Recommendation: Laptops

Howdy all! I'm a newbie here, so be gentle on a new recruit.

I'm looking to purchase a laptop for a small buisness. (We just incorporated on Tuesday.) I need your expertise in telling me what I might look for in a laptop. Not to forget which manufacturer is the best to go with.

We chose a laptop system (as of now) because it will be used in a home office to start, and for business/sales presentations.

We will be running AutoCAD-like software, cabinet/furniture design software and basic business running applications (Quickbooks, etc.).

I do know that it must have an awesome graphics card and memory.

Please help and let me know what you think. I've only researched Dell, but am willing to look elsewhere before I make this purchase. Thanks in advance!

 

TRS-80 Portable lol

 

You are one funny punk!

So you like Dell, HP Compaq or what?!

 

If your using it for business I guess it really doesn't matter for brand since you don't really need that big of a high end laptop. I would look more at price than at other things. I guess you will also need a decent amount of space such as like 20mb or something. That should suit any business need. As for the other stuff, I wouldn't go highend with RAM, motherboard, processor, and video card and sound card. I would get the cheapest out of the companies.

 

Calm down man, I was just playin. Welcome to MG.

 

I knew that.

 

Also, you can try this website to check out prices for laptops and parts; www.newegg.com

 

I also have a somewhat off topic question. What is it that your small business does? Just out of curiosity and maybe so that it will help to determine which type of laptop you want to get.

 

IMX, Dell and IBM offer the highest quality laptops. For this application and assuming it's your primary computer, I'd probably spare no expense and go with the Dell Precision M60, updating to the Quadro FX Go1000 graphics adapter if you find it necessary.

Look for the Centrino logo on whatever you buy. That way you'll be sure to get the Pentium M (not the P4 or P4M, just M) which offers amazing levels of performance without eating batteries like a garbage disposal.

Here's a pdf with some interesting CATIA benchmarks on various workstation laptops and desktops. (Be aware that a lot of their discussion does revolve around dekstop workstations, but it seems to be exactly what you're looking for.)

 

Yes I agree, get something that has a very high battery life. And something that is reliable.

 

Benchmarks of the Quadro FX Go1000

 

To answer NeoNemesis: we're specializing in custom furniture, etc. We'll be using it to render examples using 3D rendering software, wireframe, etc. It might also be used to run a small CNC machine.

Now what's the difference between the Pentium M and 4HT? Many of the Dell people are telling me I need the 4 and not the M. Why?

And how do I read benchmark tests? Sorry. Too much of a newbie to know.

 

Well, the Pentium M is is the dual core Pentium for mobile devices. It runs at much slower clock speed, but because clock speed isn't everything and it doesn't throttle itself (AFAIK), it can achieve much higher performance levels on batteries (from the tests I've seen, etc).

The Pentium generally comes in two flavors in laptops: Pure Pentium 4 and the Pentium 4M. Pure Pentium 4 processors offer full Pentium 4 speed, as well as full Pentium 4 power consumption and full Pentium 4 heat generation. I've never seen a P4 laptop claim more than 1 hour or so of battery life, so they are really used as mobile desktop replacements that get taken back and forth between AC adapters at home and office.

The Pentium 4M is a Pentium 4 with some extra code that makes the laptop throttle itself when it sees that it's on battery power. These are increasingly hard to find, because the throttling slows down the processor very, very much.

So really, if you're wanting a desktop replacement laptop that isn't really meant to be run on bettery power very long, you could go with the Pentium 4 and be happy. If you plan on using the laptop as a real mobile device, then I'd go with the Pentium M.

But I'd ask why those people want you to get the Pentium 4. "It has a higher clock speed" is a bad reason. "It's faster" is flat out wrong.

The benchmark file is a .pdf file. You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it. As for exactly what the numbers mean, I'm not sure either. It's kinda unclear how they present them. Random numbers with no units sometimes.

