Looking for a laptop for CAD

[dcarr]

A quick observation - Autodesk 2014 products are not optimized for the high-dpi 2560x1440 and similar displays that are becoming standard on higher end ultrabooks.

To be readable, Windows runs at about 125-150% DPI scaling by default on displays with this density. Most applications can handle this scaling fine. Autodesk products are a disaster, however - text overflows regions, icons are way off, etc. Basically makes it unusable. So you have to scale down to 100% which makes everything tiny.

With this in mind, if you do end up with an ultrabook or something in the 13" neighborhood, I'd go for 1920x1080 which is the ideal resolution to run at 100% scaling at that screen size.

Give it a few years once all laptops are shipping with hidpi displays when Autodesk will get around to making their apps scale nicely.

[Greg Needel]

I am really partial to the Dell Precision Line of laptops. They really hold up to the the rough use I put them through and can handle any CAD you can throw at them as they are designed to be mobile workstations. In my opinion if you can spend a bit more on something quality designed for CAD work it will be worth it. Even if you can get a lesser machine to work, you won't get nearly the performance with lots of parts open and assemblies with a bunch of parts.

Also spending a bit more now will mean it will most likely last longer and be compatible with future version of CAD software.