Laptop time. NLC.

[campbell]

Likely to take the plunge shortly for own laptop, for first time ever. Normally just roll with company ones, whic have generally been excellent.

New recruit has to measure up to an ultra light Toshiba Portege R600...but at fraction of the cost.

This Samsung caught my eye. http://www.ebuyer.com/396856-samsung-53 ... 5u3c-a02uk

Any real world views?

Usage will be:

Internet
Ms office inc Outlook for mail
Some image, audio and video work but not high demand
Regularly on the go

I.e., main requirement is lightness, robustness for travel, and above all, price point. Large screen irrelevant but don't want one of these shiny ones...silly idea that.

Real world reviews welcome. Thanks folks.

[woody]

Surface pro when it launches?

[campbell]

Need it kinda now.

Price point for Surface?

And is it any good...

[tut]

Looking at that also Campbell for Verian. Ticks all the boxes except for maybe an Intel i5 processor, light at 1.5kg, Samsungs have good screens, Superbright and matte, 500gb hard drive, 6gb memory, USB3, HDMI etc.

£480 on Amazon with free delivery.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-535U3C- ... B009SJCYBC

tut

[BiggestNizzy]

Your looking at £800+ for a surface pro when they launch over here (I have added £100 for a keyboard)

Priced competetivly for an ultrabook

[campbell]

Good spot Tut. £33 saving over eBuyer.

Finger hovers over the Buy button...

[Dark]

Don't know if this is any help.

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-co ... you-901574

I use a HP Elitebook for work. A bit on the heavy side but tough as old boots with an aluminium chassis & panels. I was so impressed I bought one for Alison off eBay for ~£200 to replace her aging Acer which was never very good. Cheap plastic construction and full of bloated OEM applications.

Is this a late birthday present or early Xmas present?

Mark

[Sanjøy]

No mention of budget so I am chucking the S9 in there.

[graeme]

5 and 6 years respectively we've used and heavily abused our old plastic Macbooks, and they're still going strong and not slow at all (a benefit of OS X over windows rather than hardware, I admit). Don't rule out Macs on their purchase price as TCO is lower in my experience. "Buy cheap, buy twice" and all that jazz.

[DJ]

Watching thread with interest as I will be making a purchase of one of these over next couple of weeks for eldest girl's Christmas. Been looking at this:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavili ... 05135751:s

...which seems OK for spec and price at £350. I have a huge specification list to work from, as follows:

1) can I get a purple one.

As I am not that tech savy, if there is a reason to avoid this model , please shout.

[campbell]

No mention of budget so I am chucking the S9 in there.

thanks Sanjoy, nice example

however...

and above all, price point

Mark - several options on the shortlist from that Techradar review, thanks.

Graeme - toyed with Macbook idea, really do get the long term VFM argument, but just not 100% about UI change and interop with WinXP server machine at home. Convince me.

[campbell]

Watching thread with interest as I will be making a purchase of one of these over next couple of weeks for eldest girl's Christmas. Been looking at this:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavili ... 05135751:s

...which seems OK for spec and price at £350. I have a huge specification list to work from, as follows:

1) can I get a purple one.

As I am not that tech savy, if there is a reason to avoid this model , please shout.

Apart from weighing similar to a housebrick, looks like a smart move. Robust etc. Sensible price point for a youngster I suppose.

I'd look seriously at both HP and Toshiba since both have provided me brilliant machines over the last 17 years or so. Have never, ever run with anything else.

However that was when "the company" was paying. This time, it's just me...

[Eric K]

Recently got this fella.

All good so far.

Cheers,

Eric

[ed]

I've just bought a Lenovo g580 which I'm very happy with!

[graeme]

Convince me.

Lets say for arguement's sake you turn out to be the only person I've ever met who regrets buying one and doesn't like OS X...

It's still an Intel-based laptop. (Probably the nicest latop range on the market, hardware wise). Simply install Windows on it.

Apple have a thing called "Bootcamp" which is basically just a wizard tool that walks you through creating a partition on your hard drive and installing Windows with a package of (officially supported) Windows drivers for your Apple hardware (trackpad, sound chips, video etc). So you do that, and then you have a Native Windows partition not much different to any other Windows Laptop (except with a better trackpad). But you've still got OS X there if you want it. (I use OS X almost exclusively but sometimes boot to Windows for iRacing).

If swapping between them seems like a pain, then don't. With VMWare Fusion you can open your native Windows Bootcamp install inside a VM on the OS X host without rebooting to it and use it full-screen or in "unity mode" which is crazy - it seamlessly runs Windows programs from your other partition as if they were OS X apps.

The days when it was one or the other are long gone.

As for interop with existing windows server, what do you need? OS X has an RDP client, most media clients, Mail supports exchange accounts, or Office for Mac includes an Outlook style app.