So my wife has been requesting a change from her Dell Studio 1735 (it's 2 years old, and more importantly for her it's heavy and has a shocking batery life)
She ONLY used the laptop for emailing, facebook'ing, loading pictures onto Picasa and Snapfish - with some very light editing, and is looking for something light with a good battery.
Was thinking of spending about $400-500 and have narrowed my choices down to the Asus 1215n or UL30a - and cannot decide between the two.
So far am leaning to the 1215n for it's discrete graphics, and cheaper price (about $430 on Amazon) It also has the newer Atom processor (but does that mean it's better?)
Downside being that it has only the 32 bit OS, so cannot use the 4 GB of RAM it has fully. It's battery life is lower too - 6 vs the UL30's 10.
The UL30a looks sleeker though. It has a smaller profile and from what gather it's processor is better than the 1215n's
It also has a 64 bit OS and a bigger HDD.
Downside being the lack of an optical drive and lack of discrete gfx (not that there will be any gaming on this laptop) It also costs about 570.
So there's my dilemma -
Which processor is better?
Does it matter that the UL30a has no discrete gfx?
For the people out there with no optical drive laptops - is it a big hinderance? Can you even get legal copies of softare to mount and install?
and lastly, build quality - haven't managed to find a retailer to get my hands on either.
Please help - my wife's (and therefore my own) happiness depends on it.
Thanks.