Mission: Find my perfect laptop

[4ndr3w]

I'm going off to college this fall, and I want a laptop with the following specs:

at least 2.13GHz (core 2 duo or core i3)
4gb of ram (no more, no less)
at least 320gb HDD
at least 9 cell battery!!!! I need more than 8 hours of life!
dedicated gpu, but nothing fancy, i only need one of the following (nvidia only):
9400gt-9600gt, any geforce 100 series, any geforce 200 series below 260m , any geforce 300 series below 360m

these low end gpus will allow for more battery life, but allow me to work with graphic applications (i'm going to major in computer engineering).

thanks in advance. I don't have the time to sift through all the laptops out there. there are OVER 9000!!!!
epic reference....

preferred companies (in order): ASUS (WOOT), dell (home & small business), hp, acer, lenovo.
Stay away from anyone else.

GO!

[4ndr3w]

I finally got bored enough to search myself...
ASUS U30JC-A1 in case anyone cares...

[PantherX]

Personally I am using ASUS F8Sn with these specs:
Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
4GB RAM DDR2-667MHz (3GB Usable as I use 32-bit)
250GB HDD (I think you can upgrade put I prefer to use external HDD)
Nvidia 9500m GS 512Mb Dedicated VRAM

The maximum I was able to use was 4 Hours but that was with the standard battery pack.

Hope this helps

[jrweiss]

I had an IBM T42, and liked it well enough that I replaced it with a Lenovo T500 (the T42 still works, and is used as a backup).

If you need the battery life, get an SSD instead of a spinning HD, and an LED backlight for the monitor. Also, discrete gfx will sap battery life, so look for one with switchable onboard <-> discrete gfx, or onboard only.

[4ndr3w]

the asus one i found (listed above) has switchable graphics (yay!) and supposedly gets 10 hours idle, 8 hours regular use (who knows what that means...)

i figure when i get it, i'll just stick a 60gb ssd in and that will make a hell of a difference in speed and battery... won't hold much though...

[7im]

When you need more space, just plug in a 64 GB thumb drive, which doubles your storage.

[P5-133XL]

Don't ever believe the battery life statistics: Manufacturer's lie big time here using the "up to" phraseology. 4-6 hours is the most any of them actually give which is not even close to 12 hours.

[patonb]

Well it is if you just turn it on and walk away.... 3% cpu and screen off, while plugged in for 5hrs of the 12h

[k1wi]

Another thing to think about when looking to increase battery life - the relative amount of energy you save swapping out a mechanical drive and replacing it with an SSD isn't actually that great, compared with the amount of energy required to power the rest of the computer, CPU etc. (At best, a mechanical HDD will consume ~3 watts and less @ idle)

see: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd ... 968-8.html

[jrweiss]

Also, if you're Folding, the CPU and/or GPU will be running at or near full-tilt, so battery life will be WAY low. At 100% battery, my T500 battery meter sez about 3+30 with Folding suspended, and 1+05 with both CPU clients running.

[4ndr3w]

trust me, i don't plan on folding on my laptop. That's what my 3.6ghz c2d and gtx 260 + 8800gts is for.

also i hope to move up to a gtx480 next year.