The Hunt for the Perfect Laptop - Part I

I am currently in the throes of laptop withdrawl.

Short version: I quit my job. My last day was Friday, when I handed in my Lenovo laptop. Yes, I said that it was the perfect job. I still stand by that statement; Kiva Systems was the best job I've ever had, and possibly ever will have. But interesting developments at home have been making greater, more critical demands on my time. So I chose to quit and put my house in order, which is why I now have time to start blogging again.

I'm writing this on an ancient Pentium 4 desktop computer running Ubuntu. We use this as our household computer, where we read email, web surf, pay bills, play web-based games, etc. And it's fine for that purpose. But I'm planning to resume consulting in a month or two, and for that I need a solid laptop. I'm finding, however, that identifying the right laptop is proving rather tricky.

My requirements:

1. It must be a PC. I sort of hate this, because I love Macs and find the OS and graphics packages on that OS much easier to use. But Kiva Systems uses a content management system called Author-it, which has no Mac support. Also, Macs are twice as expensive.
2. I'm a professional writer. I type all day long, and I want the keyboard to be responsive and easy to use. I touch type lightly; I don't want to be banging away as I am on the ancient Sony keyboard I'm currently using. But I also want accuracy and control. So I want a chiclet-style keyboard. Fortunately, I have absurdly small hands well-suited to laptop keyboards. I even prefer them. I just want them to respond well.
3. I want decent processor speed and RAM. When I'm working, I'll frequently have three or four applications sucking down processor time and memory. For example, if I'm working on a hardware manual, I will typically have open a web browser with several tabs, two or three Word documents, Author-it with two or three windows, Adobe Photoshop with several different photos and diagrams, and my email client. So I want at least 1.8 GHz on a dual core processor and 4GB of RAM.
4. I want good quality graphics when I need them. I don't always need them, but sometimes, if I'm editing complex graphics or a screencast tutorial, I need them. And, I'll admit, I play some occasional Dungeons & Dragons Online, and the upcoming expansion of World of Warcraft looks awfully tempting. So I want to be able to switch between integrated and high-definition graphics.
5. I want it to be light and portable. The Lenovo at work was pretty light, but it could have been lighter, especially when, for example, I would go to a customer site to document complex procedures. Then I'd be carrying the laptop, a digital camera, a video recorder, a tripod, and various other tools, just in case. The lighter, the better. As a maximum, I'd say no more than 5 pounds.
6. I want good battery power. I don't need 10 hours of battery life, typically, but 3 hours is really too little. Let's say 6 hours.
7. I don't need a big screen. I know this is weird, given everything I've just said, but in general, when I'm doing the high-powered work, I'm using an additional monitor. I have a lovely 23-inch flat panel display where I can display two full-sized pages of text and have room to spare for toolbars. So a smaller laptop display is fine and helps out with the light-and-portable bit.
8. I don't need a huge hard drive. I have an external terabyte hard drive that I use for backups and the occasional video project. So my hard drive can be quite small. I'd get a solid state hard drive if the price weren't so prohibitive. If I could get, say, an 80GB solid state drive, that would work beautifully, but it's not an absolute requirement.
9. I like having an optical recorder, ideally DVD, primarily so that I can burn videos for my parents, but this isn't a hard requirement, more like a desideratum. Since I do this so rarely, and since I value portability, it may make sense for me to get an external drive.
10. Media card slots are also a nice perk. Keeping track of cables or external card readers is annoying. An SD card reader would simplify things tremendously.
11. I want to spend as little as possible. No job, remember?

Given all these requirements, you'd think a laptop would jump out at me, but the ideal laptop has proved surprisingly elusive. Here's what has risen to the top of my search, from least to most expensive.

Toshiba Satellite L645D-S4036 LED TruBrite 14-Inch Laptop - $499.99 on Amazon.com

Pros: Cheap, good processor and RAM, halfway decent graphics card, under 5lb.
Cons: A mere 3.8 hours of battery life, no optical drive, no card reader

• 1.8 GHz AMD Phenom II P820 triple-core processor
• 4 GB DDR3 memory
• 320 GB SATA hard drive, DVD SuperMulti drive supporting 11 formats
• 14-inch widescreen HD TruBrite LED-Backlit display, ATI Radeon HD 4250 graphics card
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, 3.8 hours of battery life

Processor, Memory, and Motherboard

• Processor: 1.8 GHz Phenom Triple-Core
• RAM: 4 GB

Hard Drive

• Size: 320 GB
• Manufacturer: Serial ATA hard disk drive

Graphics and Display

• Graphics RAM: 1917 MB

Cases and Expandability

• Size (LWH): 9.13 inches, 13.3 inches, 1.5 inches
• Weight: 4.98 pounds

ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14-Inch Thin and Light Black Laptop (11.5 Hours of Battery Life) - ~$720

Pros: Insanely good battery power, excellent video switching capability, 4.8 lb.
Cons: Slower processor speed

• 1.3GHz Intel SU7300 Core 2 Duo Processor
• 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 2 slots, 8GB Max
• 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM), DVD Super Multi Drive
• 14" Widescreen HD LED LCD Display, NVidia G210M Graphics with 512MB DDR3 + Intel GMA 4500MHD (Switchable VGA), 0.3M Webcam, Wi-Fi 802.11 bgn
• Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System (64 bit), 11.5 Hours of Battery Life

Processor, Memory, and Motherboard

• Hardware Platform: PC
• Processor: 1.3 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• Number of Processors: 2
• RAM: 4 GB
• RAM Type: SDRAM

Hard Drive

• Size: 320 GB
• Manufacturer: Portable
• Type: Serial ATA

Graphics and Display

• Graphics RAM: 512 MB

Ports and Connectivity

• Modem: None

Cases and Expandability

• Size (LWH): 13.5 inches, 9.6 inches, 1.1 inches
• Weight: 4.8 pounds

Power

• Rated Charge (normal use): 12 hours

ASUS U43JC-X1 14-Inch Bamboo Laptop (10 Hours of Battery Life) - effectively $850 on Amazon.com

Pros: Fantastic battery power, processor, graphics memory, turbo boost, bamboo case
Cons: More expensive

• Intel Core-i5-450M Processor 2.4GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.66GHz
• Nvidia G310M Graphics Engine with 1 GB DDR3 Dedicated VRAM and Optimus Technology
• 4 GB of DDR3 1066MHz DRAM (2 GB x 2 slots), 4 GB Max; Intel Wireless 802.11 b/g/n + WiDi
• 500 GB Hard Drive (5400 RPM); Super Multi Optical Disk Drive; Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit) Operating System
• 14-Inch HD (1366x768) LED Display; HDMI Port; USB 3.0 port; 8 cell 5600mAh battery (up to 10hrs battery life)

Processor, Memory, and Motherboard

• Processor: 2.4 hertz Intel Core i5
• RAM: 4 GB
• Memory Slots: 2

Hard Drive

• Size: 500 GB
• Speed: 5400 rpm

Graphics and Display

• Graphics RAM: 1024 MB

Cases and Expandability

• Size (LWH): 13.7 inches, 9.6 inches, 1.2 inches
• Weight: 4.73 pounds

Power

• Rated Charge (normal use): 10 hours

Of these, I'm inclined to buy the mid-range laptop. I can actually get it used for $600, but I think $120 for a 2-year warranty is worthwhile. But I keep thinking  to myself... $130 more for a fantastic bamboo laptop... hmm.

Next step: I'm heading to Best Buy to test out keyboard action.