New laptop for general use

[Evylldemon]

I’m helping a friend find a new laptop (she’s pretty clueless and indecisive) and I’m looking for some opinions. It’s for basic stuff (web browsing, movies, word/excel, pictures, etc.) no gaming. So far I’ve been looking at:

ASUS UL50VT-A1: extremely portable, light, insane battery life (10-12 hours) but how much do you have to sacrifice in speed? Is it noticeably slower when performing everyday tasks?

ASUS K52JR-X2: specs look great (i3 350, 4gb ddr3, 15.6in) definitely fast enough, big hdd, nice graphics card (mostly unnecessary) but how good is the battery life? 6 cell 48wh doesn’t seem like a lot for this powerhouse. Anyone know how many hours to expect out of this?

Lastly she likes the designs on the Dell laptops and I put together a studio 15 with matching specs to the K52JR and it’s about $100 more. How are the Dell studios in terms of quality/battery life?
Also does anyone know of a store that carries demo models of the two ASUS laptop listed? Particularly the K52 as I’ve had a hands-on with the UL50 already.

Open to any other suggestions. Not a big fan of Acer or HP but willing to look at it if the price is right.

TIA

[Deeival]

I'd go with the ASUS UL50VT-A1. Got one for my sister last Christmas and she loves it. I set it up for her - installed some stuff, uninstall some crapware - and it never felt slow at all. This one should be by far the cheapest out of what you listed.

Can't beat the ASUS 1 year accidental damage warranty either.

[Evylldemon]

Yeah I'm definitely steering towards an ASUS laptop because of the awesome warranty included.

I think for general use the SU7300 processor won't seem too slow, unfortunately it is actually the most expensive of the laptops I was looking at.

As a cheaper option I was checking out the ASUS K52F-A1 as well. It's pretty much the same as the K52JR except with a smaller HDD (320GB) and only integrated graphics (which is probably enough for her purposes.

Links:
UL50VT-A1 NCIX.com - Buy ASUS UL50VT-A1 Intel SU7300 4GB 500GB 15.6IN HD GeForce G210M Windows 7 Home Premium Notebook - UL50VT-A1 In Canada. PM to $861
K52JR-X2 NCIX.com - Buy ASUS K52JR-X2 Intel Core i3 350M 4GB 640GB 15.6IN HD Radeon HD5470 HDMI Windows 7 Premium Notebook - K52JR-X2 In Canada. PM to $834
K52F-A1 NCIX.com - Buy ASUS K52F-A1 Intel Core i3 350M 4GB 320GB 15.6IN HD WLAN Webcam Windows 7 Premium Notebook - K52F-A1 In Canada. $760

I think the deciding factor between these will be battery life. Anyone have an idea what the latter 2 (K52 models) will be like in terms of battery life??

[Deeival]

Wow, I thought the UL50 would have come down in price a bit more.

According to this (Notebookcheck: Review Asus K52JR-SX059V Notebook) you should get about 120mins of movie watching, about about 2-3 for office stuff from the K52's.

Don't quote me on this, but the UL50 should get about 2.5x that.

[rjbarker]

Just picked up this Asus for my wife....up to 8 hrs on an cell Battery.....I3 350 / 4GB 1066 DDR3 / nv 512 MB GT310M / 13.3" HD

Looks like a nice little package....price matched to $899

[miggs78]

For battery life the UL50 wins hands down. But I think for the price/performance ratio the K52JR-X2 wins here.. The K52F-A1 has nice specs, but a 640gb hdd itself costs around $90-100, and then you get a gpu too, so for $80 more the JR ver is definitely a good step up from the F version.

As for battery life goes, you can get about 2-3 hours, maybe even 4 depending on how the laptop is used, could always use the battery saving modes, and not to forget when we carry a laptop we always carry the power adapter in case you need it, so you could always plug in the laptop when a plug-in is available.

That's just my point of view though.. If you can get a good deal on a Dell Vostro laptop, go for it.. I will not suggest the Studio 15, I had it with me, and the build wasn't as solid as I had expected, it was the Studio 15 to be specific, and I had over heating issues within 1 hour of me using it out of the box.. But like I said the Vostro 3500 usually goes on sale very week/weekend sale, can get a good one for $799 or even less.

[Evylldemon]

So we ended up ordering the UL50VT-A1 a couple weeks ago (from a-power since it was a few bucks cheaper) only to now find out it is being discontinued?? Anyone know anything about that? Seems pretty weird for such a popular laptop.

[Inik]

So, do you have one in hands?