New notebook - configuration and price tracking

[J. Grouchy]

After the recent theft of my home computer, I have decided I am going to look for a notebook as my next computer....therefore I have two questions:

1 - I would like someone to cut through all the lingo that each manufacturer uses and describe a powerful yet affordable system I should look for. They all seem to have different names for the different processors, so maybe some ideas of what to look for in the configuration menus. I'll give you an idea of what I'm looking to use it for - Revit (obviously), 3D modelling and rendering software, Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign...and then all the Office-type stuff that everyone else uses. I realize I will probably want to look for 1 Gb of RAM and at least 64 Mb of Video RAM. Other than that....I'm unsure of what would be most appropriate and what would be extraneous.

2 - Is there a site/service that will track the price of a given configuration over a given time? I don't expect to buy something in the next couple of weeks, but I'd like to see how the price changes over time without having to re-enter all the configuration information every time. I realize with the mad changes in technology on a daily basis this might be unrealistic...but I thought something like this might exist.

[PeterJ]

There have been discussions of notebook technology and Revit use here before. Here's one thread http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=5673&highlight=laptop, but you might want to search more widely to get more input. I use a notebook a lot of the time and this one has a 15.? screen, a 40GB HD, P4 3.2Ghz Hyperthreaded and 1GB RAM plus a DVD burner and all the usual bits and pieces. Its a small local brand so you wont find it in Georgia but it was made I think by Clevo Co in Taiwan so it is probably just a rebadge and something similar would be available near you at a good price. In the render tests this machine ran a 125 I think.

[hand471037]

On #1: Well, there really are three kinds of machines out there. There are 'Centrino' machines, P4m ones, and straight P4/Opteron ones.

OK, so 'Centrino' is a new thing (for Intel, anyways, other folks been doing it forever) where rather than just trying to make the chip faster, they try to make it able to handle more & do more. I won't go into too much detail, but a 'Centrino' running at 1.7 Ghz can do the same amount of work as a P4 @ 2.4Ghz or so. But not in all cases, and 1.7 is the fastest Centrino they have I think. However, the Centrino also uses way less power than a P4m and a whole lot less than a P4 or Opteron, which means you can have a laptop with a battery life approaching the Mac iBook/Powerbook- i.e. four-to-five hours or more. Centrino laptops also have built-in Wifi, which is great. However they are more expensive. They also tend to be lighter and smaller than the others.

The P4m is a scaled down version of a full P4 that was made to go into laptops. It also uses less power than a full P4, but more than a Centrino (only has a two-to-three hour battery life), and can be faster sometimes. They also cost less than a Centrino-based laptop.

The P4/Opteron laptops use the same processor that a full computer uses. They are the fastest laptops of the bunch. However, they use a lot of power and generate a lot of heat, so the battery life is only a hour and most have fans and such on the bottom, meaning it's not really much for sitting on your lap- for it's got to have airflow under it at all times. No throwing it on the couch or surfing e-bay in bed! They also can be more expensive than the P4m ones, for it's more of a niche market & they are harder to make in some ways. They also tend to be heavy. However, they also tend to have better 3D cards then others, due to there performance-centric design. These are more mobile workstations, so if you're mostly rooted in one spot, or need a lot of computer power and always expect to be near an outlet, they work well- otherwise I'd really recommend against them.

I've got a Sager 4080. It's in this last category, as it's got a full P4 Northwood-core HT 3.0 Ghz processor, a gig of ram, a 7200 rpm hard drive, and a ATI 9600 with 128 megs. It's also heavy, loud (fans), runs real hot (it can melt a chocolate bar sitting on the desk behind it from the fan output- don't ask me how I know), and is a little fragile being completely cheap plastic. But it's fast, and done everything I've thrown at it, has more or less become my right arm, and runs everything you talk about here (and more) without issue.

