Bang-for-the-buck laptop?
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Hello, all...
I've been a Sketchup Pro user for about 8 years now and have been satisfied with my Dell M60 laptop, which has performed flawlessly for 7 of those years (which I purchased on the recommendation of SU users on the original forum back in the @last days/pre-Google days). I see that there are several threads about which laptop is best to have for SU. My old Dell, trusty as she has been, won't last forever and I need to look into a new laptop. The discussions seem to be all about max performance, price be damned. Unfortunately, my budget is around a grand or so. Keeping bang-for-buck in mind, any advice?
TIA!
Garry
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I'm no expert, but I try to keep up on exactly what you're looking for: bang-for-the-buck hardware. My office just bought a new laptop for presentations, but it needed to be robust enough to support real-time fly-through and design charrettes. We got an Alienware laptop from Dell. Although the Alienware is great, the 15" uncustomized model is $1200, perhaps a little more than your budget. However, the uncustomized Dell XPS 17" with similar power, maybe even a little more, is listed as $949. The only thing I'd upgrade on that is from Windows 7 Home to Pro for $130, so $1079, just over your budget.
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@ledisnomad said:
I'm no expert, but I try to keep up on exactly what you're looking for: bang-for-the-buck hardware. My office just bought a new laptop for presentations, but it needed to be robust enough to support real-time fly-through and design charrettes. We got an Alienware laptop from Dell. Although the Alienware is great, the 15" uncustomized model is $1200, perhaps a little more than your budget. However, the uncustomized Dell XPS 17" with similar power, maybe even a little more, is listed as $949. The only thing I'd upgrade on that is from Windows 7 Home to Pro for $130, so $1079, just over your budget.
Thanks for reply. It seems Alienware is a stand-alone brand, not attached to Dell(?).
I'll look into the XPS 17.
Thanks again!
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Alienware is a subsidiary of Dell. I don't know if it really makes a difference, though, one way or the other. If you like Dell, maybe you get their customer service when you buy an Alienware computer. Don't know. Good luck with your purchase.
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...you could take a look at the sony vaio e-series. It got me drooling a bit
But maybe that's just because I'm limited to a budget I can actually save up for before I retire as an old man!
If you customize it on the sony page you could end up with around a 1100 USD configuration that would probably fly well with sketchup and other graphical resource hogsThere's a review that seems to be legit right here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Sony-Vaio-VPC-EB1S1E-BJ-Notebook.27201.0.html -
I remember a 1,500K (not a typo) external hard drive that a former company bought me that cost about $1,500 USD. That was also so long ago that a guy off the street could talk to Bill Gates at a conference. I remember that he said "You can't draw with a mouse, and I just happened to have a very detailed portrait I had drawn with MacPaint.
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@2kemon said:
...you could take a look at the sony vaio e-series. It got me drooling a bit
But maybe that's just because I'm limited to a budget I can actually save up for before I retire as an old man!
If you customize it on the sony page you could end up with around a 1100 USD configuration that would probably fly well with sketchup and other graphical resource hogsThere's a review that seems to be legit right here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Sony-Vaio-VPC-EB1S1E-BJ-Notebook.27201.0.htmlThanks for that, 2kemon, but it seems that the Sony comes with Radeon graphics. I hear that the card of choice for SU users is Nvidia. Can the Sony be ordered with that?
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Why would Radeon not work with SU?
I've built and rendered massive projects on an old Dell Lattitude D620 with its TERRIBLE graphics card even in SU7 before it handled big scenes well.
http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/A660/A665-S6094 (corei7 laptop for around $1000)
I have heard great things about Sony VAIO.
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@fletch said:
Why would Radeon not work with SU?
I've built and rendered massive projects on an old Dell Lattitude D620 with its TERRIBLE graphics card even in SU7 before it handled big scenes well.
http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/A660/A665-S6094 (corei7 laptop for around $1000)
I have heard great things about Sony VAIO.
Thanks for link. It looks like a lot of computer for the money, but it seems to only support 720p (I currently have 1080p on my old Dell M60)
Re: Radeon, it just seems to be the consensus in the forum over the years that Radeon is problematic and Nvidia is the choice. I went with that. Interesting that it has served you well. Wonder what the forum is saying about it now? -
Dell Vostro 3500 series: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/vostro-3500/fs
Great bang for the buck. Bought one after my Sony VAIO crapped out after only 2 years use ...
As far as the debate concerning Radeon chipsets ... Since AMD bought ATi and started branding under the AMD label, the driver quality has gotten much, much better. I run Radeon cards in my desktops without any appreciable issues.
Cheers.
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@idahoj said:
Dell Vostro 3500 series: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/vostro-3500/fs
Great bang for the buck. Bought one after my Sony VAIO crapped out after only 2 years use ...
As far as the debate concerning Radeon chipsets ... Since AMD bought ATi and started branding under the AMD label, the driver quality has gotten much, much better. I run Radeon cards in my desktops without any appreciable issues.
Cheers.
Thanks, Idaho. While this does look good indeed, I am hoping to find one who's scanline resolution can match my old Dell M60. It is 1080, while I see this one is 768. Given that the card sports 4 times the on-board ram, I'm a bit surprised that they don't have a unit sporting 1080 scanlines.
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@ledisnomad said:
I'm no expert, but I try to keep up on exactly what you're looking for: bang-for-the-buck hardware. My office just bought a new laptop for presentations, but it needed to be robust enough to support real-time fly-through and design charrettes. We got an Alienware laptop from Dell. Although the Alienware is great, the 15" uncustomized model is $1200, perhaps a little more than your budget. However, the uncustomized Dell XPS 17" with similar power, maybe even a little more, is listed as $949. The only thing I'd upgrade on that is from Windows 7 Home to Pro for $130, so $1079, just over your budget.
You can find equally powerful laptops from many other companies that cost less than alienware does too. Other than the M11x (which is essentially a gaming netbook) their lowest base price listed at the moment is $1,200 USD before taxes and shipping.If you are looking to get bang-for-your-buck hardware, then alienware is usually at the bottom of the list. The problem with alienware is that they have so much brand-hype and marketing behind their systems that they charge far more than what would otherwise be available elsewhere.
Just for some "budget" examples.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220921
1200 dollars for that, and that laptop outperforms my desktop. My desktop is no slouch, and cost more than that just for the tower.
The problem with that m17x alienware unit is that you are paying extra for the nvidia 3dvision. Do you really need that?
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