I got a 400$ Nvidia Quantum Calculator from my dad's work, check if you can get any deals on some good ones around here. You might be surprised what you find if you hit up old hardware stores and such.
I can't seem to figure out from google what that is.
Can you provide a link of some sort? It sounds like some kind of modular graphics upgrade but I can't find any information.
Another potential build, this one with a touchscreen because I think windows 8 is just going to be kinda awkward without one.
http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SYCTOProcess?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&LBomId=8198552921666528652&categoryId=8198552921644927000Total: $979.99
3rd gen Intel® Core™ i7-3632QM quad-core (2.20GHz / 3.20GHz with Turbo Boost)
Windows 8 64-bit
14" LED backlit display (1600 x 900)
Touch screen
AMD Radeon™ HD 7670M (2GB) hybrid graphics [$30.00]
1TB (5400rpm) hard drive
8GB (8GB x1) DDR3-1600MHz
Blu-ray Disc™ player (Free, reg. price $100.00) [$0]
Large lithium-ion battery (7950mAh) [$70.00]
Major differences from the Thinkpad
- Touchscreen
- Has a graphics card of some sort?
- Slower hard drive, but with much more capacity
- Quad core processor, although not quite as good as the dv6 one
- Not sure how the battery compares, this gives me an actual electrical energy stored value instead of a vague "cell" measurement.
Although compared to the dv6, it is clearly not as good and more expensive (assuming the Radeon is similar to the GT 635M), besides the addition of the neat touchscreen.
Ack, I really don't want to be straying too far away from my primary concern, which is the battery life...
I should probably just keep Intel HD 4000 graphics and scale other things accordingly