Hi, I'm looking to get a new laptop and I've been really dissapointed with my old one. (17" Toshiba satelite)

This is what I'm looking for, and if it doesn't exist yet, just let me know.

1. I want my laptop to be in the 15"+ monitor range.
2. I don't want it to burn my lap or my blankets without buying an extra cooling thingy.
3. I want to "boot" from sleep/hibernate when I open and close the laptop, and I don't want the battery to die overnight if it gets unplugged.
4. I want it to be light enough to be able to hold while I watch a movie if 2 isn't possible.
5. Quick boot/reboot time.
6. Long battery life.

Ideally, it would have windows 7 on it, and a good graphics card, and 4gb of ddr3 ram.


Also, I want a numpad on the keyboard, and a good mousing experience.


Thanks for your help.

Well, hibernate will come with any Windows 7 system, and configuring what happens when you close the lid is just a trip to the Control Panel.

For quickest boots, you'd want a solid state drive, which will also contribute greatly to the battery life and cooling needed. Fair warning, an SSD is going to substantially raise the cost of your machine.

The monitor size won't be hard to find at a variety of retailers. Mousing is a personal preference thing.

Anyways, I'm looking for a specific prefab instance of this right now, but wanted to get the post up so you could be looking too. The SSD seems to be the most limiting factor here. If you don't mind more traditional boot times, a system with a standard HDD that fits everything else that you're looking for can be found at any major laptop manufacturer.

So far, in my experience this has never been true. I've had 3 laptops, all of which at one point in their life or another, I would have to actually shut down the computer before I closed the lid if I didn't want to waste time watching my laptop never boot up.

Closest thing I've found so far is the LinovoT400s but I can't find any retailers that have it on display (tried MicroCenter and Frys') to see if the mousing is any good.

Price isn't too much of an issue, if I'm paying for solid engineering and not just the fastest and latest.

The function exists in anything XP or later. It's very well hidden in Vista, and for good reason: it's buggy as all hell. Microsoft's end works ok, but nVIDIA for whatever reason can't figure out how to make a hibernate-compatible driver, and nVIDIA powers a lot of systems. If it's ever really truly gone (has been known to happen), open up a command prompt and enter "powercfg /hibernate on" to re-enable.

SSD technology is pretty shiny and new, at least as an internal hard drive. You'll pay a few hundred dollars more and lose a couple hundred GB in storage, which means you might also need to invest in an external drive for media storage, if that's your thing. Without a doubt, though, it's superior in every way except longevity, where an SSD is close enough to HDD's equal.

Ok, must be the nVidia issue. I'm not saying that hibernate as a feature doesn't exist, I'm saying it's borked to hell and wastes more time than it saves. Does Radeon have the same problem?

Ok, how do I properly find SSD laptops? Do SSD laptops still whirl at night? will they be more quiet? (whats the longevity issue? like 19 years instead of 20, or like 3 years instead of 10?

Can't speak for Radeon's technology first-hand. I'd be Googling that just like you.

An SSD is a drive with no moving parts. As a result, it runs cooler, uses less power, never needs defragmenting, and reads many, many times faster. So, you'll never hear the drive spin up, because it's not spinning. The cooling fan and optical drives will be the only things that make noise. I don't think (but also don't know) that a computer will need to run a fan while suspended, but it will still lose a bit of charge if it's accidentally unplugged.

It's hard to compare longevity between the two. Spinning disk drives break. Spinning disk drives in laptops that are actually used on the go break all the time. SDD is basically a larger, stabilized flash drive. The actual longevity will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but by the nature of the technology, it'll eventually wear out. A good drive should still get you a lot of use, but you're talking something like 200,000 write cycles. The firmware will spread the write cycles out over the disk, but if you get, say, a 32GB SSD, it's going to let you write a total of about 30,000 TB before it becomes unreliable. How long is that for you? Dunno. If you use your laptop on the go, probably better than you're going to get with an HDD. If your laptop is a convenient, semi-portable desktop, then probably not quite as long. It's less random, and it averages a little worse, but similar to, a well-maintained HDD.

1. Monitor Size is pretty easy. The only problem with 15+ is that most laptop bags only fit up to 15"
2. Stick a pillow between you and the laptop. It'll work wonders.
3. Works fine for me. Xavius must have had a bad experience, but my Alienware has a GeForce 8700M GT, and it hibernates fine. It'll be in the power options menu.
4. That 15"+ screen may be an issue for that, but one can hope.
5. As Xavius said, depends on your drive.
6. How long is long? 3 hrs off charged? 5?

put a hardcover book under it to prevent most "burning" problems.

Oh, I just realized why these are so hard to find. Win7 isn't out yet. Heh. Yay for MSDN prerelease?

Xavius is right as far as I know: several of those are the OS's responsibility, not the computer. Boot up time is half/half.

I recently bought a Sony Vaio. The screen size is over 15", but it's super widescreen, so it may seem short to you. I am running windows 7.

I forget the exact model of my laptop, but it's Walnut brown, and there's only one laptop model (other than netbooks) that come in that color. It has a super bright HD screen as well. You can get a blu ray player in it, but that only comes in the slightly upgraded silver one.

My start up time is 63 seconds, the last time I used it. It runs very cool and quiet. It gets a little hot playing games, but nothing compared to some other laptops I've used. I typically use it on a table on a raised platform I bought for it, just to reduce any heating issues....

You don't want to set any laptop, regardless of what you buy, on your blankets without a platform. You'll drastically reduce its life span by doing this, they have to have ventilation.

Thanks for your help.

Sadly, I think some of you have incorrect information, because my wife's 3 year old mac book fits all the criteria I originally mentioned, except it's only 13 inches and it doesn't have windows.

I guess nobody has been able to reproduce a mac laptop yet that isn't Apple I'll just have to keep on waiting. (or I'll have to get some mac that is powerfull enough to run windows on it and do it that way.

It's out today... people should have them ready to ship out today. *shrug*

Now I know what my dad was telling me when I was a kid telling him how to properly use his computer, heh.

What works, works!

I have a cooling stand, I really only use it to keep it off my blankets/lap not so much for the fan my laptop isnt that hot normally, but I can't take it everywhere so my textbooks replace it.

yeah, its good advice. I just feel like an old man (aka my dad), thinking to myself.. I want my computer to work for me, not me for my computer.

melted my balls

The technology exists for this. It just happens to be illegal. DMCA and all that jazz.

don't know if this has been mentioned, but basically every mac can run Windows via bootcamp, which is built in. I don't know if it'd be fast enough/etc for what you're doing, but Macs can, in fact, run windows.

EDIT: It is more expensive, though, both because Macs are expensive and because you need to buy windows separately.

Having just got a 64GB SSD this week I can say that the performance is great, as is the lack of noise! That being said I still have a second normal HD for storage, but for the OS and major apps it's good. Be careful with SSD models there are huge differences in quality between them, read the reviews before buying. There is a whole batch of SSD's from different manufacturers who used the same controller and they all have problems with the OS pausing when multitasking. As for the longevity, the numbers sound good and are comparable to standard HD's... but time will tell! Should be great for laptops though, as they can withstand far more shock than standard HD's.

Well, thanks for the help, I finally found the laptop I want. I just have to wait for the bits to be avaiable at the end of the month

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/control...008/W700/W700ds



I'm not qute sure what you mean by this. I think the HP Envy supposedly did just that. My only problem with the HPs is that they are all metalic and the mousepad hurts my fingers. (which is why I decided to go with the ThinkPad brand. THe trackpoint is really nice, and the lack of hightech shiny plastics/metals make my fingers feel more comfortable)