you guys are hitting a lot of the issues, but skipping others. You really need to research your laptop before you buy it. I've changed my mind over 3 times because of things such as older tech. (ram/processor/g.card), heat (esp w/ toshibas), poor build quality (toshibas again), light leakage from certain screens (esp problematic w/ 14" screens), crappy screen resolutions xga (1024) instead of wsxga etc, the speed of the harddrive should be 5400+, as far as ram 1024 should be fine, anything above that is not really necessary.
BTW im not an expert, by any means, i just started researching this stuff about 3 days ago.
In any case my search for a well priced ($1500ish) notebook has held me to the asus z series. They are completely customizable, upgradable to 2+ghz/2gb's of ram. I wouldnt even bring the macs into this discussion solely because of the fact that they dont support many important architectural programs.
Whatever you do, do NOT get an alienware! Sure, they were great 5 years ago, but now you're basically just buying a mid-range PC with an ugly case mod. If you really can't live without AutoCAD, I would contact your local Autodesk dealer, sometimes they sell custom workstations tailored to run it.
I'm running a G5 now with ArchiCAD. Now that I've used ArchiCAD and Revit, I don't know how I ever tolerated AutoCAD for so long.
oh, vanity... oh lovely aluminum...
you guys are hitting a lot of the issues, but skipping others. You really need to research your laptop before you buy it. I've changed my mind over 3 times because of things such as older tech. (ram/processor/g.card), heat (esp w/ toshibas), poor build quality (toshibas again), light leakage from certain screens (esp problematic w/ 14" screens), crappy screen resolutions xga (1024) instead of wsxga etc, the speed of the harddrive should be 5400+, as far as ram 1024 should be fine, anything above that is not really necessary.
BTW im not an expert, by any means, i just started researching this stuff about 3 days ago.
In any case my search for a well priced ($1500ish) notebook has held me to the asus z series. They are completely customizable, upgradable to 2+ghz/2gb's of ram. I wouldnt even bring the macs into this discussion solely because of the fact that they dont support many important architectural programs.
my thoughts in this thread
The Asus is a solid choice. I have a year old Centrino from the M6n series. No problems so far.
Whatever you do, do NOT get an alienware! Sure, they were great 5 years ago, but now you're basically just buying a mid-range PC with an ugly case mod. If you really can't live without AutoCAD, I would contact your local Autodesk dealer, sometimes they sell custom workstations tailored to run it.
I'm running a G5 now with ArchiCAD. Now that I've used ArchiCAD and Revit, I don't know how I ever tolerated AutoCAD for so long.
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