Upgrade for my portable workhorse ASUS

[sygyzy]

I am obsessed with "thin and light" laptops. My current one is a ASUS UL30TV-A1. I love it. But I want something faster and hopefully lighter. What I am looking for:

• Under 4 lbs. Preferbly under 3.75 lbs.
• 13.3" screen or thereabouts. Not larger or smaller
• No optical drive
• Dedicated GPU or dual GPU. No built in Intel stuff.
• Plain hard drive is fine. Does not need to be SATA.
• 8 hours of battery life minimum
• Under $1000.

I really love ASUS so they have any compelling upgrades? Any other choices?

 

[Schadenfreude]

You're welcome

[grumble] Don't people know how to use Google anymore?[/grumble]

On a more serious note, if that's too heavy (4lbs.) then you could potentially wait for this guy hurr; but I highly doubt that it'd be under $1k.

 

[sygyzy]

Normally I am with you with the google jab but honestly, I did do my research. This actually weighs more than my current one and that's the main area I was trying to improve on. I went through ASUS's website too and their UL series is supposed to be the thin and light series and under that line they only had the UL30Jt which is pretty much the same as my current laptop except with a processor upgrade.

I was hoping to crowdsource for other alternatives for me to choose from.

 

[apac]

Normally I am with you with the google jab but honestly, I did do my research. This actually weighs more than my current one and that's the main area I was trying to improve on. I went through ASUS's website too and their UL series is supposed to be the thin and light series and under that line they only had the UL30Jt which is pretty much the same as my current laptop except with a processor upgrade.

I was hoping to crowdsource for other alternatives for me to choose from.

I think your requirements are too steep.

Under 4 lbs. Preferbly under 3.75 lbs.
Dedicated GPU or dual GPU. No built in Intel stuff.

OK, this is doable, except it conflicts with

Under 4 lbs. Preferbly under 3.75 lbs.
8 hours of battery life minimum

A dedicated GPU adds both weight and power consumption. Most laptops with dGPUs are also going to be paired with more powerful processors.

After looking at laptops with similar requirements for several days, the only thing I saw that comes close to this is the new 13" Acer TimelineX. You won't get 8 hours of battery out of it, and I've read about heat issues while running games. I ended up sacrificing a bit of weight buying a Lenovo Ideapad Y470 (can be had for $850 + tax with coupon).

 

[sygyzy]

apac - That's totally fair about the GPU and after doing more research, that's the same conclusion I came up with. Ok, let's say there's no dedicated GPU but something decent on board I can use to play HD videos or relatively simple games like Portal.

Now what can I get? The X1 and some other Lenovo models look good.

 

[Schadenfreude]

apac - That's totally fair about the GPU and after doing more research, that's the same conclusion I came up with. Ok, let's say there's no dedicated GPU but something decent on board I can use to play HD videos or relatively simple games like Portal.

Now what can I get? The X1 and some other Lenovo models look good.

Yeah you can get decent battery life with Optimus for Nvidia cards, but 8 hours may be pushing it. The new line of IGPs from Intel (3000 HD) are a step up and you may be able to play Portal 2 in lowered settings, but if gaming's a concern I'd say wait for a thin-and-light laptop equipped w/ Llano comes out. The pricing and IGP performance is a lot better than Intel's, they are rolling out now.