Help Me, LAPTOP: I Want a Student Notebook With Plenty of Power

You ask helpme@laptopmag.com for advice, and Help Me, LAPTOP responds. In this post, we’re helping David W. find a student notebook that’s powerful enough for his classwork, but portable enough to carry around campus or take backpacking between semesters.

David W. writes:

I was looking at notebooks recently for my needs, which consist of some occasional traveling, some photo editing, and half-day college courses. I don’t plan on using the rest of the day playing 3D games but I’m still not sure if discrete graphics and a 2.26 ghz Core i5 is going to keep my system running fast enough for some intense work. I’ve been looking exclusively at HPs Pavillion line mostly because I like the style and size, as well as for the fact that most come standard with a fingerprint reader, which i like. I dont think that i would be limited by a specific screen size but i would like the battery to last 4 hours or more on a 6-cell (which i would probably upgrade to a 9-cell, if necessary).

We asked him what software he plans to use and David replied that he likes “OpenOffice and GIMP (photo editing) primarily for my school work, as well as Zune software for my media (I have a Zune HD). For video editing, I would use Adobe Premiere Elements, but not too often. If i will be playing games, it probably wont be the more intense ones, maybe Microsoft’s Flight Simulator.” David also said that he needs to buy the notebook in the next few days so he’ll have it for school; he can’t wait for custom configured notebook or something with a distant ship date. He expressed an interest in the HP dm4 series. David, based on the software you plan to use, we don’t think it’s absolutely critical that you get a notebook with discrete graphics or even necessarily one with Core i5, though both could be beneficial.  In your situation, we think most mainstream systems will provide reasonable performance, but you need to focus on battery life, portability, and a fingerprint reader.

So here are our recommendations. First of all, you shouldn’t get anything above 14-inches if you’re lugging it around all day. The HP dm4 is a very solid system and the deal you mentioned ($699 at Office Depot) seems really good. On our tests, the dm4 with 6-cell battery lasted 4 hours and 56 minutes which is above your 4-hour requirement.

If you want a lot more battery life and switchable graphics, we highly recommend the ASUS U30 Series, which lasted over 7 hours on our battery test. While the U30Jc-1A we reviewed has been discontinued, Newegg stocks the nearly identical U30Jc-B1 The snazzy ASUS U33Jc, which is partially made out of bamboo, would be a good choice but it hasn’t shipped just yet. If you’re looking to go lighter, we also like the business-oriented HP ProBook 5310m, which is an older notebook, but extremely light and lasts well over 6-hours on a charge; it also has an awesome keyboard.

Each week, we answers questions from readers in our Help Me LAPTOP section. If you need help buying or making the most of a notebook, smart phone, or other mobile gadget, e-mail us at helpme@laptopmag.com. We’ll use the most interesting questions in a future Help ME LAPTOP post.