Battery Life

[Helltech]

I'm going to be honest, I know nothing about tablets or laptop, never cared. However I got promoted at work and now I'm doing a job where like, I kind of need some entertainment device or I'll go insane. All I plan on doing with it is watching videos, but I want something that has great battery life while doing so. Lol, my old laptop can only play an MP4 for about 5 minutes before running out of juice (Windows XP ftw). I can't really decide between a laptop or a tablet. AFAIA I need a Haswell laptop to get any kind of decent battery performance out of it, however I know if I got a tablet I would want it to run W8, so what are my cheapest options with good battery life?

[Emperor_Piehead]

at the moment cheap and haswell don't exactly go together. If you want something with great battery the macbook air 13in and the sony vaio pro 13 are both lightweight and have long battery life.

[Warcony]

Well cheap, good battery life and Windows isn't a viable combination these days.  As per your post Android and iOS tablets are out?  They offer good battery life and are cheap (<$600).

 

Windows 8 tablets don't offer good battery life without sacrificing a ton on performance, build quality and/or the screen.  Your best bet is probably a haswell laptop.  As emperor said sony vaio pro or macbook air.  I personally have the macbook air and it is great, the 13 inch model has over 10 hours of battery!

[rashdanml]

If you want outstanding battery life, Thinkpad X and T series are great out of the box. 7-8 hours or so, dunno how much that translates to for videos. Maybe 5-6. X series has battery upgrades to push that to 20 hours (maybe 10-15 with videos).

 

Both aren't Haswell or cheap, though. The Haswell variants are due soon, but won't launch at cheap prices. The benefit of it though, is that the current Ivy Bridge lineup will see a pricecut.

 

Tablet would be your best bet. Nexus 7 is amazing.

[whatthe_fuzz]

Tablet wise my vote goes for the Nexus 7. Its inexpensive, 1080p, the best tablet for the size.

[criso8]

If all you want is video I think its hands down tablet. It's just much easier deal with and will be a better value for you.

[Helltech]

Yeah I would rather get a tablet I just hate Android. 

 

I don't care if its haswell or not, I just assumed Haswell was all that could deliver good battery life. 

 

And by cheap I was talking ~600 dollar range.

 

Was looking at this, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314150

 

Though I'm not a fan of the screen resolution at all, and know nothing of the batterylife but beggars can't be chooser, haha.