Time to buy a new laptop/ultrabook.... any suggestions?

[Anonymeus]

OK, you guys seem to know yr hardware... ;D here's my quandary:

My 2011 Sony Vaio is still alive, but barely so... the f-key is falling off, battery life has become about 10 minutes, takes 5 mins to boot and weighs about 4 kilos...

So time for an upgrade... but to what...?

For now, let's assume an unlimited budget (this thing is going to be used as a business tool and will certainly pay its way in due course...) - nonetheless, the more economical the better...

I want:
- Lots and lots of screen real estate (I want to have at least 3 word documents open at the same time and be able to read and compare them)
- Nice bright screen that's easy to read for a really old guy....
- bleeding edge fast processor (I hate waiting/lag)
- no protest or slow down when you have 30-40 windows open... or more...
- Full keyboard with full navigation/numerical input pad (arrows and home, pgup, end etc... so I can whizz through documents)
- oodles of battery life
- a strong radio on the wifi card
- moderate amount of storage
- Windows OS (need to run specific industry software - basically database engines)
- as severely kluzproof as possible (said Sony has survived several beverage droppage incidents... but only just....)*


What I am less interested in: games and media (except for Creeper World and the odd online escape-the-room game in flash)

So basically, the closest thing you can come to a portable desktop (inna tank).... Any ideas as to where I should start looking? What are the lemons to really avoid these days?


A.


* I'm considering this one, just for the ultimate klutzproofness (pity I have to sacrifice on other specs):

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/video/en/dell_latitude_rugged_extreme_overview?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&~ck=mn&~lt=bodyonly#ooid=xyeTE4bTp0PbvhvbIfL4fDKHWBQ0XAUn

[Karsten75]

This old thread says to check out Notebookcheck.net. I believe it has a configurator.

The Thinkpad W-series from Lenovo might do what you want. I've read of other super-monstrous portable desktops, but I don't recall where and I don't really think a notebook with dual Xeons is smart. Even f you can carry it.

Edit, I had a look on Notebookcheck.net.

This might be the list you want to choose from: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Top-10-Workstation-Laptops.65537.0.html

Edit2: Noooo... All those top-10 laptops have professional graphics cards that are suited for digital image work, but are overkill and over-expensive for other users. Use the configurator. That gives better results.

[teknotiss]

just bought an HP laptop i'm pretty happy with.
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-15-g094sa-15-6-laptop-purple-10011517-pdt.html
for £349 (was £500, but it's on offer near me)

"- no protest or slow down when you have 30-40 windows open... or more..." this will be a tricky one for most laptops, perhaps just open 20 at a time?  ;)

from what i can see any of the really expensive ones are just paying for a better graphics card, once you go past around £400 you don't get much better speeds but you do pay a lot more money

but i went to a site i know here in the UK and put this together for you.
perhaps this is something like what you need?
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quote-save/
cost?   £2,157.00  :o

[Anonymeus]

Thanks so much for the tips and links Karsten75 and Teknotiss! I can't find the configurator on the Notebookcheck site, nor the config that Teknotiss assembled, but there's loads of information to get me going...

I wouldn't mind about overkill on graphics. What annoys me is that as soon as you want a usable keyboard (i.e. with numpad) and a decent sized screen, they start insisting on piling on all kinds of useless heavy extras (like an optical drive, I don't think I've even seen a DVD in the wild in the last 5 years... do people seriously still use those things?)...

The hunt continues...

[Karsten75]

[teknotiss]

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/laptops/
have a poke about in there and see what's what.
you can select "configure a laptop" on each laptops advert and do a piece by piece custom job for all changeable parts.
hope that helps a bit.
are you in the uk or overseas?