Advice needed: 13.3 Laptop with powerful VGA

[davidstone]

I need a 13.3 laptop that I can carry around, but it MUST HAVE powerful VGA 1920X1200 or 1920X1020, nothing less than that. I want the full HD.

The reason is I have a 22” full HD Asus monitor, so I want to be able to plug the laptop into the big screen and work that way when at my desk. I also have wirless keyboard and mice. So, the laptop will basically sit on my desk with the lid closed.

The rest I answered below, many thanks

1_What is your budget?
EUR 1,000 / GBP 900 / USD 1,350

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
13.3

3_What screen resolution do you want?
Don’t care

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Both in a sense

5_How much battery life do you need?
Don’t really care

6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
NO

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Adobe CS4 – heavy load multitasking

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
At least 250GB

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
At least 2 years
11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD RW

12_Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I prefer Lenovo, Asus and Toshiba.

 

[Tunafish]

Remember it doesn't really matter what screen resolution your laptop has, because as long as your monitor can support the resolution, it's fine.

If you want a laptop that is powerful yet portable and doesn't need to play games, you can't go wrong with a Macbook Pro. The Macbook Pro is thinner than most ultraportables. And it's only 4.5 pounds.

Another good choice would be...let's see. Yeah, for your requests, a Macbook Pro is pretty much perfect. No other company makes a laptop as durable, thin, and powerful as Apple does.

The problem with other laptops are that if they are too thin, they skip the DVD Drive and use a ULV processor which cannot handle heavy load Photoshop. Otherwise, they are too big too carry (over 5 pounds and about 1.5 inches thick)

Toshiba makes chunky, but well designed laptops.

 

[frozenlead]

You don't want to be using VGA on an HD monitor - you want to use a digital connection. Your monitor should support the use of DVI, HDMI, and/or DisplayPort. Which inputs does it have?

You should note the Macbook only has DisplayPort output.

The HP DV4i is a little larger than 13.3" at 14", but is more powerful than the Macbook and has HDMI output (more standard).

http/www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Display+(diagonal)&v1=12.0%26quot;+-+14.9%26quot;&series_name=dv4i_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/12.0%22_-_14.9%22/dv4i_series

Edit: I'm not quite sure why Tunafish is so worried about how thin and light the machine is, considering it's going to sit on a desk...OP: what are your portability preferences?

 

[Tunafish]

That's because he needs to take it around as well (so he stated) otherwise why not just ask for any laptop?

"I need a 13.3 laptop that I can carry around"

@Frozenlead: Yes, but you can buy adapters to convert displayport to DVI.

 

[frozenlead]

That's why I asked about his portability preferences.

Sure, you can buy adapters, but they're expensive, and the HP machine is cheaper and more powerful, already including HDMI.

But it depends on what his monitors inputs are...

 

[davidstone]

Guys, seems you got it all wrong, I appologize for that.

By "VGA" I wanted to reffer to video-card, so I should have put "GPU", not VGA.

Off course the monitor has both HDMI and DVI connector.

So, just to clarify, I need a 13.3 laptop with a graphics card (GPU) powerful ehough to run my 22" monitor in its native full HD resolution.

Cheers

 

[Chainzsaw]

Hello Davidstone,

This may be of decent use to you if you can find it wherever you are.

Asus F6VE-3P141C T7350 2.0 320 13
CORE2DUO P7350 2.0GHZ 320G 2GB DDR2 13.3 WXGA
ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD4570 S-MULTI+DL 802.11AGN
10 100 1000 LAN BT FP 6CELL 1.3MP

It has HDMI out to drive your HD display, and approx ~1000 CDN$

Just to let you know - 13.3 inch laptops are hard to come by with decent specifications.

 

[frozenlead]

You don't need any specific GPU in order to just run an additional monitor - Intel graphics will work just fine, as long as you're not doing anything graphic-intensive (CAD, games, HD video on occasion).

That being said, out of the three notebooks here, the HP I posted is still the most powerful for the same amount of money. The i5 will have plenty of horses for your CS4 needs, and you can outfit it with tons of memory. You can also get a 5000 series GPU in it if you need some GPU horsepower too.

 

[Tunafish]

I second frozenlead's recommendation.

But I have had bad experiences with HP. Maybe that's just me.

 

[davidstone]

You don't need any specific GPU in order to just run an additional monitor - Intel graphics will work just fine, as long as you're not doing anything graphic-intensive (CAD, games, HD video on occasion).

That being said, out of the three notebooks here, the HP I posted is still the most powerful for the same amount of money. The i5 will have plenty of horses for your CS4 needs, and you can outfit it with tons of memory. You can also get a 5000 series GPU in it if you need some GPU horsepower too.

Off course I do need a specific GPU. An integrated graphics hardly can run above resolution 1280X800, which is crap for a monitor with 1920X1200 resolution.

 

[frozenlead]

Off course I do need a specific GPU. An integrated graphics hardly can run above resolution 1280X800, which is crap for a monitor with 1920X1200 resolution.

I don't know where you got that information, but you're incorrect. Integrated graphics are fine for simple desktop use at any resolution, provided the card supports that resolution - most cards today support resolutions over 2560x1600. The graphics horsepower is only needed for graphically intensive applications, which displaying a desktop (even at 1200p or higher) is not one of them.

 

[davidstone]

I don't know where you got that information, but you're incorrect. Integrated graphics are fine for simple desktop use at any resolution, provided the card supports that resolution - most cards today support resolutions over 2560x1600. The graphics horsepower is only needed for graphically intensive applications, which displaying a desktop (even at 1200p or higher) is not one of them.

OK, thanks, this is important for me, as I don''t want to buy a laptop, I can1t use for what I want.

So, what you1re telling me is that I should go with any Asus/Toshiba/Lenovo 13.3 laptop out there...?

I'd prefer an i5 system with 4GB of RAM and good GPU. Ideally, it'd have an option to switch between integrated and dedicated graphics:

Integrated when on the go and dedicated GPU for CS4 work when I plug the laptop into the external monitor.

Many thanks

 

[frozenlead]

You don't want to buy a laptop? Why did you make this thread then?

Lenovo doesn't have any 13.3" notebooks in your price range, and Asus doesn't have any with a decent CPU. Toshiba has this model, if you're bent on a notebook from them:

http/www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cdetland.to?poid=467540

Or you can still consider the HP I sent previously. I believe the HP has better options, but I don't quite remember. Take a look at them both.

You're not going to find a notebook with switchable GPUs in a 13" form factor. They're too small for that. If you want to spend money on the dedicated GPU, go ahead, but you really don't need it. Save the money if you need it. It will provide little to no advantage over an integrated GPU for what you use it for. Your external monitor does not require a dedicated GPU powering it. If you don't need the money, there's little reason to not get one - but most people like spending less.

Edit: your != you're