I Need a New Laptop--suggestions?

[Roger Clark]

I need a new laptop. Here are my requirements:

About a 14-inch screen (big enough without driving up weight)
LED backlit LCD and long 5+ hour battery life, prefer 7+ hours.
Very large hard drive: minimum 500 GB, prefer 1 terabyte or larger.
Hard drive easily replaceable (I have a Sony that requires complete disassembly --no thanks).
As light as possible (will pay for lightweight components). Less than 4 pounds.
Core 2 duo or faster equivalent.
ethernet, wifi, minimum 2 USB ports, prefer 3
Would be nice if rugged for in the field use.

This will be a dual boot windows and linux machine (required for some software)
I will do the partitioning and install linux, probably re-install windows too.

Ideas?

Roger

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I just wanted to say 15'' MacBook Pro but you want a PC, right? I'm not aware of any laptops with 500GB, 5 hour battery and 14'' monitor that weigh under 4 pounds.

[arash_hazeghi]

We use Lenovo Thinkpad series (Formerly IBM) , they are very popular among scientists and engineers, build tough, run quiet and fast, have a lot of expansion possibilities and are inexpensive, although battery life is probably under 5 hours especially if you get a higher end CPU. Checkout the R400 models.

[Doug Brown]

Sure do love my 15" MacBook Pro, but have no idea whether it matches your specifications.

[Roger Clark]

Arash, I'm running on a thinkpad now. I'll take a look at them.

Axel, 640 GB and 1 TB laptop sized drives have been out for a while now (I use the small 1TB USB drives a lot these days). But I have not seen a 1TB drive in a laptop.

Roger

[Indranil Sircar]

Roger, you may also want to check out HP EliteBook series. Some of the higher end models come quad core processor and typically meant for graphic designers.

[Jeff Donald]

The largest 2.5" drive is 750 GB, but it's only 5400 RPM. I would go with a 500GB, 7200 RPM drive. Some laptops have dual drive capability but they weigh over 7 lb. with both drives installed. I would look at the 13" MacBook Pro and run windows on it via bootcamp. Windows runs native via Bootcamp and is very fast. Weight is 4.5 lb., 7 hour battery life, 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo processor. I would order it stock from Apple and install a 500 GB 7200rpm drive and put the stock drive in an enclosure for portable storage. I would also upgrade the ram myself to 8 GB. It has 2 USB ports, 1 FW800 port, and 1 GB ethernet port. It has built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. They are aluminum construction and very durable. The only requirement it misses is screen size, 13.3"' vs 14" and it would run both OS's you need and Apple OS X if you needed it. Total cost with upgrades, about $2,000 with your Apple education discount. You can subtract $460 if you can live with 4 GB of ram. The install of the new drive and memory is easy and total time to do both is about 10 minutes and requires only minor disassembly.

You would have to purchase Windows separately. The cost is several hundred dollars and you'd need to do the install yourself.

[Jim Michael]

When I was looking at laptops last year the ones with very long battery life were using solid state disk drives. Not sure what current capacity is on those, but you also gain benefit of extremely fast boot up time.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

When I was looking at laptops last year the ones with very long battery life were using solid state disk drives. Not sure what current capacity is on those, but you also gain benefit of extremely fast boot up time.

I have a 256GB SSD and don't think there are models with more capacity. I would go with a SSD and I also got a 2.5'' external HDD using Firewire 800, which does not need external power supply.

[c.w. moynihan]

We use Lenovo Thinkpad series (Formerly IBM) , they are very popular among scientists and engineers, build tough, run quiet and fast, have a lot of expansion possibilities and are inexpensive, although battery life is probably under 5 hours especially if you get a higher end CPU. Checkout the R400 models.

and a non-glare screen...as such, I feel the W series of Lenovo's are the best PC style laptop's for photowork. I am very happy with my W500 running 4 gig DDR3 ram, CS4 and Win 7 64 bit.

[Chris Ober]

13" macbook pro is 4.5lbs and the 15 is 5.5 http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-13inch.html

If I didn't have my laptops provided by work, I'd get the Macbook pro with an install of Parallels for those pesky Windows applications.

[Lance Peters]

Macbook Pro ;)

[Roger Clark]

The largest 2.5" drive is 750 GB,

Jeff,
Thanks for the detailed info. I'll have to look into if I can run some of my specialty linux software on a mac.

Regarding hard drives, do a google search for: 1tb 2.5 hard drive
Western Digital announced 1TB 2.5-inch drives last July. I using Seagates now.

