Is there a laptop that meets these criteria?

notposting

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2005
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Hi all, looking for a new laptop and we have some tricky criteria...the laptop we want may not be around yet.

13-15.x" touchscreen, better than bog-standard (and usually crap panel) 1366x768 resolution,
Haswell, for better battery life,
internal optical drive.

Preferred to have:
backlit keyboard,
VGA & HDMI, but if adapters can provide, that is acceptable,
good cooling design, especially one that doesn't get blocked easily.

Good battery life would be nice (for example, there is a Sony model that meets most of this, but offers 3.5 hours of battery life, which is not good).

I feel like we may need to wait until winter to see something like this.


(laptop needs to provide for me, the wife, being entertainment on road trips, and hold up to a toddler poking the screen, thus the mix of requirements)
 

_UP_

Member
Feb 17, 2013
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I think that the Lenovo T440s that is supposed to come out soon (was already spotted on their site), answers most of your requirements (except for the backlit keyboard).
 

notposting

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2005
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91
I think that the Lenovo T440s that is supposed to come out soon (was already spotted on their site), answers most of your requirements (except for the backlit keyboard).

I don't think it will be touchscreen either. I'm actually considering maybe a couple cheaper laptops at this point to achieve the same goals. Hmmm...
 

GusSmed

Senior member
Feb 11, 2003
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"Haswell" is a pretty serious restriction right now, since the Haswell machines are just now hitting the market, and many are only announced, not available for sale.

"Good battery life" usually means a smaller screen (13" - 14"), which in turn usually means no optical drive. It also often means 1366 x 768, which I agree is very limiting for serious work.

You might want to consider relaxing the optical drive requirement, and adding an external drive. You can get quite a few that will do everything on your list except the optical drive. I've lived without built-in optical drive for a while now, using the external drive only for software installation. If you want to watch movies on the thing, you might consider ripping them and/or buying digital copies. You can fit quite a few, and you don't have to take the DVDs with you.

For example, there's the Sony Pro 13, Haswell, great battery life 1920 x 1080, weighs nothing, and is a bit pricey, but no optical drive.

Otherwise, wait. There should be more variety in Haswell laptops in a few months.
 

notposting

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2005
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Yeah, the current laptop is flaking out and dying (cheapo Acer) the screen inverter is going bad I think (will get flashing green and purple pixels when moving the hinge) and the battery is down to about 90 minutes of life.

Probably going to see what is available closer to the holidays when more mid-range laptops should have it available.

The main benefit of the integrated drive is honestly just the ease of grabbing some movies for the road with the kid (soon to be kids). No finding the external, no remembering copy some over, no worries about internet access. Plus it's a wife requirement :p I would definitely live without one :p
 

GusSmed

Senior member
Feb 11, 2003
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I've been looking myself, though my emphasis is somewhat different. The ones I've considered which have an optical drive are:

Sony Fit 14". Not Haswell, i7-3537. $1120 gets a laptop with a touchscreen and a GeForce 735M, 1600 x 900, and a 256 GB SSD. If you go with a hard drive it's cheaper. Battery life is not stellar, about 4 hours in real-world conditions.

Asus N550JV, only available through XoticPC. Haswell i7-4700HQ, 15" 1920 x 1080 touchscreen. GetForce 750M, 1 TB hard drive. Battery life is claimed 5.5 hours, real life is probably closer to 4. $1066, lots of options (256 GB SSD adds $190).

As for myself, I'm looking for a touchscreen, reasonably lightweight since this is going traveling in a backpack, at least 1600 x 900, acceptable game performance. While battery life is important as well, I decided to punt on that one since my iPad is really more workable when the time away from power gets into the 4+ hour range. I eventually ruled out the Asus despite its other attractions due to weight (6 pounds).

One thing you might consider is a power inverter (for car use) or external battery. By "external battery" I don't mean an extra laptop battery, I mean a battery that pretends to be the power brick.
 

_UP_

Member
Feb 17, 2013
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Well, apparently the Lenovo T440s is back on the Lenovo site, and it will have "Optional backlight" for the keyboard and "optional multitouch".
So I guess it'll answer all of the requirements. I'm debating between that one and the newer version of the Lenovo X230t (the X240t?), because I could use the stylus.