 

I know that everyone and there brother is going to flame my ass like the Robot devil for saying this...but... since you are doing a very art/design oriented type of work, I would suggest going for an Apple. The Ibook is very affordable and can pull its weight with design. But if you really want something to rip apart anything you throw at it, the Titanium Powerbook packs a huge amount of power and looks quite stylish in its nice Titanium case. Also, my Ibook gets 4 hours of time per battery, and one of my teachers had a powerbook that got similar amounts of time per battery. Now, it is time to enter Robot Hell....

 

To the best of my knowledge, CAD programs are almost entirely Windows, SGI, or *nix based. AutoCAD in particular is Win2k/XP only. Macs are very good for photo and video editing, but I don't know of any professional grade CAD programs on them.

Not that I've gone out of my way to look.

 

Welcome to MajorGeeks, the best site on the web, Crazimon75.

This is just a little "extra" thrown in for you to put on the back burner.

If you want the new laptop to be compatible with the "open source" software (Linux)
in the future, just to keep your options open...
Then this site may be consulted to see if the laptop will load the Linux.
Link:
http://www.linux-laptop.net/

 

You all do know that Mac OS X has Unix built in right?

 

All I know is that Mac OS X has something to do with Unix in some way. I really do need to learn more about the Mac architecture. You have piqued my interest.
I'll have to take time to make time to find out about the Macintosh. Especially for laptops. (I wouldn't be one to go changing hardware around in a laptop, its not like a desktop).
I bet that Linux will run on a Mac, but I'm not sure......

 

Apple built their Mac OS X (10) on a Unix shell. So you can run all mac stuff and use the unix. It is really very nice. I found a media player that will play anything and everything. It will run stuff even WMP and DivX won't do. Plus, every copy of the operating system ships with a full set of devolper programming and GUI tools to create programs in the native enviroment. OS X has made the macs VERY devolper friendly and you run just about everything that matters as long as it isn't a video game. ^_^

 

Mac OS X is based on some flavor of Debian Linux or BSD, AFAIK.That's why it's called "Mac OS X" and not "Mac OS 10". You're supposed to say "ecks" not "ten," because, as we all know, everything *nix based must have an "X" in it. Just like everything Windows-based must have "Win" somewhere in the name.

The problem with Macs? You're paying premium prices for proprietary Mac hardware, and then paying again for the Mac OS... which you have to pay for again even when they do point updates and bug fixes (MS hasn't done that since 98SE). Or I could buy an x86 laptop, pay half as much for the hardware, and load Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, or Fedora on it for free and end up with an equally performing machine for everything except picture, video, and audio editing.

Switching to a *nix core more than doubled the amount of software you can install. And that's very, very sad.

 

???
Wouldn't that be a Good Thing?

Are the Apples architecture "better" (I know, a stupid question) than the x86?

For example, faster at mathematical computation?

Are they like a RISC design, or CISC?

Anybody know how good they are at crunching?

 

But it is still mac os 10 because it is after 9 and they sell it as 10. Also, with regards to processing power, Pixar uses only macs (of course that might just be because they were co-founded by apple), but they are beastly with outputting data. A friend of mine was talking about the other day how they might lack the graphical power because ATI and NVIDIA don't support the systems very much, but they will render and output stuff like its nothing.

 

Well, if you add the whole of *nix software to WIndows, you probably add about 3-5% of the whole. Macs are from the era of close source and proprietary models... and they have about as much software as the new OSS/GPL stuff.

It's like saying "I got a $5 raise and doubled my salary!".

I don't know if the PPC is still RISC, but I imagine so. Like everybody says, they're good for multimedia editing. Macs of today are basically the Amigas of yesteryear... without the games.

 

Thanks for all the advice. Just to sum it all up, I'm doing fine with getting a Dell laptop that has the new M (although many of the Dell sales associates that I talk to automatically go to the P4).

At this point in time, CAD-like programs are Windows & MAC based, it's typically on the user preference. I did ask my husband if he wanted a MAC, but he insists on PC since many of his distributors/connections use a PC.

Thanks again. This is an awesome board. I've always wanted to build my own desktop, so I think I have come to the right place. Especially since I don't know jack about building one.