Laptop recommendation with a long battery life anyone?

[buzz]

I'm thinking the unthinkable! I might have to move over from Mac to PC. EQMOD beckons and I don't know of a mac equivalent of focusmax.

So, I need a small laptop which has long battery life, or interchangeable batteries, enough for a full night's imaging. (Dell used to do one with two hot swappable battery slots but not for Win7 I think). I know I can use bootcamp - but the battery life on the macbook falls to 5 hours running Windows and the 85W charger is going to suck the life out of a hobby lead-acid sell.

Any recommendations? (other than to see a shrink)

[Helen]

I've got a Samsung N10 netbook which I use for solar imaging - the battery lasts for ever on it

Helen

[Earl]

Would it not be cheaper just to use a dedicated battery for the laptop?

[Cubemaster]

+1 for the NC10. Got the 9 cell battery which was giving 8 hours when new [Windows reported 12hrs]

[iwatkins]

NC10 here too when mobile. Also 9 cell battery plus original. Cannot hot swap but can go to standby, change battery and back again in under a minute.

Also replaced standard hard disk with an SSD and this extended battery life by about 20%.

Also, once up and imaging, switch the screen off, that saves lots of juice.

Cheers

Ian

[Psychobilly]

Another happy NC10 user when away from mains or heavy duty battery power..

[buzz]

Hi guys, the N10 looks promising. Being a netbook rather than a laptop, do you find it powerful enough to run guiding, acquisition, planetarium and focusing programs at the same time?

Chris

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Regards

Chris

[iwatkins]

NC10 runs all my rig without any problems. But it is useless for image processing, e.g. Stacking and editing. Use a proper desktop for that

Cheers

Ian

[buzz]

Cheers Ian, selling the MacBook pro and buying the N10 will afford Maxim DL!

I also saw a small Sony Vaio laptop with an extended battery that you can plug in on the fly. I had better start surfing some good deals.

Thanks

Chris

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Regards

Chris

[buzz]

I bought a Samsung netbook - NP NC110P and put 2Gb and a SSD in it. I dont think it is good enough. I'm having banding issues with my camera, faint whitish lines across the CCD on all frames (including Bias). The camera has gone back to the OEM and back again and whilst they are slightly better, if I link the camera to a faster desktop, they go away - using the same drivers and software. I don't think the netbook is fast enough on the USB download. (The machine is set up for speed, not battery life since I found spare batteries for just £30.

Has anyone else seen this issue?

[kirkster501]

I went through this loop a few months back. In the end I got a refurbished DELL 630 from fleabay for £150. Extremely tough piece of kit. I am delighted with it. 4 x USB, 4 Gig RAM, Win XP.

Have a look here:

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/The-best-laptop-deals-on-the-net/Laptops-/_i.html?_fsub=20697070&_sid=690763154&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

Steve

[buzz]

So, I'm not imaginging the issue then. Bother. (When I bought the netbook, I donated a 15" macbook pro to a friend in need)

We use Dells at work, maybe not my first choice but obvious good value. They are unusual as some still have serial ports. Is yours one of those where the battery detaches?

[freeflyjay]

regarding battery life, why not get a car jumpstarter power pack, i picked one up from an auchion tv channel for about 20 quid and it has a cigarrett socket, then just get an addapter to charge laptop, i would think this would give ample for any laptop!

[JamesF]

Might be worth considering a solid state disk, too? That could well help with battery life.

James

[buzz]

OK - I got a computer and I have Win7 Professional. The CPU is a 64bit Core I5. If it don't work with that, nothing will. I want reliability, so I ended up with something new, with a warranty, but I load the OS myself.

Th question is, should I install 64-bit or 32-bit version of Win7 (I know PERecorder is 32-bit only) but is there a general speed advantage going 64-bit?

[buzz]

I think I found the answer to my own question - although most of the programs are 32-bit, I could load 32 bit Win7 onto my mac, but I couldn't find a 32 bit bootcamp installer, so ended up re-installing 64 bit after all.

[buzz]

Just been running a new set of darks with a Macbook Pro 2012 13". I connected a Powergorilla to it, set at 16V, which does not charge the internal battery but just supplements it. 8 hours later, the Powergorilla was just two bars down out of 6 and the Mac's battery was still fully charged. Perhaps not the cheapest solution but then somebody did warn me that this hobby was addictive!