However, when I bought it I thought that I wouldn't care about the battery life or the fans on the bottom. But once you have a laptop, you want to take it everywhere with you, use it all the time, for all your work can go with you everywhere. Or at least I do, but I'm a geek. So, anyways, now I sometimes wish I would have gotten something a touch slower but that had more battery life and no fans on the bottom, for it would make it a lot more easy to use- as well as one a little lighter, for lugging it around gets old. :D

[FK]

You might want to consider used laptops too. I've been buying from renewlaptops (http://renewlaptops.com)for a while. They don't maintain their web page too well, just e-mail them for a quote.

[hand471037]

That's a great recommendation. My laptop cost $2400, and the only way I could afford it was because of luck. Most of the Centrino models weigh in at over $3000. You might want to consider getting a nice robust dual-processor generic tower for $1500, and a used laptop for $500, and then buying $400 worth of beer (and shipping it to Greg Cashen and I :) ) then getting a big expensive laptop. That way you could also use a more dedicated machine for rendering too, which is what I do; I send my big rendering jobs to a home render server rather than let my laptop cook on them...

Also, the biggest thing to consider with a laptop is what to do when, and not if, it gets broken or stolen. A desktop quietly sits it's whole life, free from such troubles. Look into good Renter's insurance with a laptop policy, or a good warranty, or both ;)

[Scott D Davis]

The office is buying me a laptop! :mrgreen: It must be an HP, (company standard). I've been told to look into the HP tablet PC, which is a laptop where the screen swivels and can be folded back on itself, i forget the name. Anyone use one of these?

[hand471037]

Scott, as a heavy Wacom user I looked seriously at the tablets when I bought my Sager. I decided against it purely because of working style (I use the keyboard a lot along with my tablet, didn't seem to be as convenient with a tablet and I could see myself wanting to still use a separate tablet or keyboard) & cost (the only one that had a decent processor & graphics card was too expensive).

Also keep in mind that the max resolution of a Wacom Screen Tablet PC is around 1024 x 1280, and some are only 768 x 1024.

Just make certain that whatever tablet you get has it's screen made by Wacom. I can't remember who, but two different Tablet-makers have their own tech for the screen, and IMHO it sucks. :) Wacom's been at this longer than anyone, and make the best. I came really close to buying the Toshiba Tablet instead of the Sager I got, but it was just too much more to justify the cost.

[kimheaver]

I've been told to look into the HP tablet PC

I briefly looked at notebooks a couple of months ago, the tablets seem to have very slow processors, around the 1ghz mark.

Regards,
Kim Heaver

[hand471037]

I briefly looked at notebooks a couple of months ago, the tablets seem to have very slow processors, around the 1ghz mark.

If they are Centrinos, keep in mind that means they are about the same as a P4m 2 Ghz... Not that slow really at all, but not as fast as what you can get.

I've always been frustraited at Microsoft with it's stance in regards to the Tablet PCs. I mean, it's a perfect computer for a 'creative' worker such as us, but all Microsoft can see is Business Exicutives useing them as a very expensive notepad or grunt workers useing them as a moble clipboard, so they are all under-powered by design. I wouldn't care if a tablet had less battery life and more weight, but was full speed and had a decent 3D card.

[J. Grouchy]

Also, the biggest thing to consider with a laptop is what to do when, and not if, it gets broken or stolen. A desktop quietly sits it's whole life, free from such troubles. Look into good Renter's insurance with a laptop policy, or a good warranty, or both ;)Someone broke into my house and stole my Dell desktop tower, keyboard, mouse, speakers and 17" monitor (NOT a flat screen/LCD, mind you)...so it ain't just the little ones that get taken...


...and they took my charger/sync cradle for my iPaq...and forgot to take the iPaq itself.

[FK]

You have my sympathy. Especially if non-backed-up or sensitive data went away with it... :cry:

[J. Grouchy]

The biggest loss of data was my digital photos that I hadn't sent to Snapfish or burned onto a CD. The majority of my critical stuff was saved to CD.

[hand471037]

yet another reason to make off-site backups. Sorry to hear about the loss. That's pretty ugly.

[J. Grouchy]

yet another reason to make off-site backups. Sorry to hear about the loss. That's pretty ugly.
I'd like some info on this. To me, backups have typically consisted of just burning stuff to CDs...but I'd like to know better ways of protecting my work. How do you back up? How does one make 'off-site' backups?

