Looking for a new laptop (and the free 360 doesn't hurt)

A convergence of factors has me in the market for a new laptop: my old one is feeling its age and will probably cry crocodile tears if I try loading the upcoming Windows 8 and Adobe CS6 on it, and Microsoft is so generously giving away a free 360 if you buy from select stores. As possibly the last remaining person on earth without one, this seems like as good a time as any to hand over some sweet moneys for an upgrade.

I must note at this point that I will personally throttle the first person to say "get a Mac".

However, my old laptop was a Tablet PC. Remember, the ones before we had your fancy touchamascreens and android-whatsits? With the Wacom pens? One of those. Since even that pen hands down beats any other laptop input mode (track-nib, trackpad and beating your face into the keyboard, in ascending order of effectiveness) I am very tempted to wait until the Windows 8 hybrid tablet-laptops launch in October. The 360 deal is until September somethingth, so I'll be holding off the purchase until more stuff about these hybrids surfaces (hah, get it), but until then I intend to do my research into what's currently out there. Plus, chances are that August is going to see some "back to school" deals pop up, anyway.

Chances are that this will be my primary PC for a couple of years, so ideally it should be competent at gaming (no need for Crysis but at least Crusader Kings 2). Since I'm going to have to carry this thing to class, it should be reasonably light, and also have at least 3 hours of battery life (a real 3 hours, not "3 hours if you turn off wifi, unload the keyboard drivers and then put it into standby") on the expanded battery if not on the main one. An optical drive is completely unnecessary - a few USBs and an SD card reader are the only ports I need. Price should ideally be under $1000 (cheaper is always better) but I can swing $1500 if there's enough baubles on the machine. Since it will undoubtedly be hopelessly obsolete in 3 years no matter what I do, I don't want bleeding edge top of the line specs unless they come cheap. 14 inches is plenty of screen size, but I wouldn't even mind 13.3 - all my laptops thus far have been 12.1 inch, and it's been plenty, but as I understand this size is hard to find nowadays.

Does such a thing exist, or would it be better to hold out for the winter sales and see what kind of fun stuff manufacturers manage to do with Windows 8?

On the Macs thing, I have some serious complaints with them myself, but you might have anger issues. :smalltongue:

I'd avoid HP if possible because of poor battery life and they get SUPER hot.

Your best deals will probably come in winter, if you're diligent about looking for them- the combination of clearing unsold Back To School inventory and clearing Win7 systems to make way for Win8 means you should be able to snag some really nice deals if you go looking for them. Although tbh I don't know if you can find them in the variety you're talking about- that's a fairly specific section of the market, and not one that is commonly targeted for sales.

Edit: The kind of laptop you're talking about are most often found in business lines; smaller machines for portability with a a fair amount of power in them, because business people are generally not thought to put up with slow systems. Check out Dell, Lenovo, and Asus's business lines. Acer does an alright set too, although I don't know if they're currently manufacturing it.

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Originally Posted by tyckspoon

Edit: The kind of laptop you're talking about are most often found in business lines; smaller machines for portability with a a fair amount of power in them, because business people are generally not thought to put up with slow systems.

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:smallconfused: I'd say it's exactly the opposite--it's the home user who wants a fast system; business users want a *reliable* one that uses proven technology. You will rarely find a fast 3D card in a business spec laptop, for instance, because business people don't need to play Crysis on the thing!

Don't limit yourself to stores that do the 360 deal. They may end up costing more than buying a laptop and 360 separately elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by factotum

:smallconfused: I'd say it's exactly the opposite--it's the home user who wants a fast system; business users want a *reliable* one that uses proven technology. You will rarely find a fast 3D card in a business spec laptop, for instance, because business people don't need to play Crysis on the thing!

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"14 inches is plenty of screen size, but I wouldn't even mind 13.3 - all my laptops thus far have been 12.1 inch, and it's been plenty, but as I understand this size is hard to find nowadays."

This specific size group exists in 3 categories: Netbooks, business machines, and *ludicrously* expensive gadget-porn systems. Netbooks are out for performance concerns, and the gadget-porn systems are out for cost reasons; Sony makes/made a line with suitable specs that was priced from ~1600 to like 2500, for example, as of the last time I looked at this class of system. If you want that balance of performance, price, and smaller size, you're looking at business travelbooks. Sliding on one of those categories opens up your options a lot; size would be the easiest. 15.6" is pretty much the standard right now, and you might be able to find a pretty well equipped 14" as well (depends a lot on where/who you're able to purchase from.) Although I couldn't vouch for the battery life of a system with a gaming-capable unit in it- you'd want to do a bit of research on that when you've spotted a model that seems like a decent candidate in other respects.

Bigger screens are also not a problem, really. I would just prefer the device not to break my back when carrying it around over an extra couple of diagonal inches.

I got my laptop from cyberpowerpc.com. They have a fairly wide selection, so you should be able to find a rig that fits your specifications and price range. For instance, this little gem runs $829 and, based on your description, should be all the machine you need.

Shiny! Do they ship to Canada, and what kind of battery life would a beast like that have on a puny 6 cell battery?

I didn't look around to make sure, but I can't imagine them not shipping to Canada.

I'd forgotten about your battery requirement. I'm not sure how long this machine's standard battery would last, but most of their laptops have an option to swap in a more potent battery (or have them install a second, or even both) among the customizations.

I get 3-4 hours on a single charge on my machine, which is substantially more powerful than this one. Though I'm sure that it also has a better battery than the standard 6-cell in this one...