I need a new laptop!

Not that my old one is ‘old’ (Macbook Pro 15″, 2GB, 80GB, 2Ghz, bought two years ago), I just don’t use it as much as I would like to: It is too big, too heavy, too powerful and kills the battery too fast. I don’t need all that stuff in there, it’s more a desktop replacement that a portable laptop.

Thus, I bought the wrong laptop back then. Thats not too bad, Apple products don’t lose value as fast as others do so I can still sell it for a reasonable price. I also started to appreciate the whole Mac environment, it’s not huge but most of the software is top quality. I will certainly buy another OS X powered computer one day.

Anyway, this time I think about the requirements first.

First: The real computer is at home. Lots of RAM, raid, lots of space, fast, two 24″ screens. Hence the laptop doesn’t need any of those, I already have it at home. It will be used as assisting help, not as main performer.

Secondly, I move a lot. Changing the room every second hour in school, being in a train or writing in a caffe demands a special laptop.
Its not the only thing in my bag, there are books, folders, bottles. The case must be resistible and protect the hardware from being damaged when it experiences the heaviness and complexity of the AI book for example.
Furthermore, I’m a geek: some bones and skin, a brain and almost no muscles: The weight of the laptop does matter and it should be as small as possible so it fits in everywhere.
Long battery life is essential. If I need to recharge the half full battery just because there wont be a plug around in the next hour I render the batteries’ capacity useless in no to time.

The laptop will need to display some pdfs from time to time, run a compiler, editor and a browser and connect to wlans (umts? hsdpa?), bluetooth and usb devices. That’s it. No 3D accelerated hardware, no huge space requirements, no multimedia capabilities, no need for a quad core cpu.

• I need to type often: Usable keyboard please! (kills 80% of all umpc devices)
• No need for tablet laptops
• Size: Maximum screen size of 13″ but decent resolution: It want to see source files.
• Battery: At least 4 hours with standard battery
• Weight: As heavy as a small book
• Camera + Mic: Required for conference calls.
• WWAN would be cool: you can get cheap contracts at swisscom and surf mobile over umts and hsdpa everywhere you are.

Devices

These are the laptops I found

• Asus eee pc 7/10″
  
• Kohjinsha SA1F00A 7″
  
• Macbook Air 13.3″
  
• Lenovo Thinkpad X60/X61 12.1″
  
• Asus U1F 11.1″
  
• HP Compaq “ultralights” 12.1″
  
• Sony SZ 13.3″
  
• Sony TZ 11.1″
  
• Toshiba R500 12.1″
  

Round 1

eee PC

It’s a nice device, but 7″ with 800×480 is just not enough for me. The cpu is not strong enough anyway. eee is out. Same for SA1F00A.

Macbook Air

13″ is a a bit big. The laptop isn’t an ultraportable anymore. The SSD option is incredible expensive. Fast CPU though for such a small device, but I bet it gets incredible hot. No optical drive? May be acceptable for some people, however I need it often and don’t wanna carry an external drive with me. No umts.
so no.

Lenovo X61

Ah, it gets better. 12.1″, 1.3kg, protected hd, umts + hsdpa, no glare. The resolution 1024×768 is not great but we let it for the next round.

Asus U1F

Lovely 11.1″, makes a very portable impression. Horny leather parts. But too expensive for not having umts/hsdpa. so no. Anyway, if 3g isn’t a must, I would take that one.

HP Compaq 2510p

Good: 12.1″, 1.3kg, umts + hsdpa. Resolution of 1200×800, very good for such a screen.

Sony SZ Series

Great laptop! protected hd, integrated camera, umts + hsdpa, carbon, not as light as the others but its 2kg are ok. 13.3″ inch, which is a bit much.

Sony TZ Series

Very small screen (11.1″) but high resolution, umts + hsdpa, 1.1kg, carbon, incredible long battery life. Keyboard is small but Macbook like so it’s hard to accidentally press the wrong key.

Toshiba Portégé R500

12,1″, umts + hsdpa, 1.280 x 800, 1.1kg, 64GB SSD. Nice! Macbook Air alternative? In the next round.

Round 2

• X61’s resolution is too low. out.
• HP has no camera. The quality of the screen is bad, this is a real problem with such a small screen and such a high resolution. out.
• Sony Vaio SZ is too big. I have 15″ and it’s already big for me, 13.3″ is not a big difference. out.
• Toshiba Portege: Piece of plastic, no camera, short battery life.

And the winner is…

Sony Vaio TZ-2x/TZ-3x Series. 11.1″ 1366 x 768, 2GB RAM, Core 2 Duo 1.2-1.3Ghz, wonderful screen quality and nice colors. umts + hsdpa, 7 hours batter life with default battery (though there are bigger ones with up to 11 hours), screen led light, normal sized enter key, dvd rw, bluetooth, mic, 2x usb, external vga, SSD. The perfect laptop to carry around.

It’s pricy but I know somebody at sony… :)

[Update]

The Sony VAIO TZ32 is listed in the sonystyle stores of the uk, Spain and France. Some guy at Sony told me that the TZ32 will be available in Switzerland by the end of February but it’s very likely that you can preorder it earlier.

[Update 2]

New laptops have been announced in the meantime. Steve H. wrote a good summary down in the comments.

Earlier this day I wanted to charge my laptop’s battery, but…

Aw, that somehow doesn’t fit!

Of course it was already late and the shops were closed so I couldn’t buy one of those converter-things.

It was obvious though that the plus and minus connectors would be just in the right position, just the third connector was in the way. And like McGyver I have a Swiss Army Knife with me in such situations and wanted to cut away the earth contact so it would fit into that Spanish power outlet.

Fortunately, my girlfriend was also around and like usually she thinks way more than I do, so as I told her about my genius plan, she took a look at the transformer

and asked me why I don’t use those standard two pole cables like the one I use for charging the camera.

Of course, it just worked and here you see what will provide the laptop with power until I turn back home.

(By the way, thanks to that other guy somewhere at Las Canteras beach near to my hotel for providing an unprotected access point)