Travel Laptop

Z

zed

Legend
Im wanted a laptop for when Im travelling around asia in a months time.

WANT -
-small (weight is not so important) 13" screen max size
-cheap (fair chance it will be stolen)
-silent or as close to as possible
-opengl 2.0+

NOT SO IMPORTANT
performance, 2000+ geekbench should be enuf
storage ~64GB should be plenty

NO
-touchscreen

I had a look here http://www.asus.com/Eee/ but just couldnt understand the site, eg where can I get an overview of all the models?

Any ideas? Cheers zed
 
Well you go to eee PC (what was formerly the netbook line) then choose 12", or 10". Rather 12", I think. The site still sucks but you only have that list to look up. They open in tabs.

Don't get an Atom, as the driver support for the PowerVR graphics is terrible. So, an AMD E-350 or E-450 it is (or a slower C-60 or similar).
Is "opengl 2.0" and higher needed on Windows, or nice to have on Linux as well?
I've looked around, on open source driver for the AMD you get OpenGL 2.1 and on close source you get OpenGL 4.1 (according to an article from march 2011 so both may have moved up a little, or not).
 
The OS is not important, If its got windows I'll prolly also instal linux on it. Might convert some of my games over to linux and check out the steambox

I found this but its crazy
http://www.asus.com/Eee/AllProducts/

23 models with a 10 inch screen
8 models with a 12 inch screen
plus others there

then you have these (which perhaps are OK)
http://www.asus.com/Tablet/AllProducts/ I dont want a tablet at all, but some of these have keyboards
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/AllProducts/ some of these have small enuf screens
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/ASUS_VivoBook_S200E/#specifications <-- nice

All told, looks to be about 200 different models
but theres no way I can go show me all models 13" and under less than $1000 with 2gb or less.
What a terrible site, there must be a better way to do this

whats a few sites I could use eg to list all laptops of a certain screensize & price etc?
 
My daughter has an Asus Eeep and it just impresses the bejesus out of me. Small, lightweight, insane battery life, and it does what I need it to do.

Got about 3 laptops now, but I still steal hers when I want something small that's easy to just whip out and use real quick. The only slightly icky bit is needing to hook it up via USB to my phone for tethering, but that's more my phones fault than Eeep's. (Yes, we named it "Eeep")

I'm not sure which model it is and I can't check right now since she falls asleep with it almost every night and she's still asleep, but it's an older one I picked up off a friend for $160 and it's just been an incredibly good purchase.
 
yes the eeepc looks OK, but they look old what I want is a table like they have here but up to date
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus_Eee_PC

the newest eeepc I can see is this
http://www.tlbhd.com/asus-1225b-review-116-eee-pc-flare-plenty-offer-13283/
but thats from a year ago, thus will of been replaced by a model or two by now at the rate asus churns models out but I cant find what the new model is?

Even this old models pretty beefy, prolly as powerful as my desktop from 5 years ago

Asus EEE PC Flare 1225B
Screen 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 px resolution, LED, glossy
Processor AMD Fusion E-450 APU, 1.65 GHz
Chipset AMD Hudson D1
Video AMD Radeon HD 6320 with AMD Turbo Core
Memory 4 GB DDR3 1333 MHz
Hard-disk 750 GB 5400 rpm
Connectivity Bluetooth, Wireless N
Ports 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, VGA, HDMI, LAN, card-reader, webcam with protection lock
Baterry 6 Cell 5200 mAh 56 Wh
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Size 296 x 200 x 35 mm
Weight about 1.44 kg (3.2 pounds)


I decided to screw Asus, if they or any other manufacturers cant make a decent website than Im not going to give them money.
One thing pisses me off they split laptops up into netbooks, ultrabooks, laptops yet a similar model can be in either of the category

website judgements

ASUS - TERRIBLE
HP - OK, but a bit pricey
DELL - GOOD, nothing for me though
ACER - TERRIBLE, goodbye
SONY - GOOD - 11.6 inch VAIO E Series 11
LENOVO - GOOD - ThinkPad X131e
SAMSUNG - OK to bad, no prices though!
TOSIHBA - GOOD, nothing for me though
 
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Well Im not expecting a great screen on a cheap laptop,
What pisses me off is I was just reading about a smartphone 5" 1920x1200 res.
Perhaps theres a way to rig it up with a magnifying glass so it looks 10"
 
That's the thing, the little screen on Eeep is perfect for me for just browsing the web or watching viddies on. I mean I really didn't expect it to be, but it's more than adequate.

