New Laptop
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Hire a personal shopper? There are hundreds of such laptops around. Just go to Amazon, enter the keywords laptop, lighted keyboard, then put in LED. Next into that top area put -chromebook and the minus in front of otther stuff uou don't want it to have. Next step on the left side is a list where you can select your price range and even your favorite brand.
Then hit the enter key and start looking at the search results.
Then hit the enter key and start looking at the search results.
highdesertranger
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I have a Lenovo Idea Pad Flex. I like it. SSD so it's super fast. Decent battery life about 6 hours before I plug in, but I don't tax it with high power usage. It might go 8 hours if I pushed it. Back lit keyboard. Highdesertranger
Caution, the Lenova idea pad flex is a series. Some of them are chromebook OS, some of them have Windorws 10S as the OS. You have to be sure that the programs you need/want to run are compatible with Windows 10S as it is a lightweight in terms of software that can run on it. If you need the full version of Windows 10 then you are looking at a higher priced Lenova Flex machine.
Windows 10 is a free upgrade from Windows 10S. You just launch Windows Store, find Windows 10, and click download.
As far as laptops, my personal choice right now would be (and was) a thin and light with an AMD 4000 series processor. Anything fitting those specs will have great performance and battery life. I chose the HP Probook 445 G7. About 10+ hours of battery life under light use, and high performance. But Lenovo is a great choice too. They have a Flex 5 with almost identical specs.
As far as laptops, my personal choice right now would be (and was) a thin and light with an AMD 4000 series processor. Anything fitting those specs will have great performance and battery life. I chose the HP Probook 445 G7. About 10+ hours of battery life under light use, and high performance. But Lenovo is a great choice too. They have a Flex 5 with almost identical specs.
Uncle Todo
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I have a Lenovo that I like, but it doesn't meet your requirements being the Legion series (gaming).
Look for something with an i3 or Pentium/Celeron processor, they'll be lower power users.
My laptop is AMD powered, but I'm not sure about their lower consumption processors.
I had a little Dell 2n1 a couple years ago with an i3 and an SSD, I was very pleased with it.
It seems backlit keyboards are the norm now, except for maybe on super budget models.
Are you ordering online or buying in-store?
Look for something with an i3 or Pentium/Celeron processor, they'll be lower power users.
My laptop is AMD powered, but I'm not sure about their lower consumption processors.
I had a little Dell 2n1 a couple years ago with an i3 and an SSD, I was very pleased with it.
It seems backlit keyboards are the norm now, except for maybe on super budget models.
Are you ordering online or buying in-store?
MrAlvinDude
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Did you look at reviews of that there HP ProBook 445 G7 14", to see if they tested/verified any battery life data?
In this (lengthy) review, they talk about the battery life.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Pr...view-Moving-forward-with-Renoir.483145.0.html
Back in 2012, I got my first long-battery-life laptop. And it COULD indeed operate for 10 hours on batteries only. It used one of the first low-power specific Intel CPUs
But the very long battery-power-option was all due to trimmed down performance settings, when being battery-powered-only.
If I wanted to see the screen in outside daylight, then I needed to adjust the display settings (and thus use more power) and accept a shorter timeframe for battery-only-operation.
Likewise, the default fan setting (under battery operation), was set to OFF. So when ever the CPU got too hot, it would simply pause (and freeze operations for some 3-5 seconds). That got annoying very fast.
Now, CPUs have changed significantly, since 2012, so I am sure that they can now run quite well, on very low power consumption.
But I would still expect that a very long battery-operation-option, still depends on optimizing every setting in windows, for quite low power consumption.
Fortunately those settings are highly user-adjustable, so if one finds one of those optimized power settings too annoying, one can simply change that one setting.
How will you use the laptop?
If it will only be light use, like primarily internet browsing, and a few youtube videos, then I would expect that any advertised time duration for battery operation is very possible.
I noticed that the review had a mention about single-channel vs. dual-channel RAM, when talking about the display/graphics performance.
So it seems that the [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]HP ProBook 445 G7 14" laptop, has a few hardware configuration options, that might be worth looking into, when ordering the laptop. So it can be optimized for low-cost, or with specific extras in the area that will see its main use. [/font]
In this (lengthy) review, they talk about the battery life.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Pr...view-Moving-forward-with-Renoir.483145.0.html
Back in 2012, I got my first long-battery-life laptop. And it COULD indeed operate for 10 hours on batteries only. It used one of the first low-power specific Intel CPUs
But the very long battery-power-option was all due to trimmed down performance settings, when being battery-powered-only.
