Last year I did recommend that chess players hold back buying any notebook until the new 4th Generation Intel Haswell chip came out.
One big reason:- BATTERY LIFE !!!
Later, I actually got one Haswell notebook after selling off my Mac Book Air. I actually sold off my Mac Book Air twice to upgrade to the next model so my third one is also another Mac Book Air but this time it's 13 inch instead of the previous two which was 11 inches. (That says a lot about the resale value of a Mac notebook)
After about a month of use, I can actually say that it is worth the investment and wait. This Haswell notebook battery life is ridiculously long and I have rarely seen the battery low indicator because I use it like a phone - charging it at night and it will last the whole day.
How long does it last? The specs saya whopping 12 hours. Well I have not actually sat down to use it for 12 hours but I did get 6 hours only but that's because I pushed it to the extreme by letting the notebook power up 3 monitors. That of course, taxed the notebook display processor but that's really not my everyday use.
In normal use, the notebook never ran out of battery when fully charged during the day. That's saying a lot for a heavy user like me.
So remember if you are shopping for a notebook, don't forget to ask that sales guy if it is a Haswell CPU.
One of my friends actually took my advice and asked the sales person if the "CPU was Intel Haswell". The reply came back as "Yeah, this CPU is Intel (as well)". In that case I recommend you ask for another sales person or repeat the pronounciation "H-A-S-W-E-L-L". If they still have not heard of it, I think you'd better look in another computer shop.
Also, I think our very own World Police Champ, Ismail Ahmad just got a Lenovo Yoga notebook that is Haswell (as well) as touch enabled being a Windows 8 machine. You can ask him if it is good or not.
Please share in the comment section if you have recently got a Haswell notebook. Remember, there is almost no price increase for this amazing new CPU so DO NOT GET a notebook that is not Haswell.
I am pretty happy with my new Air. My only regret is that I don't use it as much as I am mostly on my desktop machine. But whenever I am away from the desk, you can be sure the Air always by my side.
