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Asus N56 i7 vs i5. power vs batt life?

M

marcplante

Senior member
After going through examples of pretty much every major brand, my wife has decided on an Asus N56 notebook, and I am trying to figure out how to configure it to suit her needs.

Her use cases are modest:
- Surfing on couch/email. Preferred battery life of 5 hrs or so.
- wants 15" chassis, no ultrabooks. Tried a 14" unit for 48 hrs too small.
- Wants lit keyboard for surfing in the dark
- Not to heavy, not too hot
- Playing videos and music.
- Running office and productivity apps FTTT
- Running other lightweight apps.

She also has no patience, so startup, app switching, etc need to be snappy.
He current notebook (Samsung...R580 hates the trackpad) has 150G of files on it, which is a good representative sample of her storage needs. In a pinch a 240G SSd would probably suffice If this box had a second bay, I'd use a 120G SSd to complement the main HD.

N56 specs ($999)

Chipset Intel HM76
CPU i7 3610QM (2.3GHz) Turbo to 3.3GH
Smart Cache 6MB
FSB 5 GT/s
Memory 8 G DDR3-1600
HD 750 GB 7200 RPM

There is a *second* version available with an i5 3210 and a 630m GPU for $899. I'm tempted to buy the cheaper model and opt for an aftermarket 240G SSD for $180-190, to make it VERY responsive.


Optimization questions:
1) Can I extend the battery life by swapping opting for an i5 processor instead of an i7? I can't think of her processing needs outstripping the i5

3) Does going to an SSD extend battery life appreciably over leaving a standard HD inside? (No moving parts). Would this matter much in day to day surfing? 5%? is the HD idling eating power? 15%


Thanks
 
Last edited:
In order to assess the relative importance of battery life, what is her usage pattern? At home or in a mobile mode? SSD does consume less battery power. One of the biggest consumers is the optical drive. And, the I5 does eat less power than the I7.
 
Her usage pattern is that she sits on the sofa surfing every evening starting at about 6:00, then gets up at 9:00 or so cursing to retrieve the power cord for her current notebook...;^) So she's defined a mobile, since she'd rather not tether to power. on some rainy weekend days, these sesssions can stretch to 5-6 hrs.,which I think I can get to with an i5 and an SSD (current surfing battery life is rated at 4-4.5 hrs.)

Given the relatively light weigh nature of her usage, I suspect she'll benefit best from an upgrade to an SSD. Microcenter has a good deal on the N56 and on a crucial 256GB SSD. I think that's going to be the bundle.

Thanks
 
Sounds like a good choice. Combine that with a 9-cell battery and she should be good for a day! 🙂

Sure glad my wife will not touch a computer. <LOL>
 
Good laptop. Was looking at this for a while... can do some good gaming... wait does your wife even game?
 
No, but she wants a snappy computer, and she tends to keep them for 5+yrs, so this is future proofing. I may buy one myself as a general surfer and for occasional gaming.
 
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