I've been doing a fairly detailed research, yet so far I've been unable to find a notebook that fullfills the following. Then again, I'm a newbie to the field. Feel free to point me in the direction of offers, good research tools, or reasons why this is unreasonable to expect. ;P
Okay, here goes...
What it must have:
.) Recent WLAN Capability (pref. Internal)
.) ATI Radeon Mobility 9600 or eqiuvalent DX9 GPU (128 MB strongly preferred).
.) Pentium M 1.6GHz or higher.
What it should have:
.) Bluetooth module (pref. Internal)
.) High capacity batteries, long rundown times.
I'd be happy with 2/3rds of IBM Thinkpad T40 times. Bloody hell is that thing expensive. Okay. HALF of those times. 120 min of playing a (demanding) game, double for light work. I'm also concerned about this kind of behaviour on otherwise solid powersavers. I hope the large discrepancy in that single test was due to some kind of error.
.) Intel 855 Northbridge (What they use in the 'Centrino' set)
.) Good 15' or 14' display. I'm not 100% sure of the advantage of SXGA+ vs. XGA, but am inclined to go SXGA as I expect less "blotty pixels" at higher resolutions.
.) Reasonable weight. 7 pounds (3.5kg) is at the upper end of reasonable.
What I'd appreciate:
.) Good looks.
.) A CTRL key where it belongs.
.) Extra Battery Slot (eg. in place of 2nd HDD/Optical slot)
.) As much upgradeability as is possible with the form factor. (Free Card slots. Gfx, CPU and Battery upgradability)
.) 512 MB 333+MHz DDR that is reasonably priced. Or none at all.
.) 40GB+ HDD. (In a perfect world, with 8MB cache, 4200 RPM, quiet&efficient; but who has the luxury of pickering about the HD)
.) Good ('5 sheep') CD Writer, or none. (Really, who wants to buy bad bundled CD writers)
-----
There. That's the list.
Note that no notebook has yet "failed" due to my "2/3 IBM battery life" wish. Not yet. There are no candidates.
The great difficulty is finding a Pentium M system with a new graphics card. Not even Hypersonic, VoodooPC and Alienware let me put good gfx cards in Centrino laptops.
I'm aware that means extra power drain. But the only machines I find recent GPUs in are those P4 3.0GHZs running 800MHz FSBs. Those that weigh over 5 kilos, and don't go ANYWHERE without dual mammoth batteries. I certainly hope this is because those are the machines sold to the most hardcore of gamers - and not because the Mobile Radeon 9600 actually eats as much power as the Desktop version.
My price pain limit is 2200? (that's ~2500$. I don't believe the exchange rate myself.). ~2000? (2300$) is what I expect to spend.
Okay, here goes...
What it must have:
.) Recent WLAN Capability (pref. Internal)
.) ATI Radeon Mobility 9600 or eqiuvalent DX9 GPU (128 MB strongly preferred).
.) Pentium M 1.6GHz or higher.
What it should have:
.) Bluetooth module (pref. Internal)
.) High capacity batteries, long rundown times.
I'd be happy with 2/3rds of IBM Thinkpad T40 times. Bloody hell is that thing expensive. Okay. HALF of those times. 120 min of playing a (demanding) game, double for light work. I'm also concerned about this kind of behaviour on otherwise solid powersavers. I hope the large discrepancy in that single test was due to some kind of error.
.) Intel 855 Northbridge (What they use in the 'Centrino' set)
.) Good 15' or 14' display. I'm not 100% sure of the advantage of SXGA+ vs. XGA, but am inclined to go SXGA as I expect less "blotty pixels" at higher resolutions.
.) Reasonable weight. 7 pounds (3.5kg) is at the upper end of reasonable.
What I'd appreciate:
.) Good looks.
.) A CTRL key where it belongs.
.) Extra Battery Slot (eg. in place of 2nd HDD/Optical slot)
.) As much upgradeability as is possible with the form factor. (Free Card slots. Gfx, CPU and Battery upgradability)
.) 512 MB 333+MHz DDR that is reasonably priced. Or none at all.
.) 40GB+ HDD. (In a perfect world, with 8MB cache, 4200 RPM, quiet&efficient; but who has the luxury of pickering about the HD)
.) Good ('5 sheep') CD Writer, or none. (Really, who wants to buy bad bundled CD writers)
-----
There. That's the list.
Note that no notebook has yet "failed" due to my "2/3 IBM battery life" wish. Not yet. There are no candidates.
The great difficulty is finding a Pentium M system with a new graphics card. Not even Hypersonic, VoodooPC and Alienware let me put good gfx cards in Centrino laptops.
I'm aware that means extra power drain. But the only machines I find recent GPUs in are those P4 3.0GHZs running 800MHz FSBs. Those that weigh over 5 kilos, and don't go ANYWHERE without dual mammoth batteries. I certainly hope this is because those are the machines sold to the most hardcore of gamers - and not because the Mobile Radeon 9600 actually eats as much power as the Desktop version.
My price pain limit is 2200? (that's ~2500$. I don't believe the exchange rate myself.). ~2000? (2300$) is what I expect to spend.
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