Spec me a netbook/notebook

Tute · 11 Dec 2010 at 21:28

Hey all, looking for some advice.

The girlfriend wants to get herself a laptop for University work. As it's primarily for this (we have PCs for gaming), the most important thing is portability and battery life. It does need to be as quick as possible though, minimum 1GB RAM but 2GB preferred, and hopefully dual core (Atom N550/Intel SU).

However, if there's something in the budget with dedicated graphics, and said graphics don't impact battery life too much, then by all means suggest it.

Would like 11-13" screen, but not at the sacrifice of battery/portability.

Budget is circa £300.

What do you suggest?

Tute · 11 Dec 2010 at 21:30

Was looking at those, are people really getting the best part of 8hrs out of the battery, even with a dedicated GPU?

Tute · 11 Dec 2010 at 23:18

Fair enough. I've been seeing some that claim to just have Intel Integrated graphics, do some come without the ATI chip on them?

Tute · 12 Dec 2010 at 16:16

Got it, thanks. She's very interested in this, although she's worried that she's gonna end up installing The Sims on it if the graphics are any good.

LOL, women.

Tute · 15 Dec 2010 at 21:58

Auderved.

Two questions.

1. External optical drive - any of you bothered with one?

2. Laptop cases - anything to recommend? I use a Neoprene 13.3" sleeve for my Macbook, is there something similar for non-Macs or would one of those fit fine?

Tute · 15 Dec 2010 at 23:25

Tute · 20 Dec 2010 at 22:01

Hey all, got some more questions. Hope you don't mind me putting them here but i'm worried they'd get snowed under in the main thread. (arf arf)

The laptop arrived and we fired it up to find the usual array of crap pre-installed. Also we don't want to keep Vista either.

So what's the best direction to take? Windows 7 or XP? If W7, which version? Do either come in the box with it? What about drivers for either OS? Or do I just take the latest ones off the individual sites?

Thanks.