Help to find the Lightest Laptop Please?

Johnmcl7

The Vaio Pros are the obvious choice of the Ultrabooks for low weight, the 11in model is under 900g and the 13in model around a kilo.

John

NiftyDigits

Hatrick24 wrote: »

Thank you so much for the replies so far!

Firstly, budget is not a key issue, the current one was well over a thousand, so it will cost whatever it costs.

Should the current one last longer than 3 years? My husband keeps nagging me that it should be replaced.

It works fine, but is showing signs of wear. The part where you plug the power lead I the side is loose inside, the keyboard is visually worn and I confess, it was once dropped, so now he cd drive makes a loud noise for about 3 seconds when you switch it on.

The CD drive doesn't actually work, not that I find that a problem, as once when I was deleting things to make space on the hard drive, I accidentally deleted the cd software. That's a girl for you!

The hard drive is nearly full again, so may need anger of my deleting splurges!

What is the full model number? You can back up your data and run a clean install or Factory Restore.
You may be able to replace the keyboard if necessary. My laptop has been going for five years now. Not a scratch on it. I do have a silicone keyboard protector. So my keyboard is as good as new.

The spec is still ok. You should refurbish the thing. Won't cost much.

Hatrick24

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has replied - all great suggestions, thank you!

Nifty Digits, the full model no of my laptop is a Toshiba Portege R600-13Z. Just found the bill, it was purchased in April 2010 for the not insignificant sum of £1668!

I am very open to the idea of keeping it and cleaning it out - or as you put it, carrying out a clean install or factory restore. Would this be something I could do myself? I know I would need to hunt out the original install discs - I am sure I have them. Are there any other potential pitfalls and would it take hours to do please?

macman

£1700 and you were considering binning it after 3 years? Ye gods...
The CD drive is easily replaced, as is the keyboard. A Factory Restore will take you an hour or so and is done from the restore partition, all you then need to do is reinstall all your aftermarket software.
Obviously you need to back up all your data first-but then you are already doing that regularly anyway, aren't you?
If budget is really no object (in which case I wonder why you are on this forum?) then any Ultrabook will do the job-but it's complete overkill for the very basic functions you intend to use it for,
I was going to suggest a Chromebook, but that will rule out Office and Outlook.
I'm baffled though as to why weight is so critical if you're not carrying it around? A laptop, despite it's name, is not really ideally intended to be used on the lap.

Anne_Marie_2

Don't even think about a replacement at the moment, am sure that Nifty Digits will help you out with sorting it all out. It might take a bit of time, but will be well worth it in saving you a great deal of money, in the long run.

I had been going to make suggestions for you as to lightweight laptops, but was waiting on hearing what you already had....so am keeping mouth shut. You paid a lot of money for an ultraportable with SSD when it was a brand new market. In reality though, prices are still pretty high in that niche market.

What I do suggest though, if you don't already have, and it doesn't sound like you do, is to buy an external hard drive to make disc image, back ups and save your important data. You may want to go for a portable one, which is a tad more expensive, but it's easily transported if the need arises. You will need to have this before you start doing any changes.

Anne_Marie_2

macman wrote: »

If budget is really no object (in which case I wonder why you are on this forum?)

Ouch! This site is about money saving, not money throwing away.

OP asked for advice, and now seems keen on sorting out rather than buying new. I can't see anything wrong with that. Saving some dosh and saving dumping to the landfill site for a little bit longer.

Hatrick24

Thanks so much, once again! Really grateful to everyone for the advice.

I am being nagged by my husband (I know that should be the other way round) to change it as he thinks it will one day stop working and thus cause us a huge amount of pain in getting something else up to speed and retrieving data etc. Like me, he has a very limited knowledge, however, his solution is always, buy a new one,whereas truthfully, I would be really pleased to keep it so the advice given is actually really positive!

The data is backed up to zen, our ISP, most nights, although I have a bit of a worry that it has never been tested so although the back ups say successful, I worry that they may not restore properly if needed. This would be critical as the accounts files would be impossible to replace.

I think we may have a portable hard drive here as prior to me setting up the zen vault, it was used to back up my documents, though not frequently. A disc image sounds interesting, does that literally copy everything, including the program files?

Finally, the reason for the weight being such an issue, is that, believe it or not, the normal laptop I had before this gave me sciatica - terrible pain in my legs whenever it was on my lap. I know they are not meant to be used on your lap, but the reality is that it is. Once I got this one, the pain literally disappeared.

Thanks again for the advice, it is all gratefully received!

NiftyDigits

The manual is here

Instruction for a Factory Restore is on page 1-15. You should not need the discs.
But you do need to 'back up' your data, as it will all go. The disc image will back up everything.

It seems that replacing the keyboard on that model can be a bit fiddly.

I'm thinking that considering the initial the cost of the item, that it might be worth paying for the item to be refurbished.

Perhaps you can approach Toshiba support in the first instance.

~Chameleon~

colin79666 wrote: »

Well for semi-pro/business use I'd argue you can't beat the Lenovo X series, at least for how much of a pleasure their keyboards are.
http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/

Had to return two of these due to hard drive failure in the past few months, one just a couple of weeks ago. Excellent service from Lenovo, however, collected by courier and returned to Germany, arrived back exactly a week later looking good as new!

Anne_Marie_2

Hatrick24 wrote: »

The data is backed up to zen, our ISP, most nights, although I have a bit of a worry that it has never been tested so although the back ups say successful, I worry that they may not restore properly if needed. This would be critical as the accounts files would be impossible to replace.

I think we may have a portable hard drive here as prior to me setting up the zen vault, it was used to back up my documents, though not frequently. A disc image sounds interesting, does that literally copy everything, including the program files?

Sorry, I know nothing about Zen and it's back up service, so can't comment. I do think it is prudent though to have a system image and make regular back ups on your own external drive(s).
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/what-is-a-system-image

Perhaps I'm a bit OTT, as I have system images and back ups of important files on more than one drive, just to be on the safe side.