Buying a new laptop

[John Gutmann]

Ok well after reading all the posts there isn't much information given tome other then what brand to buy. I was looking basically for the cheapest good running thing I could buy. Almost the cheapest. I ended up buying a laptop like 30 mins after making the post because of how good of a deal I felt it was. I got a toshiba satellite that in my opinion is a REALLY good deal for what I am getting. The total price after tax comes to 705$ and this is the laptop I bought

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/...02&coid=-33935

Go ahead and bash Toshiba all you want but probally about half of my dorm building last year had cheap toshiba's and i never heard of one problem with them. I am getting out of hp because their service is HORRIBLE and with toshiba there is a local service center.

I abuse my electronics, a lot. my current laptop has been pretty much thrown across a room from stepping on the power cord, and dropped countless times, and is just starting to die now. after having it a year I feel it has had a good run for me being the owner. Right now it has only half the screen working and should fetch a good 200$ on ebay still so I am pretty happy with the deal.

Also when I receive the new laptop I will be wiping vista from it and loading XP Pro on to it.

-John Gutmann

[John Wanninger]

I'm not a huge Dell fan, but we've been looking to buy two laptops with WinXP and finally bit when we found the following deal here from Dell for $649 w/ shipping:

Dell Vostro 1500 15.4" laptop/ 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo/ 2GB Ram
120 GB HD/ NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS Graphics Card
8X DVD Burner/ 9 cell battery/ Intel PRO Wireless 3945 802.11a/g wi-fi card
Win XP home

For $215 more ($864 total) we upped the CPU to the 2.0GHz/2MB L2cache/800Mhz FSB (T7250) CPU, added Bluetooth and a 1440 x 900 display.

$338 more gets you a three year onsite warranty w/ drop/spill/surge protection and a $150 Dell store credit - this might be worth considering with many student (and mentor) handlers. This is pretty cheap compared to other abuse insurance offered, so perhaps Dell feels these will hold up ( or maybe they're just cheap to repair/replace)

The Vostro is fairly heavy, but from what I hear is built somewhat studier than Dell's earlier Inspiron offerings with a magnesium frame and sealed keyboard, and can be ordered minus the usual shovelware (pre-installed unwanted programs).

[synth3tk]

Well, you didn't tell us what you wanted. There's literally thousands of options out there, but it depends on what the usage would be. Regardless, glad you finally made a decision, specifically one that didn't include HP.

[John Gutmann]

Originally Posted by blakcheez

Well, you didn't tell us what you wanted. There's literally thousands of options out there, but it depends on what the usage would be. Regardless, glad you finally made a decision, specifically one that didn't include HP.

I never asked about a laptop, I asked about dual core processors and suppliers. Mainly About dual core processors. I also did say the usage...I recommend (in a nice way) You go back and re-read my original post.

Thanks,
John Gutmann

[synth3tk]

meh, sorry. I was tired when I read that.

[vivek16]

What would you guys recommend for a laptop that I will use for running inventor? What would be the minimum dual core processor speed I would want? I know that the recommended is 2.2ghz but could you get away with less with dual core?

thanks, vivek

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by vivek16

What would you guys recommend for a laptop that I will use for running inventor? What would be the minimum dual core processor speed I would want? I know that the recommended is 2.2ghz but could you get away with less with dual core?

thanks, vivek

If you avoid using the latest version of Inventor, you can get by with a computer with lower specs.

I've run Inventor 7 on my laptop (1.4Ghz Celeron, 1.25G RAM, Intel 950 integrated graphics) and it works relatively well up, on assemblies with up to a few dozen parts. It's great for being able to quickly CAD ideas for a few parts, but not suited for CADing entire projects.

[Cory]

I'm not too familiar with how much faster the new Dual Core Centrino processors are over their single core predecessors, but I have a 2.0 ghz Dothan processor, 1 gig of ram, and a mobile 128 mb Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card, and I can run Solidworks, Inventor, MasterCAM, etc with no speed issues.

Based on that, I'd imagine anything from 1.8 ghz up would work just fine, with 2 gigs of ram being optimal. With CAD work, RAM is much more important than processor speed.

If CAD is going to be the primary function of this laptop (ie: not games), check out the Dell Precision M4300. For $1500 you get a base laptop of a 1.8 ghz core 2 duo, 2 gigs of RAM, 80 gig HD, and a Nvidia mobile workstation graphics card.

For about $200 more you can upgrade that to a 2.2 ghz core 2 duo and 120 gig 7200 rpm hd.

[vivek16]

could i get the old vresions of inventor somewhere? is the new inventor the only version thats given to teams for free from autodesk?

I was actually hoping for something under 1000 dollars.... guess thats not going to happen...

[Cory]

Originally Posted by vivek16

could i get the old vresions of inventor somewhere? is the new inventor the only version thats given to teams for free from autodesk?

I was actually hoping for something under 1000 dollars.... guess thats not going to happen...

For $993 you can get a Dell Vostro laptop with a 2.0 ghz Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of ram, 160 gb hd CD/DVD burner, and 128 mb GeForce 8400M GS graphics card

[vivek16]

link me?

thanks, vivek

I would greatly prefer xp pro to vista or xp home

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by vivek16

link me?

thanks, vivek

I would greatly prefer xp pro to vista or xp home

I know Gateway offers XP as an option on most models, but I haven't looked to see where else it is offered.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

I know Gateway offers XP as an option on most models, but I haven't looked to see where else it is offered.

Dell offers it as an option on all their business laptops (Vostro, Latitude, Precision).

[vivek16]

Originally Posted by Cory

Dell offers it as an option on all their business laptops (Vostro, Latitude, Precision).

yep i found a vostro that is c2d 1.8hz, 2gb ram, 128mb nvidia graphics, and 120 gigs of storage

thanks, vivek

[John Gutmann]

Ok, so I got my laptop in the mail today and the only problem with it is the scroll function for the mousepad. I am gonna try calling about this but I wanted to see what people on here thought. When I want to scroll I move my finger up and down along the right side of the mouse pad. And well it scrolls. THe problem is that is scrolls so much and it takes forever to scroll. For example if I run my finger along the scroll part of the pad and lift it off then it scrolls pretty much as far as possible and there is no way to stop it. I already went into the driver settings and set it to only 1 line per wheel notch but there seems to be no difference.

Maybe it is just adjusting to having more notchs compared to the HP I had. But I have no idea. I will try loading XP on to it then going for a few days with it as is and see how it goes.

Thanks,
John Gutmann