Flickerdart
2012-07-25, 06:16 PM
A convergence of factors has me in the market for a new laptop: my old one is feeling its age and will probably cry crocodile tears if I try loading the upcoming Windows 8 and Adobe CS6 on it, and Microsoft is so generously giving away a free 360 if you buy from select stores. As possibly the last remaining person on earth without one, this seems like as good a time as any to hand over some sweet moneys for an upgrade.
I must note at this point that I will personally throttle the first person to say "get a Mac".
However, my old laptop was a Tablet PC. Remember, the ones before we had your fancy touchamascreens and android-whatsits? With the Wacom pens? One of those. Since even that pen hands down beats any other laptop input mode (track-nib, trackpad and beating your face into the keyboard, in ascending order of effectiveness) I am very tempted to wait until the Windows 8 hybrid tablet-laptops launch in October. The 360 deal is until September somethingth, so I'll be holding off the purchase until more stuff about these hybrids surfaces (hah, get it), but until then I intend to do my research into what's currently out there. Plus, chances are that August is going to see some "back to school" deals pop up, anyway.
Chances are that this will be my primary PC for a couple of years, so ideally it should be competent at gaming (no need for Crysis but at least Crusader Kings 2). Since I'm going to have to carry this thing to class, it should be reasonably light, and also have at least 3 hours of battery life (a real 3 hours, not "3 hours if you turn off wifi, unload the keyboard drivers and then put it into standby") on the expanded battery if not on the main one. An optical drive is completely unnecessary - a few USBs and an SD card reader are the only ports I need. Price should ideally be under $1000 (cheaper is always better) but I can swing $1500 if there's enough baubles on the machine. Since it will undoubtedly be hopelessly obsolete in 3 years no matter what I do, I don't want bleeding edge top of the line specs unless they come cheap. 14 inches is plenty of screen size, but I wouldn't even mind 13.3 - all my laptops thus far have been 12.1 inch, and it's been plenty, but as I understand this size is hard to find nowadays.
Does such a thing exist, or would it be better to hold out for the winter sales and see what kind of fun stuff manufacturers manage to do with Windows 8?
I must note at this point that I will personally throttle the first person to say "get a Mac".
However, my old laptop was a Tablet PC. Remember, the ones before we had your fancy touchamascreens and android-whatsits? With the Wacom pens? One of those. Since even that pen hands down beats any other laptop input mode (track-nib, trackpad and beating your face into the keyboard, in ascending order of effectiveness) I am very tempted to wait until the Windows 8 hybrid tablet-laptops launch in October. The 360 deal is until September somethingth, so I'll be holding off the purchase until more stuff about these hybrids surfaces (hah, get it), but until then I intend to do my research into what's currently out there. Plus, chances are that August is going to see some "back to school" deals pop up, anyway.
Chances are that this will be my primary PC for a couple of years, so ideally it should be competent at gaming (no need for Crysis but at least Crusader Kings 2). Since I'm going to have to carry this thing to class, it should be reasonably light, and also have at least 3 hours of battery life (a real 3 hours, not "3 hours if you turn off wifi, unload the keyboard drivers and then put it into standby") on the expanded battery if not on the main one. An optical drive is completely unnecessary - a few USBs and an SD card reader are the only ports I need. Price should ideally be under $1000 (cheaper is always better) but I can swing $1500 if there's enough baubles on the machine. Since it will undoubtedly be hopelessly obsolete in 3 years no matter what I do, I don't want bleeding edge top of the line specs unless they come cheap. 14 inches is plenty of screen size, but I wouldn't even mind 13.3 - all my laptops thus far have been 12.1 inch, and it's been plenty, but as I understand this size is hard to find nowadays.
Does such a thing exist, or would it be better to hold out for the winter sales and see what kind of fun stuff manufacturers manage to do with Windows 8?