Asus W3V or Sony S460?

battery life on the asus is at least 3 hrs with a bit of undervolting and power management. u can always get the modular battery too for the w3v which will easily give u 4-5 hrs at least.

I had both, gave the W3V away, very similar in performance-wise.

Reasons:

1) I found myself using the Sony more often because of its portability.

2) IMHO the screen is much nicer.

Considerations: The W3V has two battery capacity, and the video card is better for 3D gaming(not really noticable but framerates don't lie), bluetooth.

Either way they are probably the two best smallish notebooks that money can buy today. So its a win win.

Have you thought about the chembook 2030? The 6400 nvidia in it outperforms the 9700 64mb in the Sony S series models that had the 9700. It is a nice laptop, at a nice price and definetely fits your budget. The current battery life is somewhere between 2.5-3.5 hrs, but a 9 cell battery option just went up today.

Where have you heard that? It should atleast be around 3.5h for light work.

The s360 doesn't get hot at all when you are running off of the battery. It was hot at compusa because it was plugged it. When it's plugged in, it is running at or near full power. I get around 5 hrs with the standard battery when surfing the internet.

The Sony does get hot but not too hot to touch. I don't like big notebooks and have been using small notebooks exclusively and that may have conditioned myself to the heat that is inievitable with smaller notebooks. My older S2, my W3V, and the S4, all blow quite a bit of hot air. Average battery life for me is anywhere from 2.5 hrs (movie, gaming, full brightness) to 3.25 hrs (surfing, screen at a 3 brightness). The battery life in my Asus was similar.

Wait for the next s series - its the same bar the better graphics (nvid 6400). Should be out mid sept.

is the sony S series seems a little big to carry around.. you probally won't like the w3v b/c it is even bigger...
the S should be pretty small... i would prefer the S .. neither of them really have enough power to game in insane FPS anywayz.. soo i'll go with the more portable one.. and the w3v supposingly has better battery life

Ok..
the W3V nudges on 4 hours of battery life with light use (I get about 3:50 or so browsing, undervolted, can probably expect 3:30 to 3:45 normal)

the S360, before Sony went Sonoma with the S-series, beats that by an hour or so, rated at about 4 to 5 hours with the standard battery.
However, when Sony upgraded to the Sonoma platform, their battery life went down by a lot, I've heard as little as 2:30 hours with the S4xx series with the standard battery.

The pre-Sonoma Sony S's (S2xx, S360) runs relatively cool compared to the Sonoma platform ones (S4xx). The W3V also runs hot, as it is also built on the Sonoma platform. (especially the hard drive; CPU and Vid card are not that bad).

The new pricing for the W3V is $1699MSRP. For a competive new Sony S4xx, it would run beyond $2000. IF you can find a Sony S3xx series, those are usually priced between $1200 and $1500 now.

It's a hard choice between an S360 and a W3V right now. I was deciding between those two computers myself. What really made me finally grab the W3V was the fact that it was a more complete package overall; much better features than the Sony (Bluetooth Standard, Integrated Mic, better touchpad, better placement of USB ports, S-Video out, Hot-swappable bay w/ standard dual layer 8x DVD+/-RW). The advantage of the S of couse being a pound lighter, an extra hour of battery life, and a slightly better screen (better constrast). Keep in mind this is the S360, not the S4xx series.

Visually, the W3V is more stylish than the Sony S with its gunmetal brushed aluminum cover, seamless toucpad with polished aluminum buttons, chrome stripping, blue/orange LED theme with passthrough to lid to show status while closed.
Quality wise, the W3V is also one up on the Sony-- much better feel to the power button, no flex in the chassis whatsoever (carbon fiber construction), and no artifacts in the screen when pressed from behind.

Get the W3V! It's soooo cute!

Actually, the Z70Va weighs about a lb more than the W3V when similarly configured. All the published weights for the Z70va are with the weight-saver module in place of the optical drive.

As Enderet said, check out the Chembook 2030, you may be surprised at that unit. It's significantly cheaper, has a longer standard warranty (2 years), and does not have heating issues.