RE: Laptop recommendations?

I have an like my Studio 17 laptop (at about 7 lbs) but their 15" line is
pretty sweet.  With a  big rig (2 HD's and a huge screen) I am still getting
about 3 Hrs on battery (assuming I don't game which causes the GPU to such
battery). The Studio 15 should be a lot better than that with smaller
displays and one HD.

 

Thanks,

Shawn Wildermuth

 <http://wildermuth.com/> http://wildermuth.com

 

Note: This was typed on a big ole laptop so any misspellings and
punctuations are completely my fault.not my phone's.

 

From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Marsh, Drew
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 2:43 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [OT] Laptop recommendations?

 

  

Hahah, I find it funny that you say 4.5lbs is heavy. My last-gen Alienware
"laptop" is something like ~8lbs, down from ~10lbs before that. Can't wait
to even have a ~5lb laptop. :)

 

Speaking of which, Dell refreshed their XPS line up, but there still hasn't
been an Alienware refresh. I wonder what's going on, 'cause I've been
holding off buying a new laptop until I saw what they were going to offer.

 

Cheers,

Drew

On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Brad Wilson <[email protected]> wrote:



C2D is a 5 year old architecture. Power management for C2D sucks compared to
all modern i-family CPUs, including the i7, IMO. There's no way I would buy
a C2D laptop today.

There are 3 basic families: i3, i5, i7. The i3 is most similar to the C2D:
fixed clock speed with no turbo boost. The i5 generally adds the ability to
turbo boost, which means it self-overclocks when it determines you're
running a single-threaded CPU-intensive task (like gaming typically is). The
i7 adds hyperthreading to the mix, so your n-core CPU looks like an 2n-core
CPU to Windows. This is better than the Pentium Pro days of hyperthreading
in that it's physically 2 hardware threads, but still set expectations
appropriately in that it's not a true doubling of computational capability
(but perhaps +40%, vs. the +10% from the PPro days).

Core i-family CPUs have desktop and mobile versions, and introduce new ultra
mobile versions with very low clock speeds. I have an Alienware 11" with the
ultramobile i7 640UM <http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=47700> , and the
laptop feels extremely fast, owing more to good speed of disk and modern
architecture than the seemingly anemic CPU speed (1.2GHz). I chose i7 here
because I wanted the hyperthreading to compensate for the low clock speed.

I regularly get ~ 5-6 hours of battery life with it, and when I want, I can
play games at very high detail level (since it has an NVidia 335M). It's
heavy for an 11" laptop (~ 4.5 lbs), but it's built like a tank and is
really a tiny desktop machine at the end of the day, which is what I wanted
for travel (demos/Visual Studio + gaming).

--
Brad    http://bradwilson.typepad.com/



On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Mark Levison <mark-r0EpITdELjZWk0Htik3J/[email protected]> wrote:






On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Brad Wilson <[email protected]> wrote:

  

Battery life will be much better with an i5 than an i7. Unless you intend to
do highly compute intensive tasks, I would choose the i5.

Interesting I've naively assumed for years that more is better. Perhaps its
time to recalibrate. Is there any site that provides at least adequate
comparisons of CPU performance? My current laptop has a Core 2 Duo T8300
2.40 GHz. I'm wondering roughly how much of jump I will get in performance
going to an i5 or an i7?

 

 

Google finds: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php as a rough way of
comparing CPU's. It seems ok expect it doesn't list the i5 that Dell is
using (560M 2.66 GHz).

 

Thanks

Mark




On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 9:09 AM, Mark Levison <mark-r0EpITdELjZWk0Htik3J/[email protected]> wrote:



Many years ago I used this group for its original purpose. Now I just abuse
it, sorry. The Canadian government has made it clear that I need to upgrade
my laptop by Jan 31 (its changed some taxation rules). So I'm leaning on old
friends for recommendations. 

 

My needs:

1. Budget <2000 Canadian

2. 15 inch screen

3. More battery life is better. Currently my XPS 1530 gets about 1:20 which
I'm always looking for a plug. Ideally I would get 3 hrs when not doing
compute intensive tasks.

4. Weight no worse than XPS M1530 (6 lbs)

5 CPU Core I7 (at least this what I assume I want), 8 GB RAM. 500 GB 7200
RPM Harddrive

6. Use: Development and photo editing (Lightroom and Photoshop). More
Horsepower better in these cases, although I'm happy to work using an outlet
in that case.

7. USB 3.0 and other goodies are nice but not mission critical

 

Basically I spend a lot of time on the road and need a good machine that I
can carry and use every where. After digging for a few hours it appears that
the current Dell XPS's get bad reviews for: design and longevity, battery
life and lack of USB 3.0. The HP Envy takes a knock because the palm rest
becomes very hot even when browsing the web.

 

Thoughts?

Mark


	Mark Levison | Agile Pain Relief Consulting
<http://agilepainrelief.com/>  | Agile Editor @ InfoQ
<http://www.infoq.com/about.jsp>  

Blog <http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/>  | Twitter
<http://twitter.com/mlevison>  | Office: (613) 862-2538

Recent Entries: Self Inflicted Agile Injuries
<http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2009/12/self-inflicted-agile-injuries.htm
l> , Why use an Agile Coach
<http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2009/11/why-use-an-agile-coach.html>