Guest svangeldern Posted October 31, 2002 Share Posted October 31, 2002 Hi all, Time for a new laptop. Anybody have some reccomendations for what to buy that can run IC at a resonable clip and has a good graphics system? Thanks, Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted October 31, 2002 Share Posted October 31, 2002 We use and love Dells. They're up over the 2 gigahertz mark for CPU with 512 ram so you can't go wrong there. Excellent customer service, awesome warranty responses, Dell is great. They're not the absolute least expensive though. HP: We've had HP notebooks in the past and have foudn that there's nothing special about them; and they cost too much. http://www.pro-star.com/ An IronCAD user that I work with often that runs 65 meg scene files and really pushes the limits of hardware and IronCAD, runs a prostar laptop. Their prices are very good and their hardware specs are amazing compared to the "major" vendors like Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba, etc. The IronCAD user that I know has been running his ProStar for more than a year now and loves it. He say's the hardware is solid. I personally hesitate to go with any of the non-name brand pc's for my commercial use, but for home I build my own clones. I love Dell for their solid hardware, excellent tech support, and extremely easy hardware warranty. As long as I'm on warranty Dell ALWAYS has an engineer onsite the next day to repair our notebooks. For my non-critical use though the pricing on ProStar's is difficult to ignore and since I HAVE spoken with one guy that uses and recommends them, I would consider them. If they offer a good return policy and warranty, they might be worth it. ProStar's hardware is always ahead of everyone else for prices that Dell certainly can't beat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Ludin Posted October 31, 2002 Share Posted October 31, 2002 I have a Dell Inspiron 8000, 1GHz, 512MB RAM, 20GB HD, 32MB GeForce2Go, UXGA screen and I must say that I still like it a lot, although it's now 18 months old. The 1600x1200 screen is a real blessing, particularly for CAD applications and the graphics card does a decent job for the scenes I usually work with (typically 50-200 parts of various complexity). Based on that, I would can recommend the current Inspiron 8200 with the latest nVidia or ATI graphics card (although Dell's service over here in Switzerland isn't quite as impeccable). Cheers, Beat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Floris Stam Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 As you could read the resolution of mobile screens are moving up (1600x1200). The thing is that I have experience with a Dell-M50 and noticed that some parts of IC/IV are not scaleble to this resolution (Triball, Icons, Text, Catalog icons <- within windows registry) maybe something to consider in following releases. A customer asked me where he could purchase the optionall magnifying-glass with his Dell. Floris Stam Anvil Support Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dorrington Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 If the IronDudes would port to BSD Unix you could run it on your PowerBook G4 Titanium. ooooohhh, I'm drooling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 I would love to support all *nix. Imagine what it would take to port a couple of millions of lines of code though. Most of that wouldn't even be a port, it would be a complete re-write. That OS X 10.2 and the hardware that supports it seems ideal for a CAD app to me. I've heard OpenGL on OS X isn't as strong as OpenGL on WinXP though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dorrington Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 At least a couple of weeks I would think. I don't know much about OpenGL but I thought it was a "standard". Like IGES I guess. Quartz extreme is pretty cool, and OS X is amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Floris Stam Posted June 26, 2003 Share Posted June 26, 2003 ATI mobile graphics drivers 9000 Using Dell Inspiron 8200 + Windows 2000: http://www.s-seven.net/ati/ Not available on the Dell Site, only XP drivers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest rbame Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 Other than CPU and memory which are obvious, get the best video card and fastest hard drive you can get. I think only Dell advertises a 5400 rpm drive on their laptops.. All other laptops are 4200 rpm.. Think of a smaller plater rotating at a slower speed and it is obvious why laptop drives are not comparable to Desktop drives... Almost half the cricumference and spining at a slower rpm 4200 vs 7200 (do not compare scsi).. so 1 spin reads a lot less data... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pfarrer Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 I run a Compaq n800v 1.8P4, 256DDR RAM, Radeon 7500 with 64meg, 40G HD, 15" screen, XP Pro. etc....It's a nice unit and stacks up well against the other brands in regards to specifications, price (well in Australia) and what I use it for. Durability may be a bit of a problem...I notice the metallic painted lid / cover is showing signs of wear on the corners etc from scuffing in the carry case but apart from that I'm very happy with it. On the other side one of the reasons I liked the Compaq was that the lid has a magnesium chassis....I noticed other brands with 15" screens were very flimsy. A friend swears by Dell (he rents / leases them) and wasn't that keen on the Compaq, but I guess time will tell if he was right or not. Peter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsulli Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Chris Lohman: but for home I build my own clones. id=quote>id=quote> Amazing! Chris, you're the ONLY person I know who actually builds his own laptops! Where in the world do you find all the parts? Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Per-Arne Almeflo Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 quote: Originally posted by rbame:it is obvious why laptop drives are not comparable to Desktop drives... Almost half the cricumference and spining at a slower rpm 4200 vs 7200 (do not compare scsi).. so 1 spin reads a lot less data... id=quote>id=quote> Doesn't packing density count too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Ludin Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 The 1920x1200 screen on the DELL Inspiron 8500 is great (and they do like the rest, too). Cheers, Beat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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