Roger

[Bryan Erb]

Macbook Pro, I have the 15" and really like it.

[Jeff Donald]

Jeff,
Thanks for the detailed info. I'll have to look into if I can run some of my specialty linux software on a mac.

Regarding hard drives, do a google search for: 1tb 2.5 hard drive
Western Digital announced 1TB 2.5-inch drives last July. I using Seagates now.

Roger

They won't fit in most notebooks (too thick) and probably not in any with your weight specs.

[philperry]

Roger. The 15" MacBook Pro is really well worth looking at. I would not recommend Parallels. VM Ware Fusion is miles better. That will allow you to run virtual Linux and virtual Windows computers at the same time as your Mac. So you can seamlessly switch from Snow Leopard to Linux to Windows 7 - no re-starting needed. I use one for all my office and home computing - linking to my office Windows server, running Office for Mac on my Mac partition + Photoshop CS4. Works great.

Current Specs: Intel Core 2 Duo ; 4GB Memory ; 500GB hard drive ; SD card slot ; Built-in 7-hour battery ;NVIDIA GeForce 9400 + 9600M GT with 512MB ; - You can maybe get higher specs in the States.

[Chris Ober]

I'm curious...what have you found where Fusion is an improvement? I've seen comparisons and have tried both, Parallels wins from what I can see. It's also easily faster than Fusion. It too, runs virtual machines, just like Fusion. Their latest Parallels Desktop 5.0 is even better.

They're both great products, I'm just wondering what you've seen with use.

Here's a recent article comparing both too: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mact.../VMBenchmarks/

[philperry]

Chris, I ran Parallels under Leopard. It worked for a while. Then it just kept crashing and then refused to load at all. So for me VM Ware Fusion is streets ahead. May have just been a problem with my copy or with my MacBook - but that was my experience. VM Ware also comes with a couple of pages of instructions re installation as opposed to a whole book (which was way beyond me) from Parallels. I also understand that VM Ware are real specialists in virtual computing and regarded as a world leader.

[Jeff Donald]

There was a time when VM Ware Fusion was better than Parallels, but not any more. VM Ware was slow to upgrade and Parallels blew by them in terms of features, speed and reliability, in my opinion. But in terms of overall speed both Windows and Linux will run faster when started natively in Bootcamp. Virtual machines are convenient because you don't have to constantly be restarting your computer to switch from one OS to another. However, they can't match the speed of an OS running natively on a computer. Unless, Roger has a reason to run 10.6.x he's better off just using the MacBook Pro as a Windows machine.

[Charles Wesley]

Agree with Chris. Love my 15" MacBook Pro. Had it for 3 1/2 years. Still use a PC desktop but really love the laptop....
___________________
Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL

[Roger Clark]

All,
Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I'm still looking (no hurry, but will want to make a decision within a few weeks). A mac is a possibility. I need to run some spacecraft software on it and officially it is not supported on macs, but some developers are are doing the development on macs. A macbook pro doesn't quite meet the desired specs, but I'm not sure anything does.

Roger

[Roger Clark]

OK, verdict is in. Unfortunately, it can't be a mac, or if it is, I will have no support for the software I must run (this is internally developed software for spacecraft, not commercial).

So here again are my requirements:

About a 14-inch screen (big enough without driving up weight)
LED backlit LCD and long 5+ hour battery life, prefer 7+ hours.
Very large hard drive: minimum 500 GB, prefer 1 terabyte or larger.
Hard drive easily replaceable (I have a Sony that requires complete disassembly --no thanks).
As light as possible (will pay for lightweight components). Less than 4 pounds desired
Core 2 duo or faster equivalent 4GBytes ram or more.
ethernet, wifi, minimum 2 USB ports, prefer 3
Would be nice if rugged for in the field use.

This will be a dual boot windows and red hat linux machine (required for some software)
I will do the partitioning and install linux, probably re-install windows too.

So, not finding the above, I'm looking for the lightest, with high capacity disk drive available,
with about the above screen size. I really hope for an LED backlit display.

Ideas?

Roger

[Jay Gould]

Roger, here are the specs on a Dell that Steve built last year. With Dell you can specifiy just about any component change; I plan to buy a similar machine when I return to Australia in May - before I do I am going to investigate if Lenovo offers international warranties - just got off the phone with Lenovo and all of their warranties are international warranties.

