New Laptop Advice

jai247

Hi

I am looking to purchase a new laptop as my current laptop has been playing up. I currently have an Asus N56VM laptop and the battery is very poor and i dont want to buy a new one as the laptop also has other issues.

I am looking to change to a lighter and more portable laptop. Ideally I would like 8GB of Ram, reasonable amount of connections and importantly great battery life. . I have been thinking of getting a Mac Book Air as this was recommended by a friend but have always been a Windows man.

I have also seen the Asus ZenBook UX305 which seems reasonable for the price.

I was hoping to get some advice and recommendations on laptops both windows based and Mac.

Thanks

Cisco001

You can install windows on mac if you want to, but personally don't see the point

Fightsback

Can you let us know a bit more about the Asus N56VM laptop, what is the exact model number ?

For example : N56VM-S4034V

Can you also elaborate on the problems you are having ?

Note: you won't get a great battery life out of a i7 3610QM + Nvidia discrete card if that is the spec as this is a performance spec instead of a long battery life spec.

How much do you want to spend on a new laptop and what do you use it for ?

jai247

Hi

The Asus is a N56VM-S4089V and spec as follows:

16GB Ram
Intel i5-3210M 2.50GHz
64 bit Operating System
500GB Hard drive

The problems I am having are poor battery life, all power saving options have been enabled. Also the laptop did not turn on recently and i took the battery out and tried starting it up with the mains power plugged in. The laptop eventually turned on but its still not working as expected most of the time.
Its also heating up more than it used to.

I have seen a Mac Book Air that is priced at around £849.00.
1.6GHz Processor
128 GB Storage
1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor
Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz
Intel HD Graphics 6000
4GB memory
128GB PCIe-based flash storage1

I would preferably upgrade the memory to 8GB but thats roughly the price range I am looking at.

The laptop is mainly used for webrowsing and also and creative work I sometimes do. I prefer a laptop to a tablet as this is what I have always been used to.

20aday

From a quick Google I've done your ASUS laptop is around four years old?

I assume you've done a factory reset etc? Cleaned out vents etc?

I use a Mac Mini myself (ideal for my needs) but with your MacBook Air the RAM is soldered to the motherboard (and I believe it's impossible to install a larger SSD).

Not only that I find the MacBook Air's display always looks "washed out".

In terms of creative tasks what are we looking at? Photoshop?

jai247

Yeah I have had the laptop nearly 3 years now.

I have tried a factory reset and the usual cleaning options. I mainly use photoshop as my creative task.

I have not necessarily decided on the Mac Book Air, it was just the cheapest option out of the Mac Books. I have also had a look at the Mac Book Pro's but they are obviously more expensive.

I was thinking of moving away from windows having been just a windows user for so many years.

I know there are going to be a new set of Mac Books coming out this year so that is also an option to wait and see if there are any improvements.

lemontart

I am looking at the asus n552 at the mo for such and the n551

jai247

I have also had a look at the Asus Zenbook UX305 which has some really good reviews.

Does anyone have any experience using this laptop?

Thanks

Samsonite1

I have the same laptop pretty much and it is awesome. Not sure if you got the model number right as mine is 8GB. You also get the extra graphics card and top notch sound. It is a lovely machine - physically like a Macbook. Not much point in having Mac hardware and Windows - Macs use the same hardware as any cheap laptop - it is the OS that makes a difference.

If you consider an OS switch, go for Ubuntu as it is free and personally it is much better than Windows and Mac OS.

I think the issue for you is that your Asus is a powerful machine and the battery is average - I get a good 3-4 hours out of mine which is very good for a beast. If battery life is what you want then you may need to look at different machines that offer less grunt.

slinga

I really like my Dell XPS.

Can only compare it with a very old HP Pro Book.

jai247

I went into Currys at the weekend to look at the Asus UX305 and it was next to an HP ENVY 13-d061sa 13.3" Laptop - Aluminium, which has similar specs. The HP's look far superior than the Asus.
Has anyone got any experience using this laptop and HP laptops in general?

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-envy-13-d061sa-13-3-laptop-aluminium-10137769-pdt.html