Help, very frustrated, can't find a good small laptop.

[DRT-Maverick]

Heya, I just went through a process of having to send an Asus eee back because the USB ports randomly died and everything in the controller area of the device manager had exclamation marks next to them. I've been trying to research laptops all morning and have no idea what to get since asus crapped out on me (and left a crappy anus like taste in my mouth).

I'm trying to find something that doesn't have integrated intel graphics (unless you all can suggest otherwise, I've just experienced crap things with it), and I need it to be under 15". I primarily need it for school where I can plug it in and use it for presentations through say an HDMI port and such, but I don't want anything heavy, as I've already got an Asus G72 laptop that weighs a good 11lb, lugging that around along with college textbooks is really not viable, half the time I have to leave it in my car (and god forbid if my car gets broken into...)

Does anyone have suggestions? I don't mind if it's an asus as long as it has a CD drive, but trying to reinstall an OS from USB drive on some of their motherboards has been a failure for me. I need to try to get this thing ordered by today so I have it before Tuesday (if possible), though I imagine i'm going to be lugging the giant G72 around instead for awhile...

Help!!!


Thanks everyone!

[punx223]

you could try this one http://www.avadirect.com/gaming-lapt...asp?PRID=24271

Ive started using their stuff after the first system I got. I actually have one of these and a 17" from them now.... the quality really is quite nice and can also game pretty well (DIII mostly)

but you get the idea... its plenty powerful and very portable.

if youre really dying for a optical drive get a USB one for pretty cheap and your all good there as well.

but this definitely will out muscle a eeepc

[DRT-Maverick]

What do you think about this one?

http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-U46SM-DS5...dp/B00739UN9Y/


I'm not planning on playing games much with it is the thing, I just want something I can watch HD video on as well as do schoolwork without it lagging much. Like I said, I don't have experience with the HD3000 integrated chipsets, so I always end up looking for dedicated vidcards, but that raises the price up around 200$.

[zanzabar]

lenovo u400
http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad...ds=lenovo+u400

[punx223]

both of those look pretty nice as well... Lenovo build quality is pretty strong as well from my experience.

[Bobsama]

Dell Inspiron 14z? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834200516

Otherwise, maybe an Acer Aspire TimelineU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834215392

[dairyFarmer]

Get a macbook air or similar ultrabook? The hd4000 is pretty good for integrated graphics. SSD's make the whole experience much nicer, and ivy bridge is super for mobile computing....

[Evantaur]

lenovo u400
http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad...ds=lenovo+u400

read dem reviews :P

[zanzabar]

read dem reviews :P

i had heard nothing but greatness and amazon is the only one is stock, newegg and others have very few negative reviews. i have also not heard of lenovo not cross shipping withing 6 months so i have no idea what is going with those reviewers.

[bmaverick]

My daily driver laptop, not the gaming rig, is a HP Compaq Win-7 x64 with the AMD Vision GPU. Not had any issues with controllers or the graphics. It can run SolidWorks CAD and Halo really well.

[himaro]

Avoid Lenovo like they are the scourge of the earth
i used to work for MEDION UK on the night shift for Australia
MEDION is owned by Lenovo and they dumped 3 months backlog of laptop repairs onto the depot i worked in. the back end is god awful.

Personally, why dont you try an android tablet and run an app that is compatible like http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/22024...tm_campaign=V3 ?
Getting a Google Nexus 7 would be cheaper / lighter and look a damn site better

[Evantaur]

Avoid Lenovo like they are the scourge of the earth

what happened, at some point they were the best laptops around?

[himaro]

They may be pretty good but when things go wrong here in the UK, its awful. they dont have the back-end to support it. MEDION had a lorry load of laptops dumped on it to repair and they were done to very low standards. i left the company as it was awful. they gave us 6 mins to fault diagnose, suggest a repair and book it in if need be. that's not support.

also, i just remembered that the nexus 7 doesn't have the HDMI output you wanted, the Asus transformer range will cover that, they're a little heavier and a bit bigger but they very good in my opinion (my dad use's one to replace the old acer netbook we used to have)

[DRT-Maverick]

I went with the asus 14.1" laptop. Thanks for pointing me away from Lenovo. I won't go a tablet because they're more like toys than tools. This is a laptop I'm going to be using for school, primarily between classes, and when I have my homework done I want to be able to watch HiDef video/movies. I need something that's type-friendly, and tablets just aren't it. They're great to read stuff on though.

[El Mano]

What do you think about ultrabooks?
I need a small and light-weight laptop/netbook/device able to run a SQL Server/MySQL instance and client and coding software. GIMP will also be necessary.
I don't really care for HDD space or graphics. No games will be played on this computer. It must be powerful enough to run development software for the next five years but that's all.

I know nothing about laptops, nada, so any advice will be very much welcome.
Thank you!

[zanzabar]

i would wait until windows 8 pro ultra books come out, they let you upgrade if you want to vista or 7 free but they will have touch screens and that should be nice and at the same price point.

[El Mano]

Do you have any date, even if guesstimated?

[DRT-Maverick]

I paid for student price for CS5 (and may upgrade to 6 soon), I don't think I could ever use gimp for my photography hehe... Just not a good program for professional photography.

Out of curiosity, why are you running an SQL server from a laptop?

[tbone8ty]

get a win8 tablet hybrid

asus vivo tab rt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX76Rsh3XjM

[El Mano]

I paid for student price for CS5 (and may upgrade to 6 soon), I don't think I could ever use gimp for my photography hehe... Just not a good program for professional photography.

Out of curiosity, why are you running an SQL server from a laptop?

So I can work offline. I not always have access to the work server In fact I'm not running it since I don't have a laptop yet. Once I have it, I want to be able to work in places without internet access so I need to be able to run an SQL instance even if the database doesn't have but a few rows per table.

The kind of work I do with GIMP doesn't involve pro-imaging or high resolution photography; just resize, change colors etc. GIMP does the work just fine and it's free.

[zanzabar]

Do you have any date, even if guesstimated?

they should be out in mid october but you may have to wait a bit for them to hit the mass market. asus, lenovo, samsung, sony, and dell all have some based on the surface that are going to launch with windows 8 when it hits retail.

get a win8 tablet hybrid

asus vivo tab rt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX76Rsh3XjM

isnt that the tablet one, you i would go pro to get x86 and the full os.

[tbone8ty]

yah true if u wanted the full features...

i already have a good laptop... so id go RT, at least it comes with office.... i really like these hybrids and win8 is perfect for it

[itznfb]

As a photographer I definitely would have gone with a laptop that has a high quality IPS panel. That would have been priority #1. Everything else would come second.

[El Mano]

they should be out in mid october but you may have to wait a bit for them to hit the mass market. asus, lenovo, samsung, sony, and dell all have some based on the surface that are going to launch with windows 8 when it hits retail.

Thank you Zanzabar

[DRT-Maverick]

yah true if u wanted the full features...

i already have a good laptop... so id go RT, at least it comes with office.... i really like these hybrids and win8 is perfect for it

My desktop has an IPS, so no need for my laptop to have one, I don't really do much photo editing on the laptop. Again, school work. I may occasionally do minor editing but really I'll save the majority of editing for the desktop.