Opinion of portability of 15.6" vs 17.3" laptops?

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Yup its 2014 and I ever never owned a laptop. Used them, but never bought one.

But my daughter will need one for college come next fall, and at times I wish I had one for various reasons. (I intend to buy that around June).

Appears that laptops coming in 'standard' sizes. Those 11" ones seem just too small for my older eyes and big hands. 15.6" is getter better, seems pretty darn easy to move around. They seem to all be 1366 x (something) screen size. Then there's the 17.3" screen size, that come in two pixel counts.

I recently bought the Verizon Motorola Droid Turbo smart phone that has a resolution of 2560 x (something) and honestly it is a complete waste, I just can't see that well. But 1366 x (something) might not be enough to do two screens side by side, which is what I often need to do at work (going from raw data and notes, to just only what the customer needs to see).

So I have the concern that although I might like the 17.3" when its sitting still, i won't like it when its time to move it.

Any opinions? There's no wrong answer, I am looking for your experience ......

For portability, I wouldn't get a laptop bigger than 15.6".

It all depends on the weight. Mine is a 15" but it's heavy.

Generally, of course, the smaller your system is, the more portable it is. 15.6" is my upper limit for a truly portable system. While 17" screens look nice, the trade off will in transportability. --I currently use a 12" ruggedised ultraportable, and it's good for what it need it to do.

Ask what the computer is being used for. Basic graphics and multimedia work? 15.6" is the biggest you will need. Serious Gaming? 17", but you could concievably get by with a smaller screen if the computer has HDMI ports allowing you to hook it up to a large TV.

My biggest issue regarding portability is BATTERY LIFE. I see kids at school use their bigger laptops and most of them are fighting for seats near a plug in and obnoxiously string power cords all over the place.

For this reason, my portable device is always a 10.1 incher. Currently, I'm using an ASUS T100 win 8.1 tablet/netbook hybrid. It runs MS Office, surfs the web, and streams netflix just fine for 8 hours or so on a charge. That means I NEVER need to look for a plug when I'm out. For me, that is a requirement for portability...

I know you said that 10.1in.is too small for you, but still, if I were you, I'd look at battery life when picking a laptop.

If you need portability beyond your own house, battery life will be an issue.

Thanks all!

Hmmm - stuff to think about.

When I go to an outside company for testing I have nothing to do while waiting for something to happen, other than surf the web on my smart phone. The things I need to do in MS Word just can't be done on a smart phone and Google Drive, at least at the time of writing. Its not prose, its numbers in formatting columns, bookmarks, references, pictures. They can be real b*****s about getting a laptop, but need a $500 whatsit, no questions asked.

To be honest, my 16" is too big and heavy, my 13" ultrabook is AWESOME but I rarely take it anywhere other than moving it from my home office to my living room to work-from-home and watch a film at the same time, and my 8" android tablet (which I can use to remote into ALL of my machines, including servers) accounts for about 85% of my daily non-work usage.

I'd recommend:
- Place more emphasis on BATTERY LIFE than screen size or weight
- Remember that regardless of the physical screen size you can always make the image on it bigger (low-res) or smaller (high-res)
- Price point
- Durability
- Don't blame the machine for being "slow" or "fast", it has more to do with how you use it, what programs and operating system is on it, and periodic cleaning of data AND hardware (I open mine up 4-6 times a year and use canned air to blow everything out).