I suggest using Oil of Olay Complete rather than Gillette.

I swear by laptops. If you really get into intense 3d rendering you might be better off with a desktop but for AutoCad and most anything else any laptop will run like a champ.

i was really happy having a laptop in school. never had any issues with its speed. and i enjoyed having the option of working at home or in the studio.

I've used a laptop for the my M.arch and it's been great. I've had no problem with photoshop, autocad, max, or rhino. Some long renders for animation i will set over night or on a lab machine. It's nice to have the option to leave studio and work at home if i feel so inclined.

I have a VAIO with a P4. i got the one with the 16.1" screen. it's nice to have a big screen for graphics, but it sucks lugging it around. Go for one with a 14.4" screen and buy an external monitor for studio if you need more screen real estate.

Hey Dan, did you have good experience with the VAIO? I'm thinking of buying a laptop for graphics and sound use, and the quality of Sony's screens seem really excellent. What are the differences between Centrino, Intel and Mobile Intel?

Laptops are cool.
I'd reccommend a DELL for their after sales service. I initially bought a VAIO online, but found a better deal on DELL, so wanted to cancel my order (on the same day). It took me four days on interminable holds to get to SONY customer support and then it took them another four days to cancel my order. I lost the DELL deal in the bargain, but decided to dump SONY anyway and bought a DELL anyway. As luck would have it, the first DELL had a faulty ethernet card. On contacting Customer Support (about 8 minutes on hold), they just sent me a replacement laptop and told me to hang on to the earlier one till they could send out a return label.....which was about a week alter...so for a week I had two laptops to work on....
Another pal of mine had a similar experience with SONY....
So VAIOs are cool....but their after-sales support sucks !!

Has anyone had experience with the NVIDIA FX Go cards? I just got the information from grad school about which laptops we can get through the special deal, but they have the NVIDIA chips rather than the Radeon 9X00 cards. I could just spec out my own Dell, but the packaged deals do save you a few hundred dollars. But it seems as though the Radeon is unavailable with the Pentium-M, only with P4s, which increases price. I've heard that some software only supports the Radeon series. Thoughts? Experience?

Laptops are great. I just got a new one (small, b/c the big ones are too heavy for daily carrying) and am getting a flatscreen for my desk. That is the way to go unless you are rendering Toy Story or something.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't trust NVIDIA with anything more than an 8 bit version of donkey kong, but I wouldn't.

if you can, drop cash on ati. at some point you'll have to work with NVIDIA, and you'll thank me.

Speaking of powerbook problems:

watch out for DEAD pixels.

Unless you absoultely need some extra option from the web, go to an apple store and CHECK THE SCREEN BEFORE YOU TAKE IT HOME! I ordered mine custom from the web and dashed through the wrapping to find a brand new mac with 2 dead pixels in the center of the screen. After calling the support line I learned that 5 dead pixels is the litmus test for all screens and that apple doesn't accept returns on 'custom' orders. Two weeks of use and gentle rubbing (old wives tale?) caused them to go away, but I recommend avoiding the trouble and buying straight from the retail shop.

lovely machine otherwise.

I have always used Dell. For me they have held up 100% and always been reliable so I cannot comment on their 'award winning service.' I do have a good friend who is an engineer for dell in Austin and he says that Dell laptops are built cheap and would reccomend getting either an IBM or Toshiba - he claims the best. For the money though, I don't think you can go wrong with a Dell machine.

I have been running a Compaq EVO (my sole computer) for over a year now. I run Autocad, Rhino, some Max 5, Adobe Suite etc. It is the last of the P4 machines running 2.4 ghz and with 512mb ram. The graphics is built in, so its not the hottest machine (now), but it was all my budget allowed when I got it.

I have had no problems whatsoever (not even a freeze), even running XP Pro. I cant wait until I get a new one - probably will get a Toshiba or IBM and may get a separate LCD screen for home, although I have gotten used to working off a 15inch screen. I cant wait to get a 17inch lappy with a dedicated ATI card and a gig of Ram. Some of the new Toshiba 17inchers are awesome, if expensive.

I have thought about getting a desktop instead, but there really is no point. I used to travel alot for jobs, and although that has slowed down a bit, there really is nothing like taking your office with you. I work for myself at home, so I can travel with my family and take my office with me. And more easily impressed clients are, um, impressed when you rock up with a laptop and zoom through a Rhino model.

whoah, NVIDIA cards are nice. their drivers are top notch and dont crash software. I'm on my second Quadro card and wouldnt want to go to any other. Right now I have a Quadro 4 750 XGL (128M version).

I have owned two Dell laptops and most everything has worked fine on them. Like the other posters, I have had virtually no performance issues. However, since they are laptops and inevitablly get knocked around, I have had maintainence issues. Within a year of buying both, they required service. The good thing is that Dell is usually extremely fast about repairs. The latest repair only took 2 days from the time the UPS guy picked it up to when he returned.

I have a Dell inspiron 8600 with a PM and a Nvidia Geforce FX GO5650. I would highly recommend getting a good graphics card and lots of memory on it. The biggest disadvantage of laptops for architecture is that the screens are so small compared to desktops and our work tends to be lots of little lines and points. I would also recomment getting a second monitor so that you can have dual screens when you need them (photoshop and maya for me).

