New laptop

[phenom01]

1. What is your budget?
$700 max USD
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
12" - 14"
3. What screen resolution do you want?
any
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable
5. How much battery life do you need?
Greater than 5 hours
6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
No games
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Skype, VMware, Microsoft office, Visual Studios
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
AT least 100 GB
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Any USA web site
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
Undecided
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Don't need optical drive
12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Any brand
13. What country do you live in?
USA, New York
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

 

[WR2]

Hello phenom01;

Take a look at: TOSHIBA Portege R835 13" notebook $700
Core i5 2450M 2.50GHz (turbo 3.1Ghz) 6GB RAM, 640GB HDD 13.3" 1366x768 LCD w/ Intel HD 3000 Graphics.
3.2 lbs, claimed 9hr battery life (realistic in power saver mode is 7+)

Toshiba Portege Review (the model above has slightly high specs)

Toshiba Portege R835 Review

 

[WR2]

More options in the 14" class:

14" Core i5 notebooks at NewEgg

 

[mitunchidamparam]

For photo editing and video editing u need a dedicated GPU or a AMD APU.
For gaming the same criteria.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215187
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215187
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834214611
All of these are good offerings,
But my advice would be to wait for 1-2 months to buy a laptop because ivy bridge is being released and AMD Trinity APU laptops are being released and they will increase performance so much and their power consumption will be so less and the price point will be low.
So if you can wait 1-2 months or at least until summer where the real models will turn up.

 

[WR2]

For photo editing and video editing u need a dedicated GPU or a AMD APU.

You do not need a dedicated GPU for photo and video editing.

 

[mitunchidamparam]

You do not need a dedicated GPU for photo and video editing.

For video editing you do need a dedicated GPU or a AMD APU for hardware acceleration, a intel hd 3000 is worthless piece of crap for it.
That is why I said wait for ivy bridge whuch has HD 4000 which is decent and AMD trinity which is awesome too.

 

[WR2]

For video editing you do need a dedicated GPU or a AMD APU for hardware acceleration

For video editing you do not need a dedicated GPU or a AMD APU. Seriously. You do not need either of those.

edit: both of the integrated GPUs (HD 6620G and HD 3000) have dedicated units for hardware acceleration decoding and encoding HD videos on the GPU.

 

[WR2]

That is why I said wait for ivy bridge whuch has HD 4000 which is decent and AMD trinity which is awesome too.

This - I agree with.