Looking at a Laptop

[Stormrazor]

I am looking at getting a Laptop to run Photoshop and LW 8. No rendering at this time....I can do that on my home system.

I know LW system requirements but does anyone have any recommendations on systems? This thread is not a sales pitch but solid recommendations. :thumbsup: :newtek:

[Knight Chat X]

Dell Inspiron should work fine for that, 6000 model on up with or without dedicated graphics card, etc.

Go through the outlet store and you bypass the high prices and can get good warranty coverage.

Last time I looked saw em for around $550 normally in $1500 - $2500, gotta be good on timing though cause it's like an auction so if you do find something you want try not to click on the item too many times price does change, but once order's locked it's locked.

I like the 6000 and higher models due to flexibility, if you wanna see the stuff on a wide screen TV just plug it in to s-video in on tv and enable the secondary screen on laptop and it's pretty sweet. :cool:

[gstonebank]

I use a HP nw8000 as my main workstation. It has been superceded by , I think, the nw8230

Mine has the following spec & works nicely for: LW8.2, DFX+4, XSI 4.2, Premiere etc

P-M 1.7GHz
1Gb RAM
60Gb 7200rpm
1600x1200 res screen
ATi FireGL T2 128Mb graphics
Wireless & BT etc

whatever system you get you will want 1Gb RAM or more, a 7200rpm drive (espceially if you're dealing with video) & a decent screen res (1600 x 1200 works well for me)

Rendering is a bit more of a problem, my laptop renders about 20% slower than my old 2.4GHz P4. I use a couple of desktops to help when I need faster renders.

[Knight Chat X]

Yeah, the laptops are good for modelling, but final renders still best for now on a desktop machine with more power, but the laptops are catching up and after awhile will barely notice power difference from todays desktops when they get up there.

Do a network render and it's not so bad.

Wide screen will give you more room to work with, comes in handy for graphics, web browsing, programming, or watching a wide screen movie, etc...

Some people pay tons for a mini portable DVD player, I'd rather have a laptop.

[Stormrazor]

Thank you all for your Valuable Information. I have been shopping, now to just come up with the duckies for it.

Again Thank you.

[Stormrazor]

anyone know anything about Toshiba Satallite?

[Knight Chat X]

Usually run those with Linux (http://www.linux.com/), can find parts for it on ebay, motherboard, battery, etc...

Best place to go to learn something is manufacturer's website or use search engine like google to find reviews, type in brand name and model of laptop in engine to find results.

Another reason I choose dell (http://dell.com) for laptop is it's easy to repair if something goes wrong, most places you can find parts for them that are interchangable, say if u need keyboard replaced only $40, power adapter $26, smash screen and it's $127 - $250, need a used one those usually work too, can replace entire cases in new ones to get look and feel u want, today I want silver, tomorrow charcoal, $39 etc. DDR2 memory upgrade 512 $24 on up, normally $58 - $99.

The newer Dell (http://dell.com) cases are said to be inspired from the newer silver Toshiba (http://toshiba.com/tai-new/) models, on IBM (http://www.ibm.com), Toshiba (http://toshiba.com/tai-new/), Sony Vaio (http://sony.com/), or other brands just don't seem to have the support for parts longterm about every model is incompatible with last as the changes are radically different, if machine needs sent back or repaired it will probably take awhile for parts to be replaced.

If you live in another country like the UK and plan on running Linux (http://www.linux.com/) then it's probably a good choice but be wary ones such as TOSHIBA Satallite Pro M10 Series have been considered by some to be lemons.

Refurbished ones are usually not bad.

HP (http://www.hp.com/)/Compaq's (http://h18000.www1.hp.com/) also another alternative.

Toshiba's (http://toshiba.com/tai-new/) not bad for a school computer either.