buying new laptops

[GMAdan]

Well when i had the same problem i went to the safe side. I wanted mostly to run Inventor and not have to worry how many parts are in the assembly. So what i looked for the ISV certified label. So i went with the Dell M90 mobile workstation. It runs inventor 11, Solidworks, and 3dmax with no problems. But they do come with a hefty price tag. I got mine from their outlet and it runs like new and it cost me 1,500. I think that is a good price for 17'' screen with Intel core 2 duo, 80gb HD, 1gb ram, and Nvida 256mb QuadroFX graphics card.

but if you are looking into apple products i would look at the Pro books if you want to run inventor and the other programs on it. but I think the mac books would work fine as long as you have the 2 gb of ram

[chaoticprout]

Just picked up the new Santa Rosa MacBook Pro, if you're willing the spend the extra cash, they're def, worth it.

~Mike

[JagWire]

i've been running a Macbook Pro with bootcamp for a little over 9 months now. I absolutely love it. It runs Inventor fine, not a workstation class CAD system, but considering i've now got both a mac os, and windows on one computer... i'll take the slightly distorted graphics in inventor. the graphics aren't bad by any means, just not as smooth as what i've seen on real CAD machines. It does everything I ask it to, well, unless i do something crazy in inventor... i have a bad habit of crashing things. i don't know about the new laptops, but with mine battery life is a bit of an issue. i get probably 2-3 hours on average under OS X, but it drops significantly while running windows... though i should probably mention that i haven't updated the bootcamp drivers for it... that might have something to do with it...

[Tapoore]

I'd recommend a Dell Inspiron. Although I've had mixed success with Dell laptops in the past, I'm very impressed with the one I have now.

Specs.
Dell Inspiron 6400
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 running @ 2 GHz 667 FSB
2 gigs of DDR-2 667 mhz
nvidia geforce go 7300 (128mb discreet, 128mb shared)
DVD burner
bluetooth
1680 x 1050 screen (very nice)

All for ~ $1500

Handles Inventor 11 very well as well as graphics intensive games (BF2, BF2142). Having the RAM matched to the FSB speed is recommended.

I have had decent luck with an HP Pavillion Ze4300 which lasted me probably 5 years, quite durable. When the time came I too went with the Lenovo T60, core2duo, 4G ram, 100G Hd, now running a tweaked version of VIsta ultimate and VERY happy.

I don't think any laptop will have the "best" graphics card but over all this T60 is a real work horse and physically very durable and that is also what alot of the reviews talked about as well....very well built physically and for a work, mobile environment as opposed to a more office like environment that is important.

At the TV station where I work all the reporters have IBM Thinkpads and they are about 7 years old, some T43's I think and they are in the news cars all day, on the live trucks, on the floor, indoors, outdoors and reporters are overall rough with equipment and everyone of those laptops looks rough...but is alive and well and working fine and that played a part in my decision to go with a lenovo this time.


QUOTE=JamesBrown;631500]Alright, I don't want to recommend anything special but Lenovo/IBM has been mentioned so I figure I should let you know atleast of my experience.

I have a think pad T-60 running XP I have all of the robotics software on it, including 3d max, Autodesk, and Mplab. I also use Solid works and NX4, I never have any issues. My only complaint about Thinkpads is that they default to using ThinkVantage acess conections for networking which is extremely cumbersome to do alot of things with. However you can uninstall it and just use Windows acess connections instead.

I get bought the 9 cell battery to replace the normal 6 cell, since I am in class all day and need my laptop battery life was important to me. With the 9 cell I get about 5 hours with think pad default settings which is more than enough for using office and web browsing. When I use CAD or compile large amounts of code I put it on max performance which cuts the battery life down to about 3 hours.

Over all I love my laptop and would recommend a thinkpad if you are not planning to spring for a nice Mac Book Pro( they are amazing).

-James[/quote]

[vivek16]

definitely check out the dell vostros... I know some have bad impressions about dell but they have great hardware in the vostros and you can save a bunch. for 700 dollars, I can get a semi decent computer for CAD.

-vivek

I almost went with Dell because of their warranty on the laptops, they cover spills, drops, accidents and things like that which are clearly user fault, another media guy here has made good use of the warranty a couple of times when the laptop just couldn't absorb any more coffee than one fateful morning.

I am reasonably careful with my equipment, rough environment but I remain sensible about hazards when the laptop is open so I decided on a tough IBM/Lenovo T60 this time around.

I also found the Dell's rather pricey once I tried to build them up, the advertised price looked good but once I started adding things and making it more future proof I was over $4000!

[karlcswanson]

I would recommend a macbook or macbook-pro too, but if you get one, wait until after Macworld Expo in January because they usually release new machines then. Its about a month away.