I will be investigating further regarding the various options which the nonengineering/nonscientific me doesn't understand. Roger/Arash - guess who is going to get an email from me :-)

223-9335	1	Latitude E6400, Intel Core 2 Duo P8600, 2.40GHz, 1066MHz 3M L2 Cache, Dual Core
311-8827	1	4.0GB, DDR2-800 SDRAM, 2 DIMM for Latitude
330-0841	1	Internal Backlit English Keyboard for Latitude E
330-1652	1	Documentation (English) Latitude E-Family/Mobile Precision
320-6970	1	NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M, 256MB With PC-Card, Latitude E6400
341-6988	1	250GB Hard Drive 9.5MM 7200RPM FFS for Latitude EX600
311-8819	1	No Fingerprint Reader for Latitude E6X00
320-6942	1	Regal Red Wide Screen WXGA+ LCD for Latitude E6500
467-5791	1	Vista Business 64-BIT Service Pack 1, with media, English Latitude
430-3090	1	Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth 2.1 Minicard for Latitude E/Mobile Precision
313-6507	1	No Modem for Latitude E-Family
330-0876	1	90W 3-Pin, AC Adapter for Latitude E-Family
330-0879	1	US - 3-FT, 3-Pin Flat E-FamilyPower Cord for Latitude E-Family
313-6721	1	8X DVD+/-RW for Latitude E-Family
420-8010	1	Roxio Creator Dell Edition,9.0Dell Latitude/Mobile Precision
420-9184	1	Cyberlink Power DVD 8.1,with Media,Dell Latitude/Mobile Precision
313-6710	1	Integrated VGA webcam with single digital microphone Latitude E6400/MPWS M2400
430-3087	1	Dell WLAN 1510 (802.11a/b/g/n 2X3) 1/2 MiniCard for LatitudeE/Mobile Precision
330-0884	1	No Intel vPro Technologys advanced management features for Latitude, Mobile Precision
330-0895	1	Resource DVD with Diagnostics and Drivers for Latitude E6400Notebook
312-0729	1	6-Cell/54-WHr Battery for Latitude E/Mobile Precision
330-0890	1	Neoprene Sleeve 14 inch for Latitude E/Mobile Precision
991-3058	1	Dell Hardware Limited Warranty Plus Return To Depot, Extended Year(s)
989-1472	1	Contract - Mail-In Service, 24x7 Technical Support, 2 Year Extended
989-4430	1	Contract - Mail-In Service, 24x7 Technical Support, Initial Year
991-3057	1	Dell Hardware Limited Warranty Plus Return To Depot, Initial Year
991-2878	1	Dell ProSupport Service Offering Declined
900-9987	1	Standard On-Site Installation Declined
313-6738	1	Latitude E6400 Color - Regal Red
313-6706	1	Red Finish for WXGA+ BacklightLatitude E6400
313-6714	1	Integrated 0.3 megapixel VGA webcam with single digital mic for WXGA+ LCD, Latitude E6400
313-6719	1	Dell Webcam Central Software for Dell Latitude
320-6945	1	14.1 inch Wide WXGA+ AntiglareScreen for Latitude E6400
310-8319	1	Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
310-8758	1	You have chosen a Windows Vista Premium System
310-8977	1	Info SKU-Software and Peripherals products and solutions catalog included in system boxes
*		-DISCOUNT/COUPON APPLIED
600-0039	1	State Environmental Fee for display less than 15 inches
A0381969	1	Belkin Travel Surge Protector with Hidden Swivel Plug - surge suppressor	$15.00

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Subtotal:	$1,452.00
Shipping & Handling:	$0.00
Tax:	$86.72
Environmental Disposal Fee:	$8.00
Total Price w/Discounts:	$1,546.72

[Roger Clark]

Jay,
Yeah, but what does it weigh? How about windows 7 instead of vista?

[Jay Gould]

Mate, when you go to the Dell website and do a search for the Latitude E6400 (http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?...+E6400&cat=all) they start at 4.3 lbs; they are all W7. They do make a heavier one - 5.75 lbs/yeah I know two lbs can be a lot - but given the locations you might take the laptop this is built like a brick ****house (http://www.dell.com/content/products...en&s=bsd&cs=04)

I have been carrying my computer which is a 17" and a bit heavy in my Think Tank Airport Acceleration V2 now that I have the large rolling TT; lays flat in the bottom.

This is an interesting case design for carrying!

The hard part is going to be the hard drive - need to talk directly to Dell.

[Roger Clark]

Jay,
Thanks for the lead. Loooks very interesting.

Roger

[Jay Gould]

Jay,
Thanks for the lead. Loooks very interesting. Roger

Please let me know what you ultimately purchase. Jay