Powerful Laptop for Uni

[Mr Keshy]

Chiclet/island keyboards in general are really nice

[Mao]

Even though I have SSD + HDD in my laptop (it's for a highly specialised purpose), I strongly advocate against having two drives in a laptop. Single hard drives in laptops can account for as much as 20% of the battery use in a laptop (which tend to be designed with high efficiency/low power usage in mind). Adding a second hard drive seriously kills battery life to the point where laptops are not useful anymore.

The type of usage that takes up large amounts of storage is, as we all know, media. Movies + Music. You are not going to be accessing these all the time. You will find that for most purposes, ~100Gb is more than enough for typical usages (OS + programs + day-to-day documents). For that purpose, media storage should be ran off an external hard drive. Passport-size 1.0 TB external hard drives tend to be quite reasonably priced these days, and you will retain the portability as well as the battery life of your system.

Also, CD drives are almost useless these days. External USB CD drives can be picked up at dirt cheap prices. Simply just don't.


TL;DR, the most important thing about a laptop is its battery life. Without the portability, it is simply an overpriced desktop (specialised purposes notwithstanding). Don't go for something that seems 'well-rounded', go for something that is purposely designed with a clearly defined purpose: portability.

[Mao]

Hey guys, I was wondering if I could get some opinions on this laptop for home/uni use. I'm not a hard-core gamer so I don't need a separate gaming computer for home and a lighter ultra-book for uni, so I thought this would be a good option that would last me a while,
http://www.logicalblueone.com.au/store/543-horize-w550eu-ultranote.html
What I like about it is that is has the SSD + HDD, can't seem to find many with this option.
Anyway would like to hear people's thoughts on this, and is the pricing good? (sorry for hijacking this thread lol, didn't want to start a new one as it's a similar topic XD)
Thanks

Not knowing the brand and its build quality, I shall comment purely on the configuration.

The specs on that unit actually looks quite reasonable. It sports an 8-cell battery, which is quite unusual for its kind (usually sporting 6-cell batteries). This is where a fair amount of the extra weight would come from, but I don't think it'll make a huge difference.  You want to make the most out of this advantage, and so minimizing power-hungry upgrades would be a good idea.

You'll do well to stick with the most basic configuration (i5, 8GB memory, no second HDD). If you leave all the upgrades, you'll find the 8-cell battery will perform quite well. However, judging by the price of the units, I would imagine it's a cheap Chinese battery, so expect it to deteriorate quite fast. You should be replacing the battery every year or so.

I would recommend the Wireless N upgrade (it makes a difference).  Windows 8 is nice, if you are willing to pay for it, however ubuntu is a very nice operating system and is becoming a serious contender in ordinary uses. You should consider it if you are not tied to proprietary software (e.g. Photoshop)

Memory can be upgraded yourself for much much cheaper (~16GB upgrade should cost ~$50 at most). If you are a heavy user (e.g. using lots of heavy programs like Matlab and Photoshop and so forth) this would be a good option, but generally you won't need it.

HDD wise, the $/GB you pay for the second HDD is actuall more expensive than external drives, so you actually save money by not upgrading. (surprise surprise)

[kensan]

Thanks for the responses people, and thanks Mao for the in-depth response

I actually was going to get SSD + HDD, but after what you (and a friend) have told me, I will upgrade the SSD to 256 and use an external.

Also, CD drives are almost useless these days. External USB CD drives can be picked up at dirt cheap prices. Simply just don't.

So are you saying I should request to remove it? There is no option for this so I guess I don't get a choice

About the wireless card, my friend said I don't need to upgrade as the standard one works perfectly. Could you tell me how much better an upgrade would be?

[Mr Keshy]

Thanks for the responses people, and thanks Mao for the in-depth response

I actually was going to get SSD + HDD, but after what you (and a friend) have told me, I will upgrade the SSD to 256 and use an external.
So are you saying I should request to remove it? There is no option for this so I guess I don't get a choice

About the wireless card, my friend said I don't need to upgrade as the standard one works perfectly. Could you tell me how much better an upgrade would be?

You may not be able to make use of the speed benefits of the N technology, but the thing with N is that it'll keep the speed at a further distance. It's really worth it. Especially if you use your laptop outside of home. Strongly recommend it.

[Mao]

I actually was going to get SSD + HDD, but after what you (and a friend) have told me, I will upgrade the SSD to 256 and use an external.
So are you saying I should request to remove it? There is no option for this so I guess I don't get a choice

I was about to criticise the price of the SSD, but then it's not TOO unreasonable. It's not something I would pay for myself, I can probably get this done for $50 cheaper, but you might not want to go through the hassle of cracking open a laptop or trying to resell a 2nd hand SSD.

Also, no point to ask for the CD drive to be removed. It's just that a lot of people look for laptops designed with a CD drive, and dismiss good alternatives without CD drives without reason.

About the wireless card, my friend said I don't need to upgrade as the standard one works perfectly. Could you tell me how much better an upgrade would be?

For $50, huge. Wireless N has much better range and signal strength. Modern routers that ships from Telstra (for example) are Wireless N enabled, and you will have much less pain with deadspots in the house and dropping connections. On the lesser side, Wireless N also represents a huge speed boost over Wireless G. Though Wireless G saturation is still quite high (you will rarely hit this kind of limit), with the introduction of 1080p screen streaming to TVs and so forth (e.g. Google Miracast), Wireless G will begin to struggle over the next few years. nevermind it already has wireless n

[Bad Student]

Isn't the standard wireless card already wireless n?

[Mao]

Isn't the standard wireless card already wireless n?

..I didn't even read. Ignore me.

[Bad Student]

It seemed a bit strange for a laptop in 2013 to have wireless G instead of N. The laptop I bought in 2009 already had wireless N standard.

Also, would there even be a noticeable difference in speed between the standard wireless card and the "Advanced N" wireless card?

[Mao]

Also, would there even be a noticeable difference in speed between the standard wireless card and the "Advanced N" wireless card?

I highly, highly doubt there are any real benefits.

[Bad Student]

Even if there is a tiny difference, I don't think its worth the extra $50.

[Mao]

Even if there is a tiny difference, I don't think its worth the extra $50.

You are right beyond any shadows of doubt.

[Mr Keshy]

..I didn't even read. Ignore me.

Whoops

[kensan]

Thanks again guys

[Wingtips]

Didn't want to make another thread, sorry for hijacking this one.

Would this be a good laptop for uni?

http://www.harveynorman.com.au/asus-s56cm-xx013h-ultrabook-laptop.html

Would it last when it comes to battery life with the specs i.e i7 processor? And do you guys know of harvey norman bargaining down a little more as well?