Ptolemios: New Dream Laptops

It's close to 2016 now and I can't help but feel envious of the new laptops that have and will be coming out. I bought my laptop back at the end of 2012 and at that time, I really liked the idea of backlit keyboards, which only the macbooks had. So I instantly fell in love with two laptops that so happened to feature backlit keyboards.

The Asus N550 Multimedia Series

The Lenovo Y480

Another thing that was all the rage as well was sound systems, Dell had a laptop with Skullcandy, Msi with DynaAudio, Asus with Bang and Olufsen, Lenovo with JBL and HP with BeatsAudio. So I had a lot of choices to choose from, but when you add in backlit keyboards, the only two that remained were the ones shown above and I decided to go with the larger Y580 from Lenovo.

Lenovo Y580

Why? Because it had a stronger graphics card compared to the N550 (an Nvidia GTX660M over the GT650) and because at RM3000, it gave me an i7 processor whereas the Asus was RM3500. It's still the laptop I'm using today and for more than 2 years already, I'm glad its still holding up well. (almost, a story for next time perhaps) The backlit keyboard a welcome addition, especially when I type or play games at night, its speakers lack bass but trebles sound very realistic and true to life.

The sad part was after I had bought the laptop, 2013 came and along with it a new set of laptops emerged... all with RED BACKLIT KEYBOARD.

Lenovo Y500

Lenovo Y50

whyyyyyyyyyy

Hp Omen

Acer V Nitro

Asus ROG G551JK

nngggghhhhh

I mean, if I had waited just 3 months I would have gotten a completely different laptop, not to mention they all came with the GTX7++, a generation newer than my laptop's graphics card. But sure it gets you feeling like you should have waited, should have been more patient but I thoroughly enjoyed my laptop so it wasn't like I absolutely had to have those laptops. Another silver lining was the Y500 and Y400 series did not come with intel integrated graphics so its battery life was always less than an hour, the other laptops were too expensive so I wouldn't have gotten them anyways. See, sometimes you just have to appreciate what you have and don't go chasing after every next new thing. (A reminder to myself apparently)

I dreamt of having those but not as strongly as after I borrowed my sister's laptop to read through notes and do reports (my laptop was being repaired since the RAM was faulty). Her laptop being an extreme petite one, with a touch screen but still surprisingly smooth thanks to its i3 processor, I began to appreciate what small lightweight workstations are really there to promote, productivity on the go. Not to mention its battery life was far superior to my 2-3 hours of screen on time, hers could last 6-8 hours on a single charge.

Asus Vivobook S200e

It was also then that I really appreciated the inclusion of touch screen support with Windows 8, I know a lot of you don't like Windows 8 but with touch screen it made more sense and I got the hang of it after playing around for a few minutes. So my dream laptops became more of one that could do both, play demanding games yet still manage to be lightweight and portable. 2014 didn't show much progress, Ultrabooks emerged but always with reduced specifications compared to the full sized laptops. Late 2015 was when the fun really started, THE MICROSOFT SURFACE BOOK!!!

It combines the tablet experience but still allows for heavy loads with the added graphics card and keyboard. I'm excited but I know this will just be another laptop to add to my wishlist. Also~