I need a notebook for school, so I've been doing some research.
What's the deal with battery life?
The few I looked at say battery is good for 1-2 hours? WTF?
Hardly seems worth it for that.

Are there no powerful notebooks where the battery last 4 hours+?
Am I asking for too much?

I don't know a thing about notebooks, never had one, so fill me in. What's good, what's bad.

Thanks
Habibi

 

here ya go bud

http://www.techtv.com/holiday/story/...550386,00.html

IBM always gets high marks for its solid notebooks. If it can survive in Patrick Norton's hands, it has to be solid. Features such as integrated Bluetooth (optional) and Wi-Fi, a nifty keyboard light, and great performance round up this great little package. It's tough to go wrong with the X31.

Number 3

 

Habibi -

I have used Dell, IBM, AST, Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Toshiba and NEC for my job over the last 15 years or so.

Far and away, the Dell has been the best with regards to speed, functionality and battery life. However, that fact should be considered with the info that the Dell is the newest machine I've used.

On any notebook, the power draw king is the display. The bigger and brighter, the more drain. A medium sized display, coupled with good power management software, should get you around 3 hours runtime in today's world.

I bought my son an IBM recently and it seems to be pretty robust as well.

Whatever you choose, be sure to get any peripherals you might want as part of the notebook, not as a PCMCIA or PC card add-in. Those types of cards tend to draw more power and don't always play with the power management systems nicely.

I am currently using a Dell Latitude D600. Very nice unit and when I fly out west, I can usually use it for the entire trip without interruption (after take-off at 10,000 FT. and then off when descending, so about 3 1/2 hours or so total from Florida to California).

Most of the manufacturers offer a larger capacity battery that can be placed into the bay where an optical drive usually resides. If you don't need the CD/DVD drive while on battery, this kind of battery expansion can provide many additional hours of run-time.

Laptops take a beating. Be sure to get one with a good warranty and good repair policies. I can say from personal experience that both IBM and Dell kick a$$ in this department.

Hope this helps a little.

 

I will have to agree on the IBM's, they are quality pieces. My first was a 600E that I had for 4.5 years without an issue, and just recently got a new T40.

The T40 kicks butt, it's very thin, weighs 4 pounds, 14" screen, battery lasts 5 hours. I believe it's a Pentium M 1.6, 1G memory, 70 GB hard drive. Built in wireless is nice too!

 

Mead makes a really nice notebook. It's called the 5-Star. Check it out at your local Wal-Mart.

RP

 

I know I'll get jumped on and made fun of for owning a Mac, but here goes. I have owned two Mac Laptops in the last 5 years, one being the old clamshell, and the newest one being a two year old 14.1 inch square style. The old style was indestructable, but had software issues and froze all the time. But, since having the new one, I am impressed to say the least. OSX is THE MOST stable OS I have ever seen. It has required a forced restart only about 6 times in the two years I have had it. And this has improved greatly since updating the OS each time they come out. Not one single virus has hit either laptop since ownership, no spyware, no this, no that....
And...Up to six hours battery life! Of course this depends on if you're running power robbing applications like the cd burner or dvd player, as on any notebook, will kill the battery dead in just over an hour, if it lasts that long
In short, don't be afraid to jump ship, Macs are much easier to work with, have just as much software pkgs. etc.. Worth a look.,,,,98


mac ibook

 

Dude, get a Dell!



Seriously, I would say Dell's laptops are probably your best bet.

After that Id say Toshiba or IBM.

 

Dell? Please say you're kidding?,,,,98

 

ok I'm butting in,

I happen to be the proud owner of a Dell Dimension 4300 PC I'm not saying all this just to sound like johnny badass or something but I personally despise Dells.

first off, constantly I have to shut down and reboot in order to correct problems. Seems like an everyday occurence for this thing. There is alot of error windows that come up in this pos and alot of which I have no clue what they mean and usually they screw up one thing or another when they do show there ugly face. I would not reccommend Dell to anyone. Like I said this is all just my opnion anyou won't persuade me to get another Dell, I don't care if you payed me. Dell can kiss my white *** I know this seems a bit harsh but it's the truth in what I believe,,,,,,91

 

These error messages arent always Dell's fault. If you installed software that caused the problem, how is that their problem?

If you were getting errors as soon as you recieved it, then sure, there's a problem.

 

That sounds exactly like a problem I had with an old Dell (I now build my own PC's, much cheaper and easier) and it turned out to be a Microsquash Windoze problem. I upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional (I did a clean install) and that fixed it, and is currently hobbling around on it's own two feet, while the PC I built is racing around in a Ford Lightning.

 

Now as for Notebooks, I recommend IBM as the most powerful and best, but they're also very expensive, so I'd recommend Dell second. I've had experience with Both, and neither has given me the slightest hardware trouble (the only software trouble was due to Windoze, it was fixed by me though.)

 

Macs are always overlooked, but your comments are right on!

 

Thamks for all the replies, it's a big help.
Now I need to figure out what to do.
The top line Dell and IBM I looked at are in the 5K range (Canadian) I only want to spend half that, but I want all the 5K features, LOL

Soo, I need to figure out where I can cut corners.
The fastest processor and 1 Ghz of Ram was on my list of "must have" features.
I normally wouldnt need that much, but I run a heavy memmory intensive math based program, and the faster the machine, the less time it takes to perform analysis.

I'll keep yas posted.

Habibi

 

Macintosh Powerbook, apparently you hate macs enough not to look I guess,,,,98


Your price range, and these features.....

$2,599.00

15.2-inch TFT Display
1280x854 resolution
1.25GHz PowerPC G4
512K L2 cache
512MB DDR333 SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA/100
ATI Mobility Radeon
9600 (64MB DDR)
Backlit keyboard
Gigabit Ethernet
FireWire 400 & 800
AirPort Extreme built-in
DVI & S-Video out