Please spec me a laptop/notebook ...

blackninja · 8 Sep 2010 at 22:40

I am after a laptop/notebook to bring with me on my travels on my motorbike and must be able to do the following:

Be lightweight
Have good battery life
Have at least 2 USB ports capable of charging my camera/phone/gps (saves carrying chargers!)
Capable of storing and smoothly playing 1080p video in H.264 format of my trackday exploits downloaded from my camera (even if downsampled)
Screen resolution sufficient for Remoting into my servers
Use skype to phone home ...

(Microphone & webcam)

I have been carrying my Dell Studio 15 (with 4GB & T9300 Chip) around with me but the above is what I need when on the move so reducing size (more important) and weight would be beneficial!

I will sell the Dell and my other 17" laptop (about £225) to fund this..

Raikiri · 8 Sep 2010 at 23:51

What would your total budget be? Maybe £350-400 for the the Dell on top of the £225?

blackninja · 9 Sep 2010 at 00:03

Raikiri said:
What would your total budget be? Maybe £350-400 for the the Dell on top of the £225?

OK - fair enough, my budget is around £700 inc selling my current laptops ...

Raikiri · 9 Sep 2010 at 00:32

I've just got a DM4 1060, Core i5, 4gb, sub 2kg, very well made etc.

It's £800 but I managed to get it down to £730 in store, might be worth a shot.

TheVoice · 9 Sep 2010 at 00:50

Acer and Asus do a range of 11" to 13" ultraportable notebooks. They're not as limited as netbooks, have comparable (if not better) battery life, and are far better specced. I've got an Acer Timeline 1810T on its way, it's 11.6" so not much bigger than the average notebook, but it's packing a Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, 400GB HDD and about 8 hours of battery life. Not bad for £330!

olivier renault · 9 Sep 2010 at 01:19

Asus 1215N?

olivier renault · 9 Sep 2010 at 01:21

Raikiri said:
I've just got a DM4 1060, Core i5, 4gb, sub 2kg, very well made etc.

It's £800 but I managed to get it down to £730 in store, might be worth a shot.

That's an interesting laptop. Even has dedicated graphics (although weak). What's the battery life on it for light work? Oh yea, backlit keyboard?

olivier renault · 9 Sep 2010 at 01:25

Note that Samsung is about to release a new range, some similar to the dm4.

Here we go. Samsung QX410.

hmm yummy.

Raikiri · 9 Sep 2010 at 02:11

olivier renault said:
That's an interesting laptop. Even has dedicated graphics (although weak). What's the battery life on it for light work? Oh yea, backlit keyboard?

Battery seems to be about 6.5 hours, not backlit keyboard but it's pretty nice to use.

GPU runs games like CoD4 ok though

olivier renault · 9 Sep 2010 at 10:28

I'm thinking of buying one of those once Guild Wars 2 / Diablo III come out. They should scale well with hardware. That would be the sort of ideal laptop for me. Backlit keyboard would be nice though. Should be pretty much standard on £700+ notebooks. As well as matte screen!