Next refresh?

Hey,
Last summer I was in the market for a new laptop, and the advice I got here was to 'wait as long as you can, and then buy.'
Well, I waited as long as I could, and with news of penryn and geforce coming this year--I wasn't going to spend a lot of money on a premier laptop just then

So, I want a laptop equipped with Penryn, GeForce 9x(ideally 9600 GT, but.. ), and ideally 3hours battery life... 12"-14", though will consider 15". I would love to have a SSD, but this isn't a deal-breaker.

I've looked at some current models, and the Asus F8SV fits the bill--though I want to do better on battery life!

It occurs to me that upcoming refreshes will generally have the best components available... so I would love to hear about planned refreshes.

I do need to buy pretty soon--really within the next month as I'm using a loaner Vaio at the moment(though I could be a poor friend and hold on to this indefinitely haha).

 

Other than bringing the remainder of their lineup into Penryn during the next 2-3 months, there should be no other refreshes of Asus' existing product line (incl the F8) until mid-late summer. After Montevina is launched in a few weeks, we can probably expect Asus to slowly make the transition if they stay true to form following their pattern of the past few Intel updates......

 

Thanks ClearSkies, so the current models are here to stick.

Does Montevina offer any huge advantages of Penryn? I know I waited for Penryn because it was going to be a lot more battery efficient(has that proved true?)

Also, Robson was big news when I last frequented here... Did Robson turn out to improve performance, or just a novelty?

I was lead to believe penryn was gonna be huge for battery performance... are there any notebooks with mid-range gpus, and 3hr+ battery life(with penryn)?

 

With ASUS, Penryn hasn't improved battery life.

Robson -- I don't even remember what it was about. Is it smth similar with Turbo Memory? If so, complete fiasco, if you ask me.

In an ASUS, you need something with a 9-cell battery option to reliably get 3 hours or more of battery life. No current ASUS with dedicated GPU gets it out of a 6-cell. yeah, their batt life is abysmal.

I don't know about Montevina, haven't looked into it. Don't overdo the waiting game though...

 

I would consider the m50 & m51's for their numpad and cheapness...

 

Montevina (aka Centrino 2) Coming in the first week of June, definitely worth the wait.




Performance are for normal size laptops (12" and up) while the other list is for 11" and below. The P series is the best choice for a normal size laptop.

* 25w or less Penryn processors
* Up to 8GB of ram
* Intel GMA 4500 graphics
* High-Def video playback does not need a dedicated graphics card
* Wifi/Wimax combo cards
* DDR3 Ram (800, 1066, or 1333)
* 2nd version of Turbo memory (now 2GB instead of 1GB)
* DisplayPort support

 

But how long until ASUS will pick it up? For instance, some Penryn refreshes haven't hit the stores in certain countries, yet...

 

For USA I expect Montevina notebooks to be the norm by September, but for other parts of the world I don't know .

 

Wow, the M50 is very nice... It is great specs, and great value at $1500! I want a numpad now, too! But portability and battery power are very important to me... It is a VERY GREAT 15.4", and I'd probably love it(ASUS's are very love-able as a rule!).. but I really do need more portability.

That altec lansing speaker system on the M50 did get me thinking though:
Now I am considering just getting another UMPC, and having a nice multimedia set-up in my room... I already invested in a 22" LCD TV for my desk(used with Eee PC 701), and if I purchased some nice 5.1 surround sound speakers I'd have a VERY nice set-up I can sacrifice the mid-range gf9600 gpu I guess.

But yeah, I've started to look at the U6, F9, W7, U3 models... some of them still have GeForce 8 cards, so they must be due for a refresh soon? Also, the U3 on newegg ships with XP Pro, and says it is "DX 10" ready... I was under the impression that XP did not fully support DX10?

I remember the Dell m1330 being popular last summer, so I'll scope out the chances for a refresh there, too...

Another thought-- Are there any 12-13" UMPCs with blue-ray disc readers available? I'm surprised the upscale U6sg doesn't include it.

So, basically looking at any UMPCs with at least 1280x800 WIDE XGA now... Penryn... GeForce 9x. And of course the 3hr+ battery life(most I've looked at so far sport 4hrs+)

 

I can say September is too far off. I'm looking at Now, May, or June

 

I would probably be happy with the F9sg or the U6sg... I read that the F9 had something like 2.5hrs battery life, so I'd probably pick up the U6 for the hawt leather and 9cell battery available! ..or just get a spare on the f9?
Neither have blue ray.(not a very big deal)

I do think I'll wait awhile to see if the 13.3" size W7 or U3 arrive, though... I think I would sooner own a larger 13.3".

 

Some Penryn refreshes w/ nvidia 9XXX are not in the US, yet, either. (W7Sg for instance)

 

Apparently neither of these -sg refreshes are even on the roadmap for the US market yet, per Eddie @ BTOTech, and sales of current -s models appear to be far from brisk (with the W7s having a $200 rebate through 4/30).

That suggests to me that both of them could be mid-late summer at the earliest, and potentially later.... so I'll patiently wait and hope for a straight to Montevina launch by 3rd qtr. Truly, I hope that this doesn't bode for them to skip the US altogether on these two.

 

Meh, I don't think I'm happy with any of the new laptops available right now But I can't wait forever, so I think I'm just going to hunt for any clearance/used 12"-13" with the 3hrs+ batt life and discrete GPU. It looks like it is possible to find an m1330 or vaio SZs at outlet stores or on ebay at the $700-$1000 price point... I wonder if I'd be able turn around and sell them in 6-12 months and recoup most of my cost? This way, I'd have a notebook that fits my needs(3hrs+ batt life and light gaming), and still have the opportunity to get my dream notebook this fall or '09.

The dell outlet store will have the exact same spec'd m1330s selling between $850 and $1050, I don't get it.

Does anyone have any advice for buying clearance/used notebooks?

 

I saw a thread about buying 2nd hand notebooks on the Guides forum (top forum level). It was pretty good.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=9375

It's from 2005 so some of the information will be dated but I think the main ideas still stand.