Laptop recommendations for approx $1500

[bebrett]

I am tasked with researching a few laptops. My question is simple (well not really). What have you used and what do you like ? I've looked at a few consumer sites to see what their opinions are but it reads like they are biased towards several makers and that pi$$es me off.

Thanks in advance !

[Avatart]

Having bought one for home recently, the best advice I can give is; you get what you pay for.

Also, it does depend heavily on what you wan it to do. If it is for CAD, then go for raw power and RAM. Steer clear of Celeron processors, they really aren't up to it, Centrino's are much better. If you can afford it, I would imagine that a Duo-Core would be better still, but I have not tried them out yet.

Make sure that the Graphics Card has OpenGL resident on it, I had to return a laptop because it didn't support OpenGL and a suprising amount of programs rely on that.

[H-Angus]

I am tasked with researching a few laptops. My question is simple (well not really). What have you used and what do you like ? I've looked at a few consumer sites to see what their opinions are but it reads like they are biased towards several makers and that pi$$es me off.

Thanks in advance !

I've only ever used Sony Vaio's which I found to be good except for all the pre loaded carp that comes with it. I guess it depends on what you intend to use them for, Acad, Revit, ADT, other?

[.chad]

what do you want from the laptops? are they desktop replacements that will travel occasionally? are they travel machines that need a long battery life and low weight? what software will they be running?

i have a dell inspiron that i like as a computer. as a travel option it weighs a ton and has about a 3 hour battery life on a good day. it also gets pretty hot after running for an hour or so. if i am going somewhere that i can plug it in its an ok option. it has a nice video card and high res monitor on it so its good for cad, but i cant play games on it to save my life (frame rates drop to about 6fps) it was really nice when i was in school - i could take it to studio, plug it in and have cad / 3d studio / internet right there at my desk without having to go to the computer lab.

[Railrose]

Steer clear of Celeron processors, they really aren't up to it, Centrino's are much better. If you can afford it, I would imagine that a Duo-Core would be better still, but I have not tried them out yet.

Make sure that the Graphics Card has OpenGL resident on it, I had to return a laptop because it didn't support OpenGL and a suprising amount of programs rely on that.

I have an HP laptop that has the Celeron processor & Open GL card that I bought at Circuit City. Love it for AutoCAD & Raster Design.

as a travel option it weighs a ton and has about a 3 hour battery life on a good day. it also gets pretty hot after running for an hour or so. if i am going somewhere that i can plug it in its an ok option. it has a nice video card and high res monitor on it so its good for cad, but i cant play games on it to save my life (frame rates drop to about 6fps) it was really nice when i was in school - i could take it to studio, plug it in and have cad / 3d studio / internet right there at my desk without having to go to the computer lab.

The one I have is a large screen, & is a bit heavy for toting around, but if it's sitting on a desk, the large screen is sweet. It does get hot, so I would recommend a cooling pad. The screen resolution is nice, even when working with image files.

[bebrett]

Thanks for the info thus far. The notebook will actually be used for menial tasks (right now) out of the office. No design work will be done with it. I run a Dell Precision M70 that I picked up last year for Revit, ADT, ETABS etc and it works awesome. But, when I ordered my Dell I had no budget so I went for the cream of the crop.

The one that I will order now...I'm looking in the range of $1200 - $1500 tops and it will be used for travel (not for me), take home etc. I've looked at these

Dell Latitude
Sony Vaio
HP nx7
Toshiba

They all are similar in price really within $200 anyway. I seem to be partial to Dell and that's why I wanted to hear from others to get their take on what has worked for them.

[Railrose]

Thanks for the info thus far. The notebook will actually be used for menial tasks (right now) out of the office. No design work will be done with it. I run a Dell Precision M70 that I picked up last year for Revit, ADT, ETABS etc and it works awesome. But, when I ordered my Dell I had no budget so I went for the cream of the crop.

The one that I will order now...I'm looking in the range of $1200 - $1500 tops and it will be used for travel (not for me), take home etc. I've looked at these

Dell Latitude
Sony Vaio
HP nx7
Toshiba

They all are similar in price really within $200 anyway. I seem to be partial to Dell and that's why I wanted to hear from others to get their take on what has worked for them.

I noticed when I went to AU, there were a lot of Dells & Sonys in the laps of people at the airport, as well as quite a few HP's. Seems the majority were Sony Vaios. Of course I couldn't tell the models, but those were extremely popular.

[bebrett]

I noticed when I went to AU, there were a lot of Dells & Sonys in the laps of people at the airport, as well as quite a few HP's. Seems the majority were Sony Vaios. Of course I couldn't tell the models, but those were extremely popular.

The Sony's are about the most $ too. Unless you get into the more heavily equiped machines. I guess you gotta pay for the look, right ?

[H-Angus]

The Sony's are about the most $ too. Unless you get into the more heavily equiped machines. I guess you gotta pay for the look, right ?

Yeah I tend to agree, I think Sony is seen to be more fashionable, but its whats inside that counts, as I mentioned above the Sony seems to come with a whole bunch of extra programmes pre installed which IMO are an annoyance and I spent the first couple of hours uninstalling things, don't know about other makes though.

[Railrose]

Yeah I tend to agree, I think Sony is seen to be more fashionable, but its whats inside that counts, as I mentioned above the Sony seems to come with a whole bunch of extra programmes pre installed which IMO are an annoyance and I spent the first couple of hours uninstalling things, don't know about other makes though.

My HP had some trial versions of M$ Office & things like that. It didn't take too long to uninstall the extras, & the stuff I keep (like office) I could just give it the SN for my copy & it turned it into a regular installed version.