Laptop for xmas - what should I ask for?
Hey guys!
Santa said he would bring me a laptop for christmas, so I need to make sure I ask for something specific.
I could probably get away with about $1000
I dont really game, but I *do* like having windows/ubuntu . I dont really game, but I use my compy a lot to do Photoshop/Matlab type things. I currently have a DELL Inspiron 5150, and I havent been thrilled. I would like a solid machine that runs well and will last me til the end of grad school (>=3 years). My lappy now is really heavy, so I would kinda like something I can strap to my back and take in and out of school. Shwaip has helped me keep this guy running - its being held together by invisible duct tape, and Im sure some spare parts from the icrontic community before I met everyone
Suggestions? You guys are the pros!
Santa said he would bring me a laptop for christmas, so I need to make sure I ask for something specific.
I could probably get away with about $1000
I dont really game, but I *do* like having windows/ubuntu . I dont really game, but I use my compy a lot to do Photoshop/Matlab type things. I currently have a DELL Inspiron 5150, and I havent been thrilled. I would like a solid machine that runs well and will last me til the end of grad school (>=3 years). My lappy now is really heavy, so I would kinda like something I can strap to my back and take in and out of school. Shwaip has helped me keep this guy running - its being held together by invisible duct tape, and Im sure some spare parts from the icrontic community before I met everyone
Suggestions? You guys are the pros!
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Powerful dual core, great discrete graphics included with 1GB of dedicated RAM, 4GB of system memory, Windows 7 64 bit pre loaded. Hard to argue with it for $749, its a powerful machine. Now, its not going to be ultra light, nor is it going to be ultra energy efficient, but its an HP so the extra in the budget leaves you the option to go to their site and order an extra battery if you feel like you really need it. Perhaps a little more power than you need, but if your sincere that you really want to get 3+ years out of the machine its better to spec it nice rather than have regrets a year from now.
in the sub $1k there is not much that really performs with matlab and photoshop
At the top end you would want a laptop with a mobile i7 with a mobile quadroFX or Firepro card; 64bit-win7 6-8GB Ram. IBM does not offer anything in this range, yet. They are short on the processor end. Next best is core2 extreme Quad-core
I would look at the ThinkPad W500 for $1350 or ThinkPad W700 for $1500
Lenovo W series mobile workstations
if you really want to stick to the $1k range go for a ThinkPad T400 with discrete graphics
if you want your laptop to be a do it all, go for a w-series
Can't go wrong with a T-series. Beware of the W-Series, its behemoth!!!! I would recommend it only if its a desktop replacement and don't plan on doing much traveling with it or even surfing while sitting on the couch, its huge!!!
In general, matlab scripts/functions are not multithreaded (excepting fft.m and functions based on fft.m), so a quad core machine isn't too useful, unless you want to spend time banging your head against the clunky way it is implemented. I'd suggest a dual core processor.
Photoshop and matlab make almost no use of your video card, so I don't think there's a real reason to get anything with a mobile workstation graphics card.
As for amount of ram, you should take a look at how big the files are that you typically work on in matlab are, add a GB or two, and call that a minimum amount. I'd probably suggest 4gb of ram.
ps wanna date or something
Photoshop makes a big use of graphics cards in CS4 with openGL, and the QuadroFX, FireGL, and FirePro cards are all certified for CS4 products.
Matlab takes advantage of OpenGL and the best openGL is with workstation GPUs
for future life of the laptop there is no reason to get anything less then Quad-core, getting a dual core is buying outdated technology that has a very limited usable life. The future of computing is multi-core and 64bit Plan for the future not for current maximum function.
I do agree with butters that the w-series is hefty weighing in at a Starting 5.8 lbs
There are other equivalent options from other companies, that might be lighter weight.
I'd love a Lenovo, but their hardware options are so slim... But i guess thats how they stay reliable.
The Thinkpad line has always been aimed more at business / productivity use than gaming. Their designs are oriented to push battery life and durability more than performance. The thing about putting a discrete GPU that's reasonably good at gaming into a notebook is that even when idle, it consumes a lot more power than an onboard solution.
What do you call the GPUs on the w-series....oh that's right more powerful then any other GPU offered in the line up. Take more then a second to look and you might see there are good hardware options.
nothing was said of gaming, but there was a mentioned of Matlab and photoshop. so put gaming aside unless it's a fringe benefit or is specifically asked for. Battery life with discrete GPUs is something good to bring up, but consider balancing that with performance; on board solutions typically don't have the performance for the Applications discussed.
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Marushka,
I glanced at your profile and I see your in EE; What field of EE are you specializing in? I know some disciplines in EE use a lot of CAD, Revit, or LabVIEW. If your area uses CAD or Revit, the W-series with the mobile workstation GPUs will give you better performance.
I can't speak towards the performance benefits for photoshop, because I don't do much with it. I took a quick look to see how much opengl support improved photoshop performance, and I didn't see anything definitive. Can you give me an idea of what a better graphics card would do for you in PS?
However, as someone who uses matlab on a daily basis, I can say that unless the major thing someone does in matlab is rotating 3d surface plots, they'd be much better off spending the money that would be spent on a quadro card on a faster processor or more memory. 99%+ of the time you're spending on matlab is on compute, not on display.
you can pick up the W-series starting at $1,146.65
My work is mostly radar signal processing and atmospheric remote sensing, so Im just using matlab and an occasional simulation I run on linux.
The study considered the divide of quality based on price, under $400 was netbooks, $400-$1000 was entry-level, and $1000+ was premium.
The study said that netbooks fail 25.1% in 3-years, Entry-level was 20.6% and premium was 18.1%
The manufacture break down for these groupings includes all three categories which could be very misleading, since a manufacture that sells a lot in the netbook category would rank lower then it might for their premium line.
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Considering that you primarily do a lot of computation intensive I would lean strongest towards a laptop with an i7 or a core2 quad CPU, but you will have to collate the performance vs the weight since the higher performing CPUs are also higher weight
Agreed, I used to own an IBM Thinkpad T41, and until my girlfriend dropped it on a tiled floor it was solid. Even then it was usable for the last 6 months it after that!!