portable laptop for business student

[jaxst]

Hi everyone, I've been looking for a laptop for a while now mainly being hung up on battery life, I am in search of something really portable as I travel a lot and carry quite a bit on me when i am on campus, i was really interested in the chromebook, it's price is excellent and battery life and fits my needs mainly of word processing, however, as a finance student i need excel, and i don't know if google spreadsheet can "replace" excel for me, plus chromebooks don't(?) run java, and are difficult to torrent on. (makes me sad!) Secondly i have considered the macbook air although i really want to stay away from apple, however the battery life(10+ hours) and portability has me sold, i would just be forced to install win7 on it. I really want to avoid buying an apple computer (for personal reasons) and would prefer buying a windows computer if i can find something light and 7+ hours of battery life and cheaper, 1100 is a lot for a computer just running word suite, i like the ultrabooks but most have awful battery life and poor wifi connectivity, so i am looking on here for any suggestions before i go with an air, would appreciate any help i can get, i know haswell is supposed to increase battery life for portable devices and i should probably wait but just looking at options now, would appreciate any help

Specifications (i took some out that don't pertain to my specs)

1. What is your budget?

1100 but would rather keep it cheap since i don't need it to do that much

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

13.3/14.0" or less, 3.5 lbs or less


4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? portable


5. How much battery life do you need? 6-7+ would be ideal, i would like 8


7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

word processing watching movies

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? -more than 64gb

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

www.newegg.com
www.tigerdirect.com
www.amazon.com
www.ebay.com

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? - 3-4 years

locaiton: U.SA.

 

[jaguarskx]

There's the 12.5" ThinkPad X230 for $1,012 which is rated to last a little over 10 hours.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312637

HP EliteBook 2570p C9J11UT for $902 with battery life over 9 hours. But it is 3.6lbs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834256529

14" Acer TravelMate TimelineX TM8481T-6873 for $900. It has a 128GB SSD, uses older Sandy Bridge dual core Core i7 CPU,, but the official weight is 3.7lbs; but that assumes a standard HDD. A SSD should be somewhat lighter. It can get up to 8 hours of battery on light usage.


11.6" MacBook Air for $999. Weighs in at 2.4lbs, but only has 64GB SSD. The $100 gift card promo just expired on 6/28/2013.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834100230

 

[jaguarskx]

Coming in at $1,199 (over budget by $100) is the 13.3" MacBook Air. The $100 promo gift card just expired on 6/28/2013. Has 128GB SSD and weighs just under 3lbs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834100232

 

[jaguarskx]

And yes if you think that you would really need an excel, you have to install windows with it.

There is a Mac version of MS Office such as the student edition for under $120.

http://www.365professionals.com/shopping/office-for-mac-2011-home-and-student.html?gclid=CL3nnIrgiLgCFcyf4AodPUsAdw

 

[jaxst]

Coming in at $1,199 (over budget by $100) is the 13.3" MacBook Air. The $100 promo gift card just expired on 6/28/2013. Has 128GB SSD and weighs just under 3lbs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834100232

http://showcase.itcs.umich.edu/item.php?cat=8&id=2820

is this model much different from the haswell macbook air? i rather buy it from my university at discount and i will read up more on the others you suggested, all posts appreciated much, thank you

 

[Momo Iko]

I hope it'll help

http://www.pcworld.com/product/collection/3346/10-laptops-best-battery-life.html

but my personal choice is Toshiba Satellite U505-S2940, i know its not the slimmest, but the battery life is quite amazing.

 

[jaguarskx]

http://showcase.itcs.umich.edu/item.php?cat=8&id=2820

is this model much different from the haswell macbook air? i rather buy it from my university at discount and i will read up more on the others you suggested, all posts appreciated much, thank you

The MacBook Air I suggested was the Ivy Bridge version. The one you linked to has the more recent Haswell CPU and is less expensive especially if you can get a student discount. The difference is relatively small on the CPU processing end of things. At the same clockspeed, Haswell CPUs are on average 5% or 6% more powerful than Ivy Bridge. Intel emphasized lower power consumption for mobile CPUs with Haswell so technically the battery life should be longer in the current generation Macbook Air. You should search for reviews though to confirm this. The biggest difference in the integrated graphics performance. The Intel HD 5000 is more powerful than the older Intel HD 4000. How much more exaclty? I don't know. I do know that Haswell's Intel HD 4600 is about 20% more powerful than the previous generation Intel HD 4000 though. Maybe 30% more powerful?