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What are really good and small laptops?

Inspector Jihad

Inspector Jihad

Lifer
I wanna get one for my dad. He's lugging around one of those mobile-desktop notebooks. I want it to be fairly small and light. Would like to keep it under 2000, but would go up another 2 or 3 hundred. Thanks in advance.
 
I just cant recommend sony...its a price issue with me...they dont offer any more than anybody else and they are expensive... the Dell 700m is a nice little laptop and affordable.
 
Sony Vaio S360 all the way.

I own one and its freaking awesome. It has a really high quality 13.3 widescreen, 1.7 ghz centrino, and a radeon 9700 mobility. The best part about the entire thing is that it only weighs 4 pounds. THere's nothing else on the market that is this small and has such a good gpu.
 
Originally posted by: touchmyichi
Sony Vaio S360 all the way.

I own one and its freaking awesome. It has a really high quality 13.3 widescreen, 1.7 ghz centrino, and a radeon 9700 mobility. The best part about the entire thing is that it only weighs 4 pounds. THere's nothing else on the market that is this small and has such a good gpu.
Click to expand...

how's the keyboard? my one issue with the 700m is that the keyboard is cramped.

 
hey guys, thanks for all teh great suggestions so far. however, i would like to add one more requirment: are there any of these laptops which have like 5 hr battery life.

my sister has a 12 in ibook. it is small, light, powerful enough for everyday work and has phenominal battery life. usually 5 hrs or so. I pretty much want the same thing for my dad but in windows flavor. I would get that for my dad, but he's taken quite a while to figure out windows and osx is really foreign to him. i dont think the ibook would be good for him.
 
Are you sure your dad would be OK with a 12"? When I think "dad," I think of someone who probably wouldn't like a screen that small and wouldn't like a cramped keyboard.

There are a lot of 14" widescreens that are pretty thin & light and have regular-sized keyboards. The Gateway M250 line and the HP 14" widescreens are really nice and you can get a good one for under $1000. If you want to spend more, the Asus has a really nice 14". All of them have good battery life.

Just go to a Dell kiosk in a mall and play with the Dells, then go to a Best Buy and play with the Gateways, and go to a Circuit City and play with the HPs. I'm sure that would be better than just randomly asking people what a good small laptop is.

Your sister's 12" iBook might be giving you a bad impression of what most 12" laptops are like. The iBook has a very good keyboard for a laptop that small, and it's only XGA so nobody has to squint to see it. Most 12" laptops are more cramped and have higher resolution.
 
If he's like most dads he won't be so great at getting rid of spyware/malware and all that - mine routinely gets infected all over the place. Macs give him that one advantage in spades - he'll never have to worry about *any* of that - viruses, malware, or whatnot, and you'll never have to support it. There are no reformat/reinstall worries, and it's very, very easy to use.

If he could live with the iBook, a 14" iBook (larger 14" screen, so it's easier on his eyes, yet still only a 1024x768 screen, so it's very easy to read with bigger letters and such) might be nice - still only 5.5 pounds or so. The smaller 12" iBook is also 1024x768, but in a smaller form factor - lighter, but it is harder to see and read (these are issues for older eyes!).

Me - I like my Gateway M505. $999 for a 15.4" screen, Centrino 1.4, and Radeon 9600 - with 6.5 pounds or so in weight.

I suspect most dads would be more interested in a laptop screen they can completely see rather than having the latest graphics cards. But that's just me. 🙂

Is there an absolute cutoff on weight?
 
thanks for the input guys. i was just saying 12 in cause thats what my sister has and its really small and has great batt. life. but i guess a 14 in. isnt too much bigger, but i dont want it more than 6 lbs or so. I dont thnk a mac is right for my pops cause he'll run into something that he doesnt know and will flip out and be on the phone with me trying to explain whats going on(this happend once when he saved his pictures somewhere on my sisters mac and couldnt rememer how the folder system works and called me like 4 times while i was at the gym)
 
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