Solved! Portable yet powerful college notebook!

[waynec121]

1. What is your budget? $600-900

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 13"-15"

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1440x900

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Would prefer portability.

5. How much battery life do you need? 5-6 hours

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? Nope

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? Multimedia, MS Office, Internet Surfing, 1080p

8. How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? At least 320GB, Smaller 7200rpm > Bigger 5400rpm

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. Any reliable US site, US retail stores

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 3-4 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD Burner

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. No preference, looking for reliability

13. What country do you live in? US

I have a few necessities: I want a SILENT keyboard. Preferably a soft rubber keyboard mainly on business notebooks. I also would like an anti-glare screen if possible.

Definitely need something better than the Intel integrated graphics. I need something more powerful, but again I am not going to be gaming at all. I would like more of a business style notebook aka classy and subtle. More like the Acer TravelMate Timeline series, if you know what I'm talking about.

Thanks guys.

 

[IsabellaWinTeam]

1. What is your budget? $600-900

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 13"-15"

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1440x900

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Would prefer portability.

5. How much battery life do you need? 5-6 hours

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? Nope

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? Multimedia, MS Office, Internet Surfing, 1080p

8. How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? At least 320GB, Smaller 7200rpm > Bigger 5400rpm

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. Any reliable US site, US retail stores

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 3-4 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD Burner

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. No preference, looking for reliability

13. What country do you live in? US

I have a few necessities: I want a SILENT keyboard. Preferably a soft rubber keyboard mainly on business notebooks. I also would like an anti-glare screen if possible.

Definitely need something better than the Intel integrated graphics. I need something more powerful, but again I am not going to be gaming at all. I would like more of a business style notebook aka classy and subtle. More like the Acer TravelMate Timeline series, if you know what I'm talking about.

Thanks guys.

Hi there,

You should check out the Sony Vaio EB series. It has a fast processor, 15.5" screen, and 4 GB of RAM. You can also update the graphics on it. It starts at $799 and has a nice, sleek business look.

What do you think?

Isabella
MSFT Windows Outreach Team

 

[waynec121]

The sony looks nice, but I am currently have a Sony Vaio. I do not really like the keyboard. I configured the one you showed me, and for the configuration I would want would cost me $1000. I would also prefer a 14" over a 15" for portability.

I was also looking at the HP Elitebook 8440p and the Thinkpad T410. They are a little more expensive, but I am going to be keeping this laptop for about 4 years, if not longer. Does anybody have any input on either of them? Thanks!

I will probably go with one of the 2. Whichever has a better standard warranty and the specs I need for cheaper will probably be the winner.

Does anyone know if they will be refreshing the T410 or the 8440p anytime soon?

 

[IsabellaWinTeam]

The sony looks nice, but I am currently have a Sony Vaio. I do not really like the keyboard. I configured the one you showed me, and for the configuration I would want would cost me $1000. I would also prefer a 14" over a 15" for portability.

I was also looking at the HP Elitebook 8440p and the Thinkpad T410. They are a little more expensive, but I am going to be keeping this laptop for about 4 years, if not longer. Does anybody have any input on either of them? Thanks!

I will probably go with one of the 2. Whichever has a better standard warranty and the specs I need for cheaper will probably be the winner.

Does anyone know if they will be refreshing the T410 or the 8440p anytime soon?

Hi there,

The EliteBook looks like the better choice if you will be using your laptop for multi-media, not just productivity. It also claims to have the best battery life out of the two.

Are you leaning towards either option at this point?

Cheers,
Isabella
MSFT Windows Outreach Team

 

[gerand]

I recently made the decision to buy an Acer Aspire AS5745G-5844.
It is, as far as I know, the best 15.6" notebook performance-wise for $700:
http/www.tomshardware.com/forum/61204-35-best-notebook-performance-wise

I live near the store, so I managed to pick it up locally and now have it on hand. It is a quality, professional-looking notebook and I'm pretty sure it'll last for many years. 15.6" is a bit large, but it's fairly light and it has a hybrid-GPU mode. It uses the integrated Intel graphics to save power, and the discrete GT 330M for when you need the performance so you get the best of both worlds (you can manually switch between either with 2 clicks) . The keyboard is solid and fairly quiet but not silent unfortunately, however the touchpad is one of the better ones I've used though I still prefer my wireless Logitech M305 ($15 at Best Buy).

Software setup with Windows 7 Home Premium was really easy, thanks to Acer. It was also easy to uninstall all the junk that came pre-installed. (If you're going to buy this, I really recommend that you uninstall Acer's "ePower Management Console" asap, because it's completely useless since Windows 7's built-in power management is top-notch and this will only cause grief with the hybrid-GPU power profiles.) Not all of Acer's pre-installed applications are junk though, in fact some of them are really great, like the Identity Card, (which has nothing to do with your personal identity btw) which displays all the relevant model and serial numbers associated with your notebook. Acer's Recovery application is also great and it was very easy to make Restore discs.

The Core i3 350M processor has Hyper-Threading so you'll see 4 processor threads, which is absolutely great for multitasking. On the multimedia side, Nvidia's Geforce GT 330M is extremely compatible with DXVA hardware acceleration, so not even ultra-high bitrate out-of-spec 1080p videos can faze this thing.

Overall, I highly recommend this notebook if you're considering a third option.