It's time for new notebook shopping!!! My requirements are as below:-
Light
Long battery life (>4 hrs usage time)
Fast
With Dedicated GPU
Priced at around RM3000 (USD1000)
With these new requirements, my first choice would be Mac Book Air 11”. It look good, light and the aluminium chassis is nice to hold. It was weekend and I decided to head down to the nearest Mac store to have a look a the real thing. The first impression was good as the Mac Air is really a looker. After toying it for few minutes, I realize that the screen is too small for daily usage, limited USB slot (2x), no HDMI out and no Ethernet RJ45 out! I know that we can purchase the Ethernet adapter and USB extender separately but I don't like the idea of having RJ45 Ethernet adapter externally. My job require me to perform a lot of network troubleshooting and RJ45 Ethernet adapter is important to me. On top of this, I can't play my favorite HD file on my big screen due to the absent of HDMI. The screen is just too small to my liking for daily usage. I need to have an external monitor in my office and at home if I decide to go with this Mac Air 11”. Out of budget for these extra gadgets and it's time for alternatives.
My colleague, Ben suggested that I have a look at Acer TimeLineX and my first impression was, “An ACER again? A student's notebook again?”. After looking for more information on the unit, my perception for Acer has changed once again. The TimelineX offer up to 8 hours of battery life, dedicated RADEON HD6550M 1GB GPU, an i3-380 processor and 2GB of memory and a 13.3” HD LED LCD. The weight is about 1.7kg with battery....Impressive and it's priced at RM2200 (USD750) which is very reasonable for the specs. The downside of this notebook comparing with the Mac Air is the absence of the fast hard drive, SSD. So, I've decided to replace the HDD with an Intel X25M 160GB at the cost of RM700 and upgrade the RAM to 4GB. After all these upgrade, it still cost me
I am a happy man now with a decently fast notebook at a reasonable spending :)
SSD review in on the way..............
