Good build quailty + battery life ?

[harnar123]

I am helping my friend buy a laptop as I despise macs (she wants the macbook air)

Anyways, I was thinking of something with one of the CULV processors (if need be she can spend up to a grand). I was just looking for something that is pretty rugged, not ugly as **** ( its a for a girl) hopefully has either an ssd or one of those new hybrid drives and is not to heavy (but not a netbook either). She travels a lot so a good battery is a must.

 

[MindoverMaster]

The best battery life you ever will get is from a Lenovo.

Macs are not that bad. I've played with them before. They can do some incredible things. You can run Windows inside OSX, and will run like any laptop!

 

[Puddle Jumper]

If she wants a macbook air the Dell Adamo may be worth looking at. It's quite a bit cheaper than the Air but offers some of the best industrial design available on any laptop. Anandtech recently did a detailed review of the Adamo that should be able to answer any questions you would have about it.

Dell Adamo 13: CULV Goes Upscale - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

Onyx Adamo by Dell | Ultra-Thin Lightweight Laptop / Notebook | Dell

If you want something with better battery life the Asus UL30 + OCZ Agility 2 SSD would be a great option.

Newegg.com - ASUS UL30 Series UL30A-A2 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300(1.30GHz) 13.3" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm Intel GMA 4500MHD
+
Newegg.com - OCZ Agility 2 OCZSSD2-2AGTE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

The best battery life you ever will get is from a Lenovo.

Macs are not that bad. I've played with them before. They can do some incredible things. You can run Windows inside OSX, and will run like any laptop!

Running Windows in a VM like that will have a pretty severe impact on performance.

 

[harnar123]

That laptop from asus looks good, I will suggest that man, thanks for your help! ASUS UL30A-A2 - Intel Core 2 Duo su7300 1.3ghz / 4gb ram / 500gb hdd / 13.3" display / intel gma 4500mhd / windows 7 home premium / webcam from mwave.com Isn't that the same thing for a lot less?

 

[MindoverMaster]

Looks like so. None of us used MWave AFAIK.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

That laptop from asus looks good, I will suggest that man, thanks for your help! ASUS UL30A-A2 - Intel Core 2 Duo su7300 1.3ghz / 4gb ram / 500gb hdd / 13.3" display / intel gma 4500mhd / windows 7 home premium / webcam from mwave.com Isn't that the same thing for a lot less?

Yeah it looks like it's the same system. I haven't dealt with Mwave before but if they are legit that's a great deal.

If you do want to add a SSD to it that's one area where you really get what you pay for so I would stick to Intel or OCZ Vertex 2/Agility 2 drives

 

[harnar123]

I figured out the catch, its a refurb...o well. I would get the ssd, but she is computer retarded so I am sure she would be incapable of installing that lol. But I will be seeing her later this year, so I will prob order then and install for her. It should improve battery life to right?