Wishful Thinking: describe your perfect laptop

Uhg. Sorry about that. I typed out that list quickly and now realize the error with that point. Would like a 3.5 HDD slot, and a deep 2.5 slot where you could stack up to two SSD's in raid.

 

I guess I can see how someone would want that, but the idea of a 3.5" HDD slot in a laptop kind've turns my stomach. The typical 3.5" drive is over 1" thick, so you'd have to accept a likely minimum of 1.5" thick (with keyboard and screen assembly) unless it was a proprietary drive. You could put four 2.5" drives in the same space as a 3.5" HDD with room to spare. If you wanted maximum storage capacity on a single drive (and for minimum expenditure), that's the way to go, but that's a BIG laptop...

As for the two SSD's thing, I'd probably rather see two mSATA SSD's in a single 2.5" drive area, but that would have its limitations. Besides, you're clearly not too concerned about size, whereas that's one of my biggest concerns for my next laptop - different strokes and all that.

 

Lenovo T520 with real firewire, HDMI. I can't think of anything else to make this machine perfect. It's fast, ridiculously durable, and will work with any beautiful LCD I put in it.PCs always have this neutered version of firewire that is useless for me.

 

I really like what Lenovo did with their latest Lenovo IdeaPad Y400 and Y500 laptops.

They took the traditional slot for the optical drive, and converted it into an "Ultrabay". That can accept traditional accessories (e.g. optical drive, HDD caddy, etc). But it can also accept a GeForce 650M video card.

In the particular configuration of the Lenovo IdeaPad Y400 / Y500, they are running that extra GeForce 650M in SLI mode with the onboard GeForce 650M as well. I'd like to see this trend continue in future noteoboks.... or, perhaps, have a laptop with integrated onboard video (for light weight and low power consumption), that can add graphics horsepower through an ultrabay.

 

my main grip with that initiative is that:

- HDD bay while good, it has been kind of replaced by the msata and the future gunstick SSD (that are in the in the standard)

- ODD is pratically dead

- Adding cooling is good, but the machine should be good enough on its own, and it is

- Adding another gpu, is well, a lottery, its not like it will give you 100% performance all the time, and the nagging issues with sli and so forth are kind of a wasted effort for me

For me the Y500 could be lighter, better build, and with a more powerful gpu, ditching the ODD bay altogether, try kind like the HP envy 15, the 1st and 2nd gen, not what happened after the envy 14. Im not into thinness, but portability, and when you weight that much, you better have something more than sli to deliver the performance, or just get a larger more powerful cpu and put it into a thinner (in terms of weight) chassis.

BUT that reminds me that, if I would buy a 15'', I would go for

Weight: 2kg-2.5kg tops
GPU: something along the lines of the 670mx and higher
CPU: quads
Panel: good one, with at least 100% sRGB and preferably IPS, with high res, it can be higher than 1080p
Great battery life
Since this is a desktop replacement, I would go for 1x msata and 1x 2.5 HDD bay

You know something like the razer blade, without the added complications, like the thinness, the non replaceable parts, the not so good gpu and the razer thingy that they put instead of the num pad. Or the envy 15 1st and 2nd gen, these were truly ahead of their time, and sadly not looked upon till the the rmbp 15 came

 

Its interesting, because you actually described the Lenovo Y500 pretty closely.

Weight: 5.95lbs (2.7kg)
GPU: 2x GeForce 650M in SLI performs at about the same level as a GeForce 670MX (about 3800 in 3dMark11 on stock clocks, 4300 with overclocks). It is expected that the newly-released GeForce 750M SLI on the Lenovo Y400 / Y500 refresh will perform at about 4300 3dMark11 stock, and about +20% higher with overclocks.
CPU: Intel Core i7-3630M quad-core Ivy Bridge CPU
Panel: 1920x1080 TN panel. I would also love an sRGB IPS, but this is a decent panel with its pixel density.
Battery Life: Not superb. 3.0 - 3.5 hours
Drive configuration: 1x mSATA port, 1x 2.5" HDD bay. Can be configured as mSATA + HDD caching (using Intel RST), or as a standalone mSATA SSD (e.g. Crucial M4 256GB) plus a large, inexpensive bulk storage drive (e.g. 1TB 5400rpm 2.5" HDD).

 

you miss the weight point and the sli not delivering the performance with consistency. I described pretty much the razer blade and the envy 15. I actually only put the 2.5kg there to be actually doable, some people like to put tons of copper in the cooling system and Im all for that, tough I prefer the its good enough approach. And with the 2nd gpu I still think it weights in the 3kg range, not in the 2.7kg

Im going to revise my dream 13:

CPU: quad with gt3e pretty please
RAM: 16gb dont really care if its soldered or not, if its DDR4 its a plus
HDD: 2.5'' so I can put the m500 960gb in there
KB: thinkpad new keyboard
Touchpad: apple
Quality of construction: Thinkpad like
Screen: rmbp 13 one
Ports: it can be the ones in the rmbp 13, with thunderbolt 2.0 in a pcie 3.0 connection

If someone makes this, I dont care how much it costs, I will buy it