Everything is relative, the big/thin MSI may be slow compared to today's machines and similar in performance to a 2007 machine. Then again in 2007 such a machine weighed more than twice as much, cost four times as much, the best batteries lasted less time, and in many ways had worse specs. Frankly other than a bit more video, I do not think me requirements have changed that much since 07. In any case I can remember not so long ago paying almost the same for a 320GB hard drive, which was much bigger as this whole machine would cost today.....

Except that's not quite right; big changes are generational, not incremental, and not much has changed generationally since late 2006 when the mobile Core 2s came out. (At least in mainstream, battery efficient stuff - the not-broadly distributed mobile Core 2 Quads and last year's mobile i7s ARE a lot faster. The new i3/i5/i7s look to push some of that improvement into the mainstream.)

I'm not sure what machine you're referring to with the "big/thin MSI" but the $299 emachines posted has a processor with specs that was already obsolete 3 years ago.

Weight and size have improved more than performance, although except at the very slow/netbook end of things that's been at the expense of battery life.

Notebook drives of a common size had been running around $100 since around the turn of the last decade (last year or two, more like $60-80); if you were paying the cost of a whole (even cheapo) laptop for a 320gb drive , that would have been a case of overpaying to get a drive size that was significantly ahead of the curve - as those of us who buy SSD tend to be doing now, albeit for speed rather than size.

As for changing needs since 2007, Windows 7 is not much different from Vista. I wouldn't expect people who've moved from Vista to 7 (with the slight improvements in efficiency, although MS will no doubt lose most of those as patches come out) to see much difference - but people who buy up to 7 from XP will likely need beefier hardware.

uhh, the MSI that has been desribed in several of the last few posts........

They always list the most optimistic figures for battery life. In real world usage of my Asus 9" I have never had even close to 8hrs of use.

Do you mean the X-Slim, mentioned in the message from Kitsura (#39) and then in passing by you in #40?

No links and it appears to be a whole model line. I wouldn't call a 13" model "big" compared to anything except a netbook. They do make a 15.6" thin model, but it's a good bit pricier.

Also can't find anyone selling a model like he describes - the $379 one is Atom-based (ie a netbook, just with a big screen - you're going back to about 2001 in CPU power there, not 2007) and the Core 2 CULV ones are a good deal pricier than the $500 he mentions. Plus the ones on Newegg are all single core (Core 2 Solo) chips which are not much better than netbook ones. Buying a single core chip was a mug's choice in 2007, let alone today.

There are quite a few intermediate-power dual core CULV machines coming out, at sizes ranging from 11.6" to 15". Those seem like a good balance of battery life and power; they are pretty comparable to the higher-clocked Core Duo (non-Core 2) from early 2006 or the more recent Turion X2 chips in cheaper laptops, and unlike the single-core AMD in the eMachines (or any of the currently-shipping single-core Atoms) should be fine for most users with Win 7 or Vista as long as you've got enough memory.

I am aware of that. I was comparing listed, because they all are a bit high. But a list of 4 is almost certainly a lot less than a list of 10-12. I should add that I probably get at least 8 hours in real life, probably closer to 10, from my Asus 1005HA-P. Some of the earlier Asus models did not have as long a battery life.

So I'm in the market for a laptop and this thread has been helpful, but a couple questions re: processors. I'm looking at 13-14" laptops, with my top choices being the Asus UL80vt (not sure the difference between that and the UL80ag), the Asus UL30vt, and the Acer AS4810TZ, and Acer AS3810T. Also considering the Dell Inspiron 14z.

Does it really make a difference what processor I have in there? The Acers have a Pentium Dual Core; Asus has a Core 2 Duo; a few others i've looked at have the i3 or i5 processors. The most graphics-intensive things I plan on doing are probably a few online games or streaming (HD) video, maybe a little photo editing, Office, etc - basic stuff. Given that I've had my desktop for 7+ years (upgraded here and there over time, but still getting pretty ancient), I'd like this laptop to last me at least 3-4 years. I hate throwing stuff away ;)

As was mentioned a couple of posts above, laptop advances tend to be generational. We are at such a generational crossroads today. When it comes to processors you can save money and buy yesterday's "good enough" technology (nothing wrong it that, BTW), or buy the new generation that will age much more gracefully, but cost more initially.

The new cpu's on the bloc are the mobile iCores (i5 and i7). I've got one in the HP Envy 15 with 8 gigabytes of memory. Major bang for the buck. But then I do video editing for fun and run multiple virtual machines for work - so it's got just the power I need, without being ungodly heavy. Very few laptops have those processors today, but more will be out by the summer.