If I wanted to see the screen in outside daylight, then I needed to adjust the display settings (and thus use more power) and accept a shorter timeframe for battery-only-operation.
Likewise, the default fan setting (under battery operation), was set to OFF. So when ever the CPU got too hot, it would simply pause (and freeze operations for some 3-5 seconds). That got annoying very fast.
Now, CPUs have changed significantly, since 2012, so I am sure that they can now run quite well, on very low power consumption.
But I would still expect that a very long battery-operation-option, still depends on optimizing every setting in windows, for quite low power consumption.
Fortunately those settings are highly user-adjustable, so if one finds one of those optimized power settings too annoying, one can simply change that one setting.
How will you use the laptop?
If it will only be light use, like primarily internet browsing, and a few youtube videos, then I would expect that any advertised time duration for battery operation is very possible.
I noticed that the review had a mention about single-channel vs. dual-channel RAM, when talking about the display/graphics performance.
So it seems that the [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]HP ProBook 445 G7 14" laptop, has a few hardware configuration options, that might be worth looking into, when ordering the laptop. So it can be optimized for low-cost, or with specific extras in the area that will see its main use. [/font]
The battery life tests on Notebook Check are very close to real world (and no special settings). For their primary test they have a script that browses the web continuously, with the screen brightness set to an indoor level. You can see that in that test, the Probook got about 8.5 hours. On the comparison in that same review, the Lenovo Ideapad 5 (also with the same AMD processor) got slightly over 9 hours. With a mix of browsing and idling, you can get over 10 hours with both of those models. If you do something really heavy, like gaming or video editing, the battery life will be more like two hours. For those particular uses I recommend plugging in.
AMD processors prior to the Ryzen 4000 series did not have good battery life, generally. Starting with the 4000 series (4300, 4500, 4700), they achieved significant improvements in "performance per watt", which makes them the current leader in battery life with decent performance. Intel is a little bit worse right now, because their chip manufacturing process is a generation behind. (They will probably catch up again in the next couple of years.)
The Probook has user upgradable RAM (memory), so you can add another memory stick to go from single channel to dual channel and also increase the amount. The Lenovo Ideapad 5 has soldered RAM, so you're stuck with what you bought it with. The reviews on that site will usually mention what is upgradable and what is not, and how easy it is to accomplish. For me that's a big part of my buying decision, because I enjoy taking computers apart and upgrading them to last longer.
AMD processors prior to the Ryzen 4000 series did not have good battery life, generally. Starting with the 4000 series (4300, 4500, 4700), they achieved significant improvements in "performance per watt", which makes them the current leader in battery life with decent performance. Intel is a little bit worse right now, because their chip manufacturing process is a generation behind. (They will probably catch up again in the next couple of years.)
The Probook has user upgradable RAM (memory), so you can add another memory stick to go from single channel to dual channel and also increase the amount. The Lenovo Ideapad 5 has soldered RAM, so you're stuck with what you bought it with. The reviews on that site will usually mention what is upgradable and what is not, and how easy it is to accomplish. For me that's a big part of my buying decision, because I enjoy taking computers apart and upgrading them to last longer.
crofter
Well-known member
$200 on Cyber Monday. That way you're not out much if something bad hapoens to it while travelling.
I much prefer just the smartphone when travelling, but then I don't work on a computer like some do.
-crofter
I much prefer just the smartphone when travelling, but then I don't work on a computer like some do.
-crofter
G0ldengirl68
Well-known member
Yes, my battery for the Toshiba, brand new, didn't stay charged as long as advertised, learned that right off the bat. I keep building into my Toshiba I bought in 2012 and it runs great, for my purposes (hidden object games, surfing the net, forums, facebook) but can't wait to put in the SSD drive 
They are so, much faster. 17" are hard to come by in my searching anyway. Mine is upgraded, new parts, and the SSD will be the icing on the cake.
I wouldn't turn my nose up at refurbished, as many are returned as new and can't be sold as "brand new". You just have to read the reviews, and make the best choice you can with those. If you haven't met up with majorgeeks website, I have known them for years and learned a ton from them. Lots of them are using PC/laptops that they've had for years too, just upgrade them, if they are upgradable.
They are so, much faster. 17" are hard to come by in my searching anyway. Mine is upgraded, new parts, and the SSD will be the icing on the cake. I wouldn't turn my nose up at refurbished, as many are returned as new and can't be sold as "brand new". You just have to read the reviews, and make the best choice you can with those. If you haven't met up with majorgeeks website, I have known them for years and learned a ton from them. Lots of them are using PC/laptops that they've had for years too, just upgrade them, if they are upgradable.
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