buy something smaller if you are taking it to a ton of places. If not, get the larger screen. All depends on what you are using it for.

hot bout a 6.0 lb one....most fall in that weight range, and though they are a bit weighty, are good for both autocad and hard core modeling

don't get a 9lb one. its totally not worth it. get a smaller one and a monitor if you need. if you have a laptop, you'll want to carry it around. then if you can't (or don't want to bc its so heavy), it defeats the purpose.

mine is a 9 pounder and it sucks. the only place i bring it is from one room to the other at home, and even that's a major pain. the few times i bring it on a train or plane i hate myself for having made the desicion to get a large laptop, especially since i eventually had to go an buy external storage for it.

light not lumpy.

Laptops should be mobile, otherwise, buy a workstation - it'll be cheaper and more powerfull. You should look at the new MacBook, it's only 5-6 lbs, very thin, and has a nice screen. It is very simple to connect to a monitor as well.

if you are just doing cad, then big screen/thin laptop is Okay. But if you need to do occasional 3d stuff and lots of rendering, then I would suggest to go with something bigger that has at least 128MB DDR Video Memory (NOT SHARED MEMORY!!)

Also the screen doesn't have to be more than 17", I have 15", and resolution set to 1400x1050, and I can do cad just fine.

hey guys, this is a similar laptop question..

i am thinking about buying a hp dv1000t laptop for about 1200 dollars

-duo core processor at 1.88GHZ
-100GB of hard memory
-GMA graphics card (it's integrated and this is the iffy part)
-12 inch
-4.5 pounds
1GB of RAM

i'll be an arch student this coming fall. what do you think? this computer is nice because it is very portable but it is also powerful since i can customize it and decide what I want in it. only problem is the graphics card. it's integrated with the processor so it's not as powerful for rendering programs.

i might get an asus laptop but those are far more expensive and i can get the same things with a hp...though asus computers are better built.

in response to the question in this thread, if you're going to get a 9lb laptop, might as well get a desktop....

fall? thats a long time, I think you should wait until August and buy something better.

i went for the 12 inch, and it's fine, but i think the next one will be a 14/15, just because you don't lose too much in portability.

i had a 17 inches that lasted a whole 2 weeks, before it was brought back to the shop. to bulky.

man, the new ibooks...in black...if they actually do come out in black, just like my first powerbook..the memories!

hey, also look at the maximum output of the graphics card, so you can plug an extra screen to the thing, and have the best of both worlds

I don't carry my laptop very often, but I can if I want to. I.e. if I want to render on my desktop, I can take my laptop in and work on other stuff, or I can take it home to my parents' or move it around while in my apt to where I want to be, kitchen, desk, floor, in front of TV etc. I like having both.

i'd get the an ibm t60p or maybe a boxxtech. the t43p would work as well. i don't know too much about boxxtech but i've heard great things. as far as ibm, i've had my t41 for 2.5 years and it's held up extremely well. i've used it for digital recording and my entire portfolio was done on it, including rhino/flamingo modeling and rendering. i had rhino, photoshop and illustrator running at the same time without it ever crashing (fairly slow at rendering in flamingo, tho). although, lenovo makes the thinkpads these days, i would imagine that ibm would have them on a pretty short leash. i will be taking my t41 to school with me this fall and it will probably be needed for some light modeling, if that.

check out some of the other posts, i know there's been alot of discussion regarding video cards and laptops.

yeah, dream setup would be a t60p and a stack of core duo mac minis as a renderfarm.

sashimi: what you've listed doesn't seem like a terrible deal (depending on warranty), but you might be able to do better at the $1200-1300 price point, either an IBM (purchased through an edu loophole - around 1/3 off) or by waiting for an ideal dell coupon.

I might also recomend waiting. Intel will launch it's next-gen stuff over the summer (june for workstations, july for desktops, august for laptops), And from what I've seen, it's worth waiting for, especially if you aren't starting till fall.

I'm just remembering my first Laptop -- 28 lbs with the integrated fax/printer. It had a plasma screen that displayed four shades of Orange, and dual 5.5 floppy bays...