitors unless you want a ban.

As far as laptops go, my father is quite pleased with his FS Amilio (lower end one than posted).

Smit · 28 Apr 2009 at 07:05

Out of those two I would go for the Samsung but the ASS3UK version which has a P8600 CPU.

What is your budget?

cuttersblade · 28 Apr 2009 at 08:35

My budget is up to £700, i dont mind going slightly over if necessary. Does that version of the Q310 have a good battery life?

TheLonely · 28 Apr 2009 at 10:54

I have a different version of the Q310. It's a pretty decent laptop, I managed to get mine for £650 in January with a P8400 processor and 250gb HDD. Battery life is meant to be around 4 hours in the lowest power saving mode. But I never used it in that mode for that long to test.

philjohn · 28 Apr 2009 at 12:42

I'd stear clear of Sony's, they come loaded with so much junk they seem far slower than they really are (yes, you can uninstall a lot of it, but why waste hours of your time each time you do a OS restore?).

Smit · 28 Apr 2009 at 12:50

philjohn said:
I'd stear clear of Sony's, they come loaded with so much junk they seem far slower than they really are (yes, you can uninstall a lot of it, but why waste hours of your time each time you do a OS restore?).

Quite a lot of Notebook manufacturers will do this.
You can just use the windows license you get and do a fresh install (would wipe the restore though if something went wrong)

cuttersblade · 28 Apr 2009 at 14:43

Does the samsung usually come with a windows disk or a recovery partition?

philjohn · 28 Apr 2009 at 15:22

Smit said:
Quite a lot of Notebook manufacturers will do this.
You can just use the windows license you get and do a fresh install (would wipe the restore though if something went wrong)

agreed, most do, Sony take it to another level however.

cuttersblade · 29 Apr 2009 at 19:47

Does anybody know if the Q310 has any compatibility issues running linux mint?