my dad recently asked me for help locating a laptop that would suit his particular needs.
from what i've read, no onboard graphics card can really offer solid performance for google earth - but a top of the line dedicated card certainly isn't needed. after some searching, it looks to me like the Asus UL series with swappable graphics would offer the best combination of performance and battery life.
(newegg linky for 3 of the models)
i'm wondering a few things, and am open to any and all suggestions, including a heads up for anything slated to be released within the next 6 months. i don't care about brand, provided that it's reputable and decent quality.
- used equally for travel and couch computing.
- would be used primarily for web browsing/e-mail/word processing, but needs to be able to offer solid performance for google earth and other mapping software. (this is the primary determining factor).
- the other primary use of the machine would be offloading photo storage from sd cards to the laptop while on a trip, so a built in sd card reader would be a huge bonus for ease of use.
- preferably in the 14" and 15" range, though 13" would also be acceptable.
- maximizing battery life would be optimal, but not at the cost of mapping software performance.
- would like at least a dual-core processor.
- he's hoping for something in the $600 range, but anything less than $900 is in the realm of possibility.
from what i've read, no onboard graphics card can really offer solid performance for google earth - but a top of the line dedicated card certainly isn't needed. after some searching, it looks to me like the Asus UL series with swappable graphics would offer the best combination of performance and battery life.
(newegg linky for 3 of the models)
i'm wondering a few things, and am open to any and all suggestions, including a heads up for anything slated to be released within the next 6 months. i don't care about brand, provided that it's reputable and decent quality.
- has anyone seen or used any of this line of laptop? if so, are the viewing angles as poor as the newegg reviews seem to indicate?
- is there a laptop with only dedicated graphics and similar/greater gpu power that can offer anywhere near the battery life that this line does (and yes, i realize that the stated times are probably BS)
- can anyone clue me in to what the baseline for smooth google earth operation is with respect to mobile gpus and processors?
- the 1.3ghz processor seems pretty underpowered compared to what can be had at the same price point. i imagine it's perfectly adequate for what this computer would be used for, but it makes it seem like the ability to switch between onboard and dedicated graphics comes at a pretty steep price. any thoughts on whether it's worth it?
- the listed 1366x768 resolution seems awfully weird, but it seems fairly common these days - can anyone comment on it?
Granted that the Atom shows up at less Hertz than these 2 CPUs, current Atom net-books are being built with different and better architecture. CPU alone can't run a system 
