Computer professionals assistance please

[Juzz976]

Just my opinion, If your gonna go down the Laptop path which I never recommend to anyone unless they have a real need to.

- Toshibas are good most brands are - stay away from HP / Compac
- Always buy new - you get a Warrenty
- Factor in your budget that it'll be obsolete hardware in 3 years, dead 5-6 years. don't expect to get much if you do sell it used and you may own the problem of whoever buys it.
- The specs you listed are more than fine <--- yes I said it, blow me
- I would want onboard TV out - Just me tho.
- check pricespy.co.nz for pricing.

[Delerium]

i got a laptop with a blu ray drive.

since DVD is now on the way out,its a good idea to future proof your new laptop and get this feature,especially if you plan on doing any movie watching on it,as the discs themselves are getting cheaper and will replace DVD in a few years

Are you sure about that? It hasnt seemed to have made inroads on the market yet. I think dvd willbe around for quite some time.

[Juzz976]

I think bluray is about to be superceeded soon anyways, bit of a flop really IMHO.
That may be down to the cost that makes them an optional extra, some people are affected by this so called recession, alot of people have only just moved to DVD and changing again is understandably frustrating for them.

[Gremlin]

- Toshibas are good most brands are - stay away from HP / Compac
- Always buy new - you get a Warrenty

HP/Compaq is fine as long as you stay away from the consumer range. The business range is perfectly for normal use. I should know... I support plenty of them.

As for warranty... how long is it? I would recommend getting a 3 year warranty.

As for whether the specs are suitable, gaming and 3d drawing are basically the biggest demands, and very much "how long is a piece of string". Otherwise, the specs you have are just fine.

[Juzz976]

HP/Compaq is fine as long as you stay away from the consumer range. The business range is perfectly for normal use. I should know... I support plenty of them.

Yeh I realise they do actualy work, I just make sure all my friends and family know if they get one, they can forget about me touching it when it throws a wobbly.
Its not really about hardware reliability but we wont get into that, I've pretty much worn out my 'well I told you not to get one of those, if ya listened to me I might be inclined to have a look at your problem' speech.

[Pete.Viking]

Just my opinion, If your gonna go down the Laptop path which I never recommend to anyone unless they have a real need to.

- Toshibas are good most brands are - stay away from HP / Compac
- Always buy new - you get a Warrenty
- Factor in your budget that it'll be obsolete hardware in 3 years, dead 5-6 years. don't expect to get much if you do sell it used and you may own the problem of whoever buys it.

- check pricespy.co.nz for pricing.

Have to agree here although wouldn't say the specs are more than fine but I expect alot for my money. As far as what you want to do I'd say its pretty good, as long as you continue to be entertained by red alert etc, it should do everything else happily. A good intergrated graphics card is normally fine for just about everything, so I wouldn't worry to much. I'd ignore the previous comments about the harddrive 250gb is more than big enough the speed the harddrive runs at is of far more concern.

HP/Compaq is fine as long as you stay away from the consumer range. The business range is perfectly for normal use. I should know... I support plenty of them.

I beg to differ, I was given a HP laptop from a relative who's a computer techie, bloody hopeless and has never run properly for the specs its got.

[scracha]

I like toshies. L500's are pretty good at the moment. If you're in metro area get the 3 year factory warranty. If you're outside city then mibby look at HP as they do onsite warranty for not a lot of peso's. Remember your antivirus, MS Office and a nice little 2.5" backup drive

[Juzz976]

Also another note to bear in mind, laptops are not called laptops by their manufacturers so much anymore.

Not certain but it might have to do with the fact that the air vents on the bottom get blocked by your legs and they slow down from heat build up.

[Gremlin]

I beg to differ, I was given a HP laptop from a relative who's a computer techie, bloody hopeless and has never run properly for the specs its got.

As I pointed out to my boss a while ago, manufacturers have a lot to answer for, when it comes to complaining about windows being slow etc. I visited a small client, just a home set up, but long time friends. They bought an HP consumer range, with Vista, with 1GB of ram (didn't ask us). That stat alone is enough to make you laugh. Now chuck on Norton Anti-virus, gadgets, browser add-ons and a 6 month old machine is brought to its knees. Yes, windows is a resource hog, but putting it on shit hardware...

