Lowest Power consumption laptop

Blackbadger · 17 Jul 2011 at 00:40

I'm looking for a laptop that has a very low power consumption.

It is to be used in remote Africa where power is at a premium.

My netbook with the atom appears to take approx 13w from the wall which is great, however the screen is just too small/low res to make it practical to use. My experience with atom cpu's and a ssd is great for light office work. Are there larger atom based notebooks ? Ofc if there is a amd or other alternative then great.

Requirements

15"+ screen
Low Power consumption (15-20 Watts)
No 3D or video (movie) acceleration needed.

PhoenixSP · 17 Jul 2011 at 09:08

have you considered another source of power , eg solar ?then your requirements wouldnt have to be so strict.

Blackbadger · 17 Jul 2011 at 11:44

Solar will be the source.. Power availability is very limited.

Scrutinize · 17 Jul 2011 at 16:32

I am surprised that I am the first to recommend

Seriously though something like the 13" HP Pavilion DM1-3100sa which has the AMD E350 processor has to the the lowest power consumption in a usable laptop @ 18w iirc. Only costs £349 and it is much better than a netbook.

I assume if you run off the mains without the battery the laptop will draw less power as well where it isn't trying to charge itself.

Blackbadger · 17 Jul 2011 at 16:52

Those OLPC's are a nice idea in theory however as of yet they are not really "functional" items. (nor even available). They do only however peak at 2-3w usage

.

Unfortunately the HP Pavilion DM1-3100sa appears to be only 11" which is just too small to be able to use comfortably.

The reason for selecting a portable device instead of a desktop is due to laptops effectively having a built in UPS. The power is unreliable and in short supply.
Cheers guys keep the idea's coming. There has to be some comfortably useable device that doesn't needlessly use large amounts of power.

Scrutinize · 17 Jul 2011 at 17:16

Blackbadger said:
Those OLPC's are a nice idea in theory however as of yet they are not really "functional" items. (nor even available). They do only however peak at 2-3w usage .

Unfortunately the HP Pavilion DM1-3100sa appears to be only 11" which is just too small to be able to use comfortably.

The reason for selecting a portable device instead of a desktop is due to laptops effectively having a built in UPS. The power is unreliable and in short supply.
Cheers guys keep the idea's coming. There has to be some comfortably useable device that doesn't needlessly use large amounts of power.

Sorry, missed it being a 11" however the HP 635 is a 15" with the same processor and 5 hour battery life. Comes in a £399

Lenovo Idea Pad U450 has the intel SU4100 in and 14" at under £300 and the G575 has the E350 15" in at £349

Blackbadger · 17 Jul 2011 at 18:18

Thanks for searching those out - appreciated.

It looks like the amd chip itself is pretty thirsty and approx 10% faster than a atom, the systems take around 30w without battery plus come with 65w psu's. This is probably due to the better gfx. This ofc isn't terrible however it's 2x more than wanted.

- Gah - after a silly amount of googling this weekend it appears that intel/amd/microsoft etc have set limits on the specifications of portable devices, and that manufacturers are not permitted to produce low power devices with screens bigger than 11".

What a load of *!X¬ !!!!!

Hmm I wonder if some eastern company have made a "clone" of a macbook pro or similar with low power internals

- that could be interesting.

>>> Found one

Now if only such items were available legitimately in the UK :/

Hmmmmm

Scrutinize · 17 Jul 2011 at 19:54

Have you considered a windows tablet, samsung 10.1 tablet or even asus transformer?

Blackbadger · 17 Jul 2011 at 20:33

All too small at 10" - No benefit over a conventional netbook, I cant see a touch screen helping. It's to be used at a desk for email/excel etc.

It looks like the low power (still respectable performance) devices have been "artificially" restricted to a small size due to some market controlling nonsense by the chip makers.

Another alternative - which just seems silly would be to use a regular netbook with a low power external screen, such as this one from dell which runs at 18 watts.
However it seems stupid to have 2 screens. - Plus the total wattage would be again just over 30w.

Sorry to shoot your suggestions down, they are appreciated. - Just not quite what I'm after.

- keep em coming.

Scrutinize · 17 Jul 2011 at 20:58

Blackbadger said:
- Gah - after a silly amount of googling this weekend it appears that intel/amd/microsoft etc have set limits on the specifications of portable devices, and that manufacturers are not permitted to produce low power devices with screens bigger than 11".

Blackbadger said:
All too small at 10" - No benefit over a conventional netbook, I cant see a touch screen helping. It's to be used at a desk for email/excel etc.

It looks like the low power (still respectable performance) devices have been "artificially" restricted to a small size due to some market controlling nonsense by the chip makers.

Another alternative - which just seems silly would be to use a regular netbook with a low power external screen, such as this one from dell which runs at 18 watts.
However it seems stupid to have 2 screens. - Plus the total wattage would be again just over 30w.

Sorry to shoot your suggestions down, they are appreciated. - Just not quite what I'm after. - keep em coming.

Your googling seems to have answered your own question really.

How about a 12" netbook ASUS Lamborghini VX6-BLK119M @ a tad under £500? I used a 12" for work for a while and it is quite usable.

Won't an external monitor + netbook drain more power than a laptop though?

Otherwise, you could look at the AMD neo K685 in something like a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 which is pretty low power consumption. Or something with an intel SU7300 in like the acer timeline 4820?

Best you will get otherwise you will need to look into better portable power solutions rather than low power drain laptops.

PhilthyPhil · 17 Jul 2011 at 21:43

My Asus UL30A draws about 16w from the wall with full brightness and wifi on when not charging. Maybe still a bit small though as its only 13.3".

sarge78 · 17 Jul 2011 at 23:15

Blackbadger said:
Another alternative - which just seems silly would be to use a regular netbook with a low power external screen, such as this one from dell which runs at 18 watts.
However it seems stupid to have 2 screens. - Plus the total wattage would be again just over 30w.

The Asus Transformer has a HDMI out and only uses 2-4 watts

x86 processors are a bad choice if your only using it for email/spreadsheets/word processing/browsing.

This is probably no help to you but there should be a few 13"+ ARM based netbooks coming over the next 6 months before the Windows 8 rush.

Rebranded Asus Neo netbook. (Asus should have a few out soonish too?)
Dual/quad core SoC.
Shouldn't draw more than 2-5 watts max.
Gingerbread OS + Polaris Office 3.0 (or Google Chrome but assume you won't have a reliable net connection

)