I don't normally do a lot of heavy stuff with it, just bring it with to kill time with and so I can text/e-mail without using my stupid phone. (I f-ing HATE touchscreen keyboards, yes I have fat fingers. :p )
 
Macbook Pro Retina 13, they will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Amazing screen (supersampled 1440x900 looks really good and is what I used 90% of the time, but 1680x1050 is pretty usable too), 8GB ram standard, very capable Ivy Bridge cpu, fast SSD, a lot smaller than the Air, almost as light, 7 hours battery, and really good silent cooling. Best 13" on the market, you really need to use one to appreciate it, it's only 1cm larger than the display on each side and thinner than the Air at its thickest point.

Some websites lag in Chrome, but I don't mind using Webkit (which is butter smooth) for those until Google catches up.
 
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For a lot less the Asus UX32VD is quite nice and, with some post-install tweaks, runs linux nicely. Compared to the Macbook it can go to 12 GB RAM (only 8 on Macbook) and has a dedicated GPU (620M I believe).
 
You should consider the feel of the under side of the laptop, you're a nudest after all! :p
 
Macbook Pro Retina 13
Click to expand...
It'll be nice (I'll have to ditch the Mac OS though) but wont be nice if it gets stolen, Im looking to spend ~$1000nz ~$800US because of this, and I want a portable one ~11".
I find it amazing the number of different laptops, compare this to the number of smartphones each company has just a few choices in the mid-top range. but in laptops some like asus have over 100 current models. Still got a month before I leave so no rush
 
shiznit said:
Macbook Pro Retina 13, they will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Click to expand...
It's far from cheap, and by golly it's not exactly silent either! :p

This year's MBPr 13" is going to be really interesting though, since it ought to be equipped with haswell GT3 graphics with the on-substrate framebuffer memory module. This is where integrated graphics will really start to take off.
 
Grall said:
It's far from cheap, and by golly it's not exactly silent either! :p

This year's MBPr 13" is going to be really interesting though, since it ought to be equipped with haswell GT3 graphics with the on-substrate framebuffer memory module. This is where integrated graphics will really start to take off.
Click to expand...

... If one can wait until fall since that is when mbps are typically refreshed
 
Grall said:
It's far from cheap, and by golly it's not exactly silent either! :p

This year's MBPr 13" is going to be really interesting though, since it ought to be equipped with haswell GT3 graphics with the on-substrate framebuffer memory module. This is where integrated graphics will really start to take off.
Click to expand...
I paid $1400 barely used, worth every penny for this kind of quality hardware. Every component is best in class or damn near.

Compared to the Air (even the ivy bridge model with the single asymmetrical fan), it's very quiet. You are right though, with Haswell GT3e is when it really starts to shine, especially at gpu perf and idle power, fingers crossed for Panel Self Refresh.
 
zed said:
It'll be nice (I'll have to ditch the Mac OS though) but wont be nice if it gets stolen, Im looking to spend ~$1000nz ~$800US because of this, and I want a portable one ~11".
I find it amazing the number of different laptops, compare this to the number of smartphones each company has just a few choices in the mid-top range. but in laptops some like asus have over 100 current models. Still got a month before I leave so no rush
Click to expand...
You will be ditching windows before mac os x. I thought the same thing as you before my first macbook and now my windows vm only runs a couple apps. When I get into a situation where I have to use a windows laptop I feel claustrophobic and get angry very fast. The touchpad is usually not as good, no gestures (native or custom, i created my own to speed things up) no virtual desktops (you can pin apps to spaces), Metro is just not necessary, they keyboard can be really bad, and 16:9 just needs to go.

Can't help you with the stealing part, people covet nice things.
 
As for a cheap thing, there's the Acer C7 Chromebook. basically a netbook with a HDD, a really low price and a dual core Celeron 1.1GHz rather than something else.
So, a very good offer, it's a sandy bridge with the sandy bridge graphics. I read that the screen sucks, though (but better a sucky 11.6" screen than a sucky 17" one. gasp)

It's pretty uncrippled, you can drop an 8GB ddr3 stick in it, and the memory jumps from 2GB to 10GB.
 
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