I'm a mac user myself, but I'd say if you're going to go to a PC and have the money to drop, check out the new alienware laptops. They have upgradable graphics cards, which would be a big asset since you're using your laptop for graphic-intense work. It would greatly increase the life of the laptop and be worth the investment.

lapdances!? yes im for satisfaction through lapdances!!!...errrrrr you said LAPTOPS!? never mind wrong thread, third amigo out!!!

the 8 bit games are pretty sweet though, right CIIW?

all I can say is this: we got two new computers in my office, one with a dual processor and a NVIDIA quatro, and a single processor with an ati t2. anything more than a 10mb 3ds max file (not really that big of a file, I've made 80mb files on student projects) would open on the nvidia, but as soon as we tried to render it crashed. after dealing with this for a while, we switched the cards, and I'm happily rendering 120mb files without a hitch.

I second the alienware recommendation, but warn that they're pretty expensive.

i've done a 7 day render on my box (NVIDIA card) and didnt have any problems. looks like me and NVIDIA are just better homies....

Look at HP's 17 incher. I am not a fan of HP, but this laptop is pretty nice. It's about the same price as others smaller ones and is ideal if all you'll be doing is going from the studio to home or work. I am thinking of one myself.

HP zd7000 series

webb - the graphics card has nothing to do with rendering, so not sure why the card would cause a crash only on rendering. Did you have the latest drivers? It could have been an OpenGL issue.
I render 100+ mb files with my dual 2.2 and nvidia quadro 700 gxl and have never had a problem.

yep- we checked with nvidia and hp to make sure too.

aren't open gl operations related to the graphics card?

Yeah, they are, but the drivers are important. It's odd, nonetheless. I can render 100 mb Max files on my ancient 933 with 512 mbs ram, with no problem (a Geforce2 64 mb graphics card), it will just take a lifetime.

It was the only thing I could think of. Did you try switching the OpenGL from hardware to software drivers? It's not as fast, if you have a decent card, but it could have helped isolate the problem. I recall years ago only being able to use Max with the software drivers, or it would crash (but that was almost the instant you tried to rotate, not render).

There is the MaxExtreme drivers, too, which they make specifically for Max. They make a tremendous difference.

It's pretty frustrating. I know the Quatros are good cards, but I hear not good things about the FX Go's. But more laptops have the FX over the ATI cards. Although, it looks like IBM has some pretty nice laptops with the ATI. Alienware is slick, but yeah, they are wicked expensive. You get it speced the way you want and it's easily $3000. I've noticed you can save about $100 buying aftermarket RAM.

yep, we tried switching from hardware to software- no dice. we ran into massive problems trying to use the max-specific drivers from nvidia as well, but we never tried the maxExtreme ones I don't think... are they a third party?

bottom line- max wouldn't work with nvidia, we had the drivers all the techs were telling us to use, and then just switched the card and it works like a charm. not to jump to conclusions, but I would have to guess that the crashing was somehow related to the graphics card.

so as a recommendation to someone buying a pc I would say, don't go nvidia.

What kind of computer was it? I have all Dell's, and have had my Quadro replaced because the fan was making noise. It took them about 5 minutes to diagnose it, and about 20 for them to have a tecnician deliver a new one and install it (and I was about 40 miles from any city). I am guessing it wasn't a Dell?
All I can say is it must have been a faulty card. nvidia would certainly never make a card that wouldn't work with Max, especially since they work with Autodesk and Discreet to make software specific drivers.

I would suggest getting the best card you can afford. nvidia's new GDC (I think that's it) software will make quite difference soon. I know Dell switched from the ATI Fire GLs to the Quadro FXs in their workstations, and from what I hear, the Fires were not that great with Max.

nvidia is has the best reputation, and I personally have had great luck with them. I'll be spec'ing my next workstations with Quadros, as well.

also remember that the newest maxtreme drivers might not yet be certified by discreet, so newest might not be best. stick w/ the solid drivers, not the newest... unless you are into that kind of thing.

ciiw: what exactly does a 7-day render end up looking like?

I think if you have a powerfull enough machine you can render real life in seven days.... a world, with light and then animals and plants and finally a dude in a garden....

well, my new dell inspiron's great. never had a single problem with it, and it runs everything (autocad, formz, illustrator, photoshop) without a hitch. the screen isn't too small either, which can be a pretty big issue for designer's working on laptops

it looks a lot like the animation i have been working on for a year now. most of it is still on the storyboards, and my g/f is working on them with me, but i have some still shots i can post...

Try to stay away from Mobile P4's above 2.7Ghz as the chip is designed for a desktop, therefore eating batteries for breakfast, crashing, etc. Centrino's seem to do the trick for mobile tech averaging 4hrs on a full charge (not bad).

i use a 15" mac powerbook and a sony vaio with a p4 and 16"screen. i love both, obviously one more than the other.

the sony was cheap, off the clearance section online. it has 30 gig hardrive, 16" screen, wireless, 128 meg graphics card, pentium 4, and 1 gig ram. i got it for less than $1,200. it is not very nice as an object, is pretty heavy, and feels like plastic - but it works really well for autocad, rhino, and maya; and works decently for 3d studio max.

the mac is my main computer and used mostly for adobe products, form-z, vectorworks, and maya.

i have had a dell precision M60 for a few months, seems good so far, very fast, great graphics card - Nvidia quadro 128 mb, widescreen LCD. the service from Dell is amazing, they have a good insurance policy that covers everything.

I have a 15" aluminium Apple powerbook. It's great. Fast, beautiful to behold and great fun to use. Running Adobe programs (indesign in particular) it is much faster than the Dell 2.8G P4 I use at work.

I have been (and still am) looking also .. and i have found this site very useful for notebook comparisons. i'll add it to the links sections of 'nect.