Someone else may have a suggestion in the consumer space as well; I know the Dell and Lenovo business model lines since those are what we order from at work, and I've had very good luck with Dell for personal purchases. There are quite a lot of 13" models out there (although fewer than one might like with the i5/i7 ULV chips which are probably your best bet, given your goals battery-life-wise) but I don't tend to follow Toshiba/HP/Asus/Acer/Sony or even the Dell/Lenovo consumer lines very closely.

The i3/i5/i7 ULV chips arrived quite late on the market compared to the mainstream mobile chips, so I do expect there to be some new models coming out over the next few months. In theory, there will also be ULV versions of the Sandy Bridge (i3/i5/i7-2xxx series) chips coming out sometime in the first quarter as well, although it would not surprise me if they were delayed compared to the regular-wattage ones.

Given the importance of battery life, if you were in a rush, one option might be to stick with a last-generation processor; the top-of-the-line Core 2 ULV processor (SU9600, 1.6ghz) is only 10W peak rather than 18W for the ULV i5/i7 models. It will be quite a bit slower, although kind of on the borderline where for most users it may not be botheringly slow (the 1.3ghz-ish models like the SU7300 will feel slow to even light users, although still noticeably less slow than an Atom as in the Dell Mini.) I think, though, that with the i3/i5 out for nearly a full year already (and desktop i7s pushing 15 months) it is probably unrealistic to hope for a 3-year horizon of obsolescence on an architecture from 2006.

Well, I have my doubts that you'd be able to find an actual TimelineX 1830T to play with at retail (or even the older and slightly more common, if slower, 1810T with Core 2 Duo) but the 11.6" form factor in general is common enough you should be able to find some manufacturer's model with a comparable screen (including of plenty of slower but otherwise similar Acer semi-netbook models) at retail quite easily. If you get a chance, take a look. The viewable area of an 11.6" screen is going to be about equally wide and slightly shorter, and the resolutions mirror that. After a 9" screen, it may feel positively spacious :)

This seems like a pretty good deal on a Toshiba Portege R705. Only downsides I see are the integrated video and lack of an SSD drive. But for $699 you're getting a pretty portable unit (3.2lbs) with an i5 processor.

Looks like a pretty good set of specs. I don't think you will see an SSD in that price range (and with most systems it's a relatively easy upgrade later), and I am not sure why integrated video is a minus for most people: unless you play non-casual video games or have other very specific needs, the integrated video from the i3/i5/i7 (or indeed the 2007+ or newer chipsets which went with most Core 2s) should be able to handle pretty much anything most people will want to throw at them.

(A few lower-powered Core 2 machines still have GMA950 or X3000/X3100 chipsets which may have some trouble with HD video and/or some of the Vista/Win7 eye candy, but these are rare outside of the near-netbook space.)

I'd be a bit skeptical of their claimed battery life, although it's not impossible; I don't have time right now to look up some independent reviews, but that would be a next step given what you said about the importance of battery life

I agree. I generally discount the claimed life by 25%. So I'd assume 6 hours on this model. That's still quite decent. My longest flights are about 10 to 11 hours...so 9 to 10 of usable laptop time. So while 8 hours would be even better I can live with 6. And assuming the power draw is no more than 65 watts I could use a powerport for the times I need more usage.

Having had a little more time this afternoon, googling on reviews shows a mix of reports in the 4 1/2 - 5 1/2 range (although some of those are with the i3, which will have slightly worse scores since the power management is a little more basic.) Not too bad. ( http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/12/t...e-r705-review/ )

I can't find a manufacturer auto-air adapter on a trivial search, but there are plenty of 3rd-party ones out there reporting to be 65W. Real power usage most of the time on a machine like that is going to be much lower - a 6-cell battery is 60W/hr or less so to get 5 hours the average use has to be 12W or less.

With regards the ergonomics, my one concern for myself would be that I'm not fond of the move many of these machines have made to "chiclet" keyboards, but many people prefer them, and clearly at worse many aren't bothered by them.

Looks like it would be a pretty good machine with the i3s, and a very good choice given your criteria with the i5.

Not sure if it's the same battery pack but I run an R700 with SSD drive and i7 chip and can get 8 hours comfortably out of that, need to run it in eco power management mode though.

My Asus UL30A is rated at 12 hours and I can realistically stretch it to 10 hours. There will be a new generation of SSD's coming to market soon, and I'll be getting one once they're available. Will be interested to see how that affects perf & battery life.

I am looking for a light 14" i5 with long battery life and a decent screen if possible. I don't need an HD screen - I have 1440x900 now and that's perfect - just a quality image. I like the look of the T410s mentioned above, but it looks like the biggest HD is 250GB. I figure I need at least 350GB. Any thoughts on the Asus U43JC?

Thanks

Dr. PITUK

You can use this adapter to replace the Thinkpad optical drive with a second hard drive, 2.5" at that. Those come up to 750GB. The boot drive should be an SSD. The U43JC has ...... resolution.

Edit: Toshiba now manufactures 1.8" 320GB http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Pat...Kxx33GSGSeries disks.

I'm no Apple fanboy, but I will say that I've loved my MacBook Pro 15'' i7 so far. It's speedy, low temps, long battery and ridiculously powerful. A little too heavy for my liking (formerly had a Dell XPS m1330), but for the horsepower, I'm apt to making some consolations.

Yeah, they're expensive, but the CS is great if you need them.



BN

I just picked up a MacBook Air 13 primarily for travel. It's a wonderful computer and makes it easy to travel versus lugging around a larger machine. I could care less about OS/X and mac tools but dollar for dollar, it's the best machine on the market. I compared Lenovo/Dell/Asus and couldn't get one with a SSD for more than $100 less difference.

Oh,I use bootcamp to turn mine into a Windows PC too.

i like thinkpads, have also ownerd macs
 

Currently I have a t510 and like suggested I have removed the optical drive in favor of a 2nd HD of 750GB. This is the machine I choose to purchase with my own money, but in hindsight I think the 14" version would have been easier to travel with.
I actually got the drive caddy from Lenovo at the time of the purchase, but never buy Hard drives or extra memory form them, just too darn expensive. I then got a 750GB 5400 RPM drive as well as a 256GB SSD. I used the recovery disks to built the Win7 pro OS on the SSD and keep the original drive as a backup (in a usb connected toaster). After that I installed all the updates and programs that I need.
This machine is very fast on boot and program launch thanks to the SSD, all my file are on the spinning piece of rust (HD). Another benefit of the SSD is longer battery life, I did test with the original HD just to compare. I also went with the slower 5400rpm HD to minimize power consumption.

Some rumors re: the upcoming business-line machines with Sandy Bridge chips from Dell:
http://www.electronista.com/articles...x600.leak.out/

Nice. Guess we should know more this week with CES opening.

I was getting really close to a T410s, but I think that I would like to wait for it to show up with the new versions of the i3/5/7. The battery benchmarks seem much better (and the extra speed is nice too :)). Unfortunately, it looks like the T420s is way down the line for the chipset upgrade. Hopefully it will have a bigger drive as well.

Has anyone seen a release date for this in the US/Canada?

I'm still interested in a comparable machine as well, because I'd prefer to order in the next 2-3 weeks if I could.

I think that next time around (in 2-3 years), I may replace both desktop and latop with Mac's, but not this time.

Thanks

Dr. PITUK