The current poll at the time of this writing runs a few questions. Here's a copy/paste:

I consider most important in a laptop...
Performance 60.7%
Battery Life 18.9%
Size and weight 14.3%
Style 4.1%
Brand name 2.0%

Total Votes: 244

I find it odd that people consider performance first in a laptop over size and weight or battery life. I'm wondering why someone would want a laptop to be high performance when that goes against portability and battery life. Performance for me has been the role of a desktop/workstation. I look for a laptop to be light weight to make it easier to carry around. And to offer long battery life so I can stay untethrered from the AC outlets longer. I'm not bashing the answers in as much as trying to understand why a portable computer would need to have power over portability, especially when the lowest CPU available in a 5 year old laptop still runs Windows and other applications just fine.

Everyone has there own opinon my is in performance not battery life.

Also, there's ways of having power everywhere you go.

Remember that many people use laptops as desktop replacements nowadays.

Mind you, many people answering that poll have never used a laptop themselves and most people visiting this site are the type that want everything bigger and faster, not usable

all things being equal, I think "performance" is referring more to features than anything else. I wouldn't buy a laptop without ample USB ports and Wifi for example.

Performance covers a lot of territory. Features probably would have been a better descriptor.

I bought my current laptop for performance... When compiling and running programs, I really want it to be as quick as possible, whilst still be giving me the chance of walking around with it. (Of course, with it weighing in at less than 2 kilos, that isn't a problem)

And having a powerful cpu/gpu in your laptop doesn't necessarily mean you're sacrificing battery life, as all laptops today throttle down to save power. So in effect you only get the speed when you want/need it. And that isn't a bad thing.

Thus it isn't a matter of either power or portability, but rather yes both please.
At least, that's the way I see it with my computer (upgraded to 1.5GB ram), which can give me 4h+ depending on usage...