Laptop comparison - which one?
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@daniel said:
don't forget to get as much RAM as possible, and unless your used to a small screen, I'd go for the bigger ones.
The ones I mentioned all have 4gb ram and 18.4" screens and come with 32 bit Vista (home premium). Although I'm not sure of the benefit of having more than 3GB ram with a 32 bit OS.
The Dells are way out on budget for my needs, and don't have HDMI output. I am getting the laptop to save having a PC in the house (loml does not like it sat on the dining table).
Most of my work is done in the office which is outside in the garden, and the laptop is for working on when I can't be bothered to go to the office (I hate the commuting
) and also as a secondary consideration to use for watching the occassional Blu-Ray disc on the TV without having the need for a stand alone Blu-ray player.Acer seem to be the best value currently to give me what I need, but I am not sure which of the processor/video card combinations would be best to go for???
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@peweuk said:
The Dells are way out on budget for my needs, and don't have HDMI output.
you may want check the Dell XPS or Inspiron series too, probably not as cheap as an Acer.
@peweuk said:
... outside in the garden
avoid the 'mirror' screens (Dell calls them 'True Life') if working outside or in a bright surrounding is ever an option.
@peweuk said:
... watching the occassional Blu-Ray disc on the TV without having the need for a stand alone Blu-ray player.
I would prefer a dedicated player, the BDPs from Sony are fine and pretty silent and affordable in the meantime.
@peweuk said:
I am not sure which of the processor/video card combinations would be best to go for???
the speed of one (1) kernel of the CPU is most important for SU, a recent intel Dual Core (e.g. T8xxx series or higher) is a good choice, 4GB work memory is no fuss/cheap, a bigger nVidia GeForce (not ATI Radeon) with dedicated memory (512mb is 'nough) should provide a decent OpenGL 3D output too.
hth,
Norbert
sketch3d.de -
@sketch3d.de said:
@peweuk said:
@peweuk said:
... outside in the garden
avoid the 'mirror' screens (Dell calls them 'True Life') if working outside or in a bright surrounding is ever an option.
I second this. My laptop have this type of screen, hardly usable with strong ambient light.
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Without a doubt for Sketchup the one with 9600M GT is the best.
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@thomthom said:
- The eye candy can be turned off.
yes, for looking similar like good ol' XP
@thomthom said:
- I find there to be less message in Vista than in XP.
the 'User Account Control' was a new feature of Vista... and intended to 'annoy the user', at least according to David Cross, a product unit manager at M$.
@thomthom said:
- Have you tested the drivers lately?
must admit that we did not have tested the latest revisions from end of Feb. resp. beginning of March, they are surely getting better and better... but testing should obviously not be done in a productive environment.
@thomthom said:
And Windows 7 use pretty much the same driver system.
sure, it's simply a revamped Vista 2.0, the way it should have been for the inital release.
@thomthom said:
I really disagrees that XP is automatically an more productive environment to work with.
Vista may surely work too... or not, XP does work.
just my 2 cents,
Norbert -
I just picked up a new one today. It's not to everyone's taste, but with the AIA coming up and another long haul flight looming, I wanted something that was truly portable and which I could take on a plane without having to virtually empty my carry-on bag of everything other than the laptop itself.
I've been looking for something that was very compact, but that I could use for SU...if only to run QC checks on the FormFonts models when I'm away from my desk.
It has some impressive specs including a reasonable nVidia card, HDMI output for the large monitors we use at the convention and very neatly...a Windows XP downgrade disc. Also, it only weighs 3 lb.
http://www.simplyasus.com/N10J-HV011E_ASUS_N10J_450692.htmlThe added bonus was that I got one with an opened box...so it was only £400.
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I've ordered the second one in my OP. (Thanks chango70)
I'll post back my impression when I've had a chance to use it.
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My two cents...stay away from ATI cards and "mirror" screens.
I once had to work with a screen like that and I'll tell you if your not in a dark room your eyes will be very strained at the end of the day because of all reflections.
They may look good when the PC is off though...
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@alan fraser said:
I just picked up a new one today. It's not to everyone's taste, but with the AIA coming up and another long haul flight looming, I wanted something that was truly portable and which I could take on a plane without having to virtually empty my carry-on bag of everything other than the laptop itself.
Very interested in this one! Why don't you let us know how it performed on the long run?
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@broomstick said:
...how it performed on the long run?
it's a netbook, not a workstation; the Atom CPU is not very fast by design, surely nothing for big models...
...and a 'mirror screen' too.
Norbert
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No, it's not very powerful; but then I don't need anything powerful when on the road...I need something to review and demonstrate models more than actually create them (although I can do that if pushed). I do all my real work on the desktop system.
The Asus runs the like of SU, Corel and Photoshop just fine, if rather slowly. It also has a rather neat feature called Express Gate (presumably using some form of Linux) which enables you to cold boot into a pared-down OS in about 5-10 seconds, giving you web access for browsing, email, chat or accessing media files on the hard drive or USB sticks. Basically, it's a big version of my Blackberry...but one that will run full-sized Windows OS.
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