[hand471037]

grav8e, here's what I do for home stuff:

My laptop and my wife's laptops back themselves up automatically once a week to the home server.
Once a month I burn DVD's backups which I then take into work and stash under my desk.
Old backups DVD's, like of last month's, I'll give to my wife to stash at her work.

We've got a lot of data. My wife's a professional photographer, all digital, and as such she's got gigs and gigs of data that couldn't be reproduced. And we live in a place prone to theft and earthquakes. One of us could get a laptop stolen. Someone could break in and get the laptops or server, or a fire could get them both. And stuff could just stop working. So I figure that if the laptops, home server, *and* my stashed DVDs at work are all gone, then we've got bigger problems to worry about than data loss. :D

When I say 'off-site' I mean just that: simply make a copy that's not in the same location as your computer.

Now, there are companies that handle this sort of thing for you, and allow you to upload to them. Also when I worked at a large Architecture firm they had a system of backing up to tape every day, and once a week one of the IT guys would take a tape home with them until the next week. When I was at a smaller firm, and was more or less the only IT guy, I would backup every day, and once a week backup to a Jaz drive I would then take home...

But with DVD burners down to sane prices, I'd recommend that you buy an external (or get one with your new computer) and just make a practice of burning everything to DVD once in a while, and then taking that DVD and stashing it completely outside of your house. Like give it to a trusted friend or put it in a safe deposit box, or do what I do, stash them under your desk at work. ;-)

[J. Grouchy]

Thanks, McGrew. I wasn't sure if you were somehow hooked up to a server in another location that did automatic tape backups or if you used some online service.
I was really good about burning CDs when my computer was in a public setting (grad school). Since I got out and set it up at home I have been pretty lax about it and it caught up to me. A hard lesson to learn.

[gregcashen]

...then buying $400 worth of beer (and shipping it to Greg Cashen and I :) )...

i still haven't received any beer :(

If it's the shipping and handling thing, don't worry about it, I'll take care of that!

[hand471037]

Greg: ROAD TRIP! Let's go to Georgia to pick up the beer! you're got a truck, right? ;-)

[gregcashen]

If we drive through Texas, can we start drinking it on the way back?

[J. Grouchy]

Okay, I've got another question.
I have absolutely no experience with AMD processors. Are they something I should consider?

[Andre Baros]

Back when I was only working a macs I lived off my powerbook... I think I made up for the smaller screen with more time... I could work anytime/anywhere... but those were the good old days and Revit doesn't run on a mac.

When I switched offices and went PC I switched to the smallest lightest PC laptop I could get used. For $400 bucks I got a Thinkpad X20 which handles all my e-mail, text, sketchup, and web work... and for all the heavy hitting stuff I use my office computer. I've even managed to remote desktop back to the office machine and control it with the laptop.

I think a workhorse machine needs a large screen or screens and a really fast processor or processors (if you do rendering) and a laptop needs to be very small and portable. The two don't reconcile very well.

We've got one of those "desktop replacement" laptops here at work and I hate it. It's not fast enough to really replace a desktop and not even close to portable enough to be a notebook, plus since the fan sits on your desk not under your desk the noise is a real issue.

If I had the cash and had to stay PC I would get a new desktop machine and a really small laptop such as the OQO.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.aspx?newsID=2051

Hope that helps...

[hand471037]

Okay, I've got another question.
I have absolutely no experience with AMD processors. Are they something I should consider?

oh heck yeah. They are faster, cheaper, and better than Intel for 3D/CAD. I've had great results with them in the past, and my laptop would be AMD if they were making them when I bought it (there was only one, and it was too much). But that's just my opinion.

Here: http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041019/index.html
It's a good review of the latest top-end AMD processors vs. the top end Intel. That same site has an extensive article comparing and benchmarking *all* modern processors too.

[Andre Baros]

I forgot to mention that powerbooks are yet another reason why Revit should run on the Mac.