All the manufacturers (or perhaps the shops) care about is selling hardware for a margin... cutting off their nose to spite their face. I'm still specc'ing Windows XP, minimum of 2GB of ram, and try to keep reasonable control of stuff installed on the machines. Come the end of 3 years, they're still productive.

Back to manufacturers. I don't get the bottom of the line business HP, more mid range. Even techies have bosses who have budgets. Toshiba as well launches some bad models. I do get a bit of a hard on for the Lenovo X and Txxxs series

I'm currently on a Toshiba Portege M600, upgraded to 3GB of memory, tis a good laptop, but about $2500 worth.

[merlin]

In my humble opinion....

If you are going to be doing any work other than surfing the web, writing emails and office documents, don't go the laptop way. Get a workstation.

You need the power for Autocad stuff and games. You should be looking for a quad core with at least 4 gigs of 1066ddr2 memory. ddr3 is still quite expensive. The graphics card is super important and should have at least 256 onboard memory.

Storage is not so important you can always upgrade that for quite cheap or get a external drive.

With a desktop workstation you always have the option of adding more drives inside the case later.

Over time, and while working on it for a few hours, you'll find the format of the keyboard and the size of the screen limiting and sometimes a bit of a cramp on the old digits...

Build your own from parts, it's really easy and much cheaper in the long run

I always buy the best I can possibly afford.

Do your research on all the parts. It's really worth it.

Good Luck!

PS. I didn't bother reading everyones posts, so please forgive me if I have repeated anything

[merlin]

Feel free to PM me if you ever want any help

[Gremlin]

You need the power for Autocad stuff and games. You should be looking for a quad core with at least 4 gigs of 1066ddr2 memory. ddr3 is still quite expensive. The graphics card is super important and should have at least 256 onboard memory.

Not trying to nit pick, but for the likes of Solidworks 08 onwards, at the very least (and speaking from experience) and dealing with larger drawings, a 256MB graphics card is not going to cut it.

Re memory, bear in mind that mostly, ddr2 and ddr3 memory requires different hardware, so its not an easy upgrade. Any more than 4GB of memory will also require the x64 version of windows, then you start having the joys of drivers, especially for things like printers.

[Slyer]

1066ddr2 memory

Why 1066 memory?
To be honest the clock. timing etc etc specs for system memory are far less important than picking the right chipset, cpu and gpu.
The bad chipset can break an otherwise meaty system. Avoid VIA chipsets like the plague...

[Juzz976]

Ok and back to OP.

cpu <- very capable
ram <- double what 99% of population needs
hdd <- can always get an external
graphics <- perfectly fine

so do you need to spend another $1000 to save a few moments here an there.
upto you and how much you value your time x how much time you'll be using laptop.

Lets not talk this up, we're not building a super-laptop here and no one really cares about IT geeks and the specs of their porn browsers.
I've never seen even on a triple core with 4GB ram it use even half cpu or ram running several apps + autoCAD 2007.

In the trade I work in we don't try selling our clients crap they don't need.
Seriously you can get a good laptop for $1200.
but FFS get a new one, and make sure it aint an HP/Compac.

[Brian d marge]

Not trying to nit pick, but for the likes of Solidworks 08 onwards, at the very least (and speaking from experience) and dealing with larger drawings, a 256MB graphics card is not going to cut it.

Re memory, bear in mind that mostly, ddr2 and ddr3 memory requires different hardware, so its not an easy upgrade. Any more than 4GB of memory will also require the x64 version of windows, then you start having the joys of drivers, especially for things like printers.

Yup I would agree with that

I use CGI a lot and 3d cad as well as FEA ,,, I have a dual core 2g , 8gig of ram and 1.5 terra of hd

I can kill this machine real easy ,one part in solid view rotated ,,,

I dont know about computers , but I suspect the graphic card

Stephen

Acad for simple 2d you should be fine with what u said