I also want to add a vote of confidence for the Lenovo X200 series. I have used the previous x61 series (the Tablet version) for years and loved the quality and mobility.

Yes generational is a great thing, however if one does not do video editing, does not play suped up latest generation games and is not doing intense CAD designs, one can buy pretty much any high end laptop on the market and be happy. After having bought latest gee-whiz suped up 17-inch books for the last several cycles (generally I swap laptops ever y 18-24 months), I did go with the MSI X400 recently and I could not be happier (I actually got the X320 first, the minute I received it saw that there was a drop in the X400 price and decided to swap for the slightly bigger screen, HDMI, faster processor, and most importantly, 8 cell battery as the price diff was $50 or so) I could not be happier and ran my own real life benchmark, encoding a video (the performance was not super fast, but quite acceptable) and playing a video on and off each second hour for an hour. I got more than 8 hours out of it w/o having to put the screen to annoyingly low levels.

Would a huge solid state drive do better? Sure. Would a 5i processor be better? Probably, but only marginally so for what I want. Would an optical drive be better? Not really as other than the occasion/al bit of kids software for my son (he has his own computer now) I have not put a disk in my machine for two years (and if I do have a need to do so, there are another four computers in the house which I could do this with, including my newly retired laptop). Did I save a lot of money and get a really light machine that exceeds my requirements($449)? Definately.

It
Just
Works

After all this is TT and the X200 does everything a heavy traveller needs. I'm yet to see a better example of "you get what you pay for".

Depending on your definition of high-end, this could be good or very bad advice.

The baseline for a "decent" laptop today is still pretty low, and for many people there's no need to worry about the differences between Pentium Dual Core, Core 2 Duo, Core i5, or even Intel vs. AMD - my usual advice is "dual core and around 2ghz" and that should be enough. I wouldn't call that high-end, though.

For people who need/want a more powerful processor, getting a higher-clocked last generation processor (ie Core 2, say in the > 2.5ghz range) is a very bad idea economically - the newer generation is a much better value, and much more futureproof.

Get a laptop with a processor that supports virtual technology. The BIOS also has to support enabling this feature.

"Virtualization" not "virtual."

But yeah, for serious business users or those who are worried about compatibility with older software on newer operating systems, this is a must-have feature going forward for futureproofing.

For casual users, netbooks, and those who need something "good enough right now," it's a nice-to-have at best.

In general, low end and netbook processors rarely have it.
High-end laptop processors all have it (and virtually all high-end desktop processors.*)
For midrange (ie lower-tier Core 2 Duo) it depends on the model; in Dell's case, it is SOMETIMES indicated in the processor name on the customize screen. For the midrange, as far as I know all of the i3 and i5 processors have it.

All of the above also applies for 64-bit processors, although in the prior generation of the mid-range you do get a fair number of processors which support 64-bit but not virtualization.

(* For desktops (although going off topic here) this is a reason to avoid the cheaper "Q8xxx" series of quad-core Intel chips.)

When in doubt, the canonical place to check is here:
http://processorfinder.intel.com/
although as glob99 pointed out, in some cases you may get a processor that supports a feature without the proper BIOS support from the system manufacturer.

My .02:
I used to like the whole idea of netbooks, as all of them were a lot lighter and slimmer than my 17" Dell and even than my 15" Unibody Mac Pro, which replaced the Dell. I started out with a 9.8" Acer(about a year and a half ago), then up to a newer 11.6" model with HD display(was a steal at Costco at 325$, so i decided to give it a try). Ended up returning it back to the warehouse.

After that I was in a search for something with a decent screen-I figured a 12" is all I need when on the road, and something that's pretty hard to break. Still kept in mind my old IBM T42, which once survived a collision with the wall(was a rough visit of OMON to the office in Russsia), and lasted a year after.

So, I looked at what Lenovo was offering and got a X200 with built-in WiMax(doesn't work for me in the US, but does everything perfectly in Russia.I use a BlackBerry here so I don't need internet so badly as I do there). I'm more than satisfied with it - perfectly balanced, will survive almost anything(it's a ThinkPad), and I get 5 hours of battery life out of the standard one that came with it.
The only con is a price - I got mine for roughly 1450$(I paid in Russian Roubles so I don't know the exact number), but my previous ThinkPad lasted for almost five years, so it was a well made investment. I hope this one will last at least as much as the one before.)

Personally I have yet to see most business travellers utilizing the full power of their C2D notebooks.

So unless you need a super fast CPU for doing complex nuclear fission Excel simulations or a state of the art mobile GPU to accelerate the scrolling of your 20,000 page sequel to War and Peace script all the hardware you buy is purely for boasting rights.