Is laptop the environmentally friendly solution?

TigerUK

TigerUK

TigerUK

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Hi

I've finally managed to get onto the forums, after 3 failed registration with a hotmail account, I then read the faq's and realised I had to enter my isp email.

So here I am!

Ok I used my PC pretty much 12 hours a day, for my work (I do internet marketing), surfing the web, facebooking, online dating, watching TV with my USB TV, and torrenting.

I'm a bit concerned about the environment, and given the hike in energy prices I wanted to move away from my energy muching desktop (currently an AMD 64 3000 cpu homebuilt system).

I was wonder firstly,

a) how much more energy efficent is a latop
b) are laptops designed for long use like I am doing now
c) what models can you recommend.

and

d) if I'm better off on a desktop what can I do to minimize enrgy use.

Thanks

Karim
 
Do you really mean you are concerned about the environment or that energy costs are starting to sting you in the pocket :p

The average 15.4" laptop designed for office/web/general work with onboard or low end discrete graphics would I should think be quite a lot more energy efficient than a desktop, for a start the whole thing will run off a 65w portable power brick in all likelihood. More powerful laptops can use 90w or even 120w+ for the serious gaming laptops.

When you consider the fact that most of us run desktops with a constant power draw in excess of 200w from the base unit and probably at least 40w from an average lcd, a lot more if you use an older and large crt.

You could build a very energy efficient desktop though but I doubt you're going to get a desktop lcd monitor to use little enough power to make the whole package use less power on average than the average laptop ...I doubt you would even get it close. Still, I could be wrong.


Laptops can of course be used all day if you want, many people work on laptops, I know I have one switched on for a good 14 hours a day typically, with no problems.

As for what I would recommend. Well for serious work I would recommend the Hewlett Packard business line, depending on exactly what you want from it would depend on which exact model you would buy though, I'm talking about the higher grade models with the 3 year warranties and magnesium alloy chassis etc not the much cheaper ones with the 1 year warranties. I use an HP 8710P myself, that's a 17" laptop with a 2ghz C2D and an Nvidia Quadro NVS 320 M (basically a Geforce 8700GT) but that's a pretty high end laptop that's really a lot more powerful and expensive than you'd be looking at for typical web work and general internet and office usage.

Also I would recommend the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad T series. Or if you're looking to spend less the R series is pretty decent so I'm told. Although I only have first hand experience with the T series.

As for using a desktop efficiently, I'd say get a more modern CPU and graphics card that will downclock when you do not require full power, set the power scheme to switch the lcd into standby when you don't actively use the machine for more than about 15 minutes, or whatever you find convenient. Also a lot of the modern power supplies from the likes of Corsair and Enermax are over 80% efficient, which is much better than many of the older ones.
 
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Nice post from Moeks there, agree with everything above. :)
I'd like to throw the Dell Studio 17" into the mix, nice powerful laptop and a decent size for every day use.
 
Something that has not been mentioned; if you are running your machine for that length of time and you are connected to the mains, remove your battery to preserve the life of it. I may have wrecked a battery on the Thinkpad T42 as I rarely took it off the mains.

Now the battery lasts about 8 mins...
 
Thanks Moeks, that was very valuable post.

Im still trying to weigh up my options, and right now I'm thinking I won't be able to move away from the PC given that.

I do a lot of printing, occasionay disc burning, the convenience of the keyboard, the 6.1 sound system I have gotton rigged up.

I will consider the energy saving PSU, and CPU when idle, that seems like a good option. My PSU may be on it's way out, as it's become incredibly noisy and given that I have a cheap 500w Q-tec which I bought from ebay for 25 quid 3 years ago.

The noise is pretty bad and that's more reason to get rid of it for an energy efficient model.

Tiger
 
i have just moved in to a new house for 3 months and the bills here are high to start with so have moved away from my desktop pc for torrents day 2 day use and now keep it for what it was made for witch is games only

and now use a macbook pro and tbh it has helpped with the bills as my pc would eat up a lot of power but buy not having it running all the time by bills did drop

laptops do use less power most of the time but it depends of setting and the state of your desktop computer

if u really are going for less power run your laptop in power save mode all the time with as much stuff off as possible

but then running a desktop pc in power save mode might be ok depending on spec and stuff
 
Hi, another factor I forgot to mention is affordability.

I've stumbled onto Gateway MT6832b Laptop Core Duo T5300 1.73GHz, 1GB RAM, 100GB HDD, DVDRW, Vista

for £284.99

15 inch screen




Also my desktop is a

AMD 64 3000 cpu
1gb RAM


performance wyse which will be better the laptop or the desktop??

Thanks for all the help, appreciate it a lot.
 
you could still hookup the printer/6.1 speaker system to a laptop, it just means that your going to have to look for a laptop with a speaker connection that you use currently. what do you mean by the convience of the keyboard? that you can sit back and use it far away (assuming its wireless ofcourse)
 
sja360 said:
what do you mean by the convience of the keyboard? that you can sit back and use it far away (assuming its wireless ofcourse)
Click to expand...

Most people I know prefer a 'real' keyboard to a laptop's one, this is mainly because they have learnt to touch-type on them, which may make typing on a laptop harder.

Personally, I prefer a laptop's keyboard over a desktop one any day. :)
 
Can definatly reccomend the Thinkpad T series range, awesome machine and really good warranty. R series are the same internals but in a slightly heavier package.

T61 is what im currently using, C2D 2.4, 2gb, 100gb 7200, Nvidia Graphics, Vista Ultimate and i love it, prefer the keyboard to a normal desktop keyboard as i find i can touchtype much faster on the laptop.
 
i moved away from my pc to a laptop. my ps3 uses 5 times more juice than my laptop does playing a bluray (the laptop uses 35w!) and closer to 7 times for the pc.

Shadows1990 said:
Most people I know prefer a 'real' keyboard to a laptop's one, this is mainly because they have learnt to touch-type on them, which may make typing on a laptop harder.

Personally, I prefer a laptop's keyboard over a desktop one any day. :)
Click to expand...

the keyboard on my vaio fw is the best keyboard i think i have ever used. better than my dinovo even.
 
Hi at the moment, I have this machine in my sight, and will buy it soon.

****link removed as linking to competitors isn't allowed***

It's tthe best deal I've seen so far, and probably the cheapest 17 inch laptop out there right now (£299). (that I could find)

Specs

* AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core TK55
* Memory: 2x 512MB RAM
* Hard Drive: 80GB Hard Disk Drive
* Graphics Card: NVIDIA nFORCE 630M Chipset with NVIDIA GeForce 7000M
* Optical Drive: DVD SuperMulti, CD/DVD reader/writer for all types of CD/DVD discs
* Audio: Dolby Digital Live surround sound
* Connectivity: Wireless LANB/G, 4 x USB 2.0 Ports, 5 in 1 Card Reader
* Operating System: Windows Vista Premium:Additional Software: Acer Empowering Technology, Acer Arcade, Norton Internet Security Trial, Adobe Reader, NTI CD Maker
* Display Size: 17" WXGA TFT Display with Acer CrystalBrite technology

I'll need to buy more ram, maybe 2x4gb sticks, and then it should run fine...

do you guys have any better offers out there in a similar price bracket that is better value.

Thanks
 
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