Laptop buying advice forum: Laptop for a physics major

High performance and long days do not mix.

Try this. Look at those i5 and i7 based Ultrabooks.
Bob

1. It's slightly over budget but this is probably the sort of thing you'll be wanting to look at http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NP550P5C-T01US-i7-3610QM-Processor-Windows/dp/B0082PZ0VE

3. 1366 x 768 is normal but some laptops do have the option of full 1080p HD (the one above is 1366 x 768)

4. It has a decent core i7 processor, lots of RAM (about double the average) and a decent graphics card that could probably be used to speed up the physics computations.

5. Any high performance laptop is going to struggle with battery life. Your best bet would be to carry a charger round with you or activate every power saving feature you can find or see if there are any bigger batteries that you can buy. This has a 6 cell battery but most laptops also have 9 cell versions.

6. It has a decent graphics card and processor so you should be able to play games with no trouble.

8. This has a 750GB HDD which is rotating at 7200 rpm which is faster than the normal 5400 rpm (this means it should be able to transfer data faster)

10. With the rate that technology is improving, if you want to keep at the high end of the spectrum you would need to upgrade after a couple of years so this is a bit tricky. But this is a good laptop (looking at the specs and reviews) so you could probably get away with not upgrading for 4 years.

11. This has a DVD rewriter

12. I'd go for a Samsung or an Acer, I currently own a Dell but I'm not really happy with the performance and their customer service wasn't very good.

14. I don't know if this has a backlit keyboard or not. As already said, it has a good processor, graphics card and lots of RAM

Note: This post was edited by a forum moderator to edit link on 09/13/2012 at 9:22 AM PT