Best battery life laptop for under $1000

fatw41

Honorable
Dec 30, 2012
20
0
10,560
1. What is your budget?
$1000 USD
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
14 inches or larger
3. What screen resolution do you want?
1600 * 900
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Not a critical factor
5. How much battery life do you need?
This it probably the most important feature for me. I’m looking for the computer with the best battery life for under $1000.
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)?
Hardly play games, and the games I do play from time to time are pretty old. EG. Command and Conquer Generals; Zero Hour. Etc.
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Photo editing, Lots of work with audio and simple video editing. Use Windows Movie maker 3 times a week. MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint. Heavy web browsing (usually have two browsers open at a time with probably 20 or so tabs open in all)
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
Not overly concerned about the hard drive capacity, but would be nice to have a SSD for faster system use. Won’t mind going with a dual system of SSD for the C drive and a regular hard drive for storing files.
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
lenovo.com.cn (I’m currently in China and this way I can avoid the 20% tax on “imported” computers… I believe that number dropped recently to something like 15 or 10%, but there are still noticeable price discrepancies between computers for sale in other countries and China.)
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
I don’t plan to upgrade or purchase a new laptop for at least 2 years. I kept my last laptop for 3.5 years before it was stolen.
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Optical drive is a critical feature, wouldn’t mind losing it for extended battery life, larger hard drive etc. However is an optical drive is included then I’d strongly prefer the ability to burn disks.
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’m slightly partial to Lenovo, but am open to any and all brands. Actually I decided to buy an HP, but couldn’t find the specific model in China (dv7-6b55dx) My only gripe with that system was that it didn’t have a backlit keyboard.
13. What country do you live in?
China
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Would prefer a laptop with a backlit keyboard. I’m open to considering laptops with slice batteries, but would prefer one that isn’t too uncomfortable to work with.

If any other information is needed, please ask and I’ll be happy to provide what you need to help me with my search.

Not sure if I should start a new thread for this or not, but I’d like to upgrade any laptop to 16GB RAM. I’d prefer to do this myself, or at least buy the RAM from a separate location and have a local computer shop install it for me as this way is almost guaranteed to be significantly less expensive than if I do it through the manufacturer. Will any old RAM do, or do I need to pay careful attention to what I add to my laptop?

Thank you!
 

fudoka711

Honorable
Apr 2, 2012
62
0
10,610
+1 to the lenovo ultrabooks.

Basically, get an ultrabook - that's your best bet at getting the most battery life.

I think HP ultrabooks are good, too. However, since you live in China - you're likely to find the best deal on a lenovo ultrabook anyways.

Edit: As for the Ram, it depends on the particular chassis of the ultrabook, but you should be able to add ram no problem. To be safe, just make sure its DDR3 1333 or 1600mhz ram at 1.5v. Just see what was already installed, what cpu is installed, and what the manual says about adding ram.