I'm looking to get a good laptop for university, something that will run good designing/rendering software and something that is compact and easy to transport. I generally need the whole package really, a mobile office so-to-speak
all advice welcomed!
cheers

what is your budget?

__________________
Mr Pickles
Moderator
Please consider Premium Member Ship Here
Please follow and obey the rules of the forum. Failure to do so could result in an infraction or ban
NO PM's For help, they will be ignored
Please vote in Contributor of the Month
For all your Hosting Centicero

As JustinGH said how much $$$$??, but you will be looking at the high end of the market
The compact and easy to transport may be a problem, as in reality you will need the largest hdd you can get for your graphics storage.
Twin hdd's would be better, more weight, larger screen 17 inch would be better for your work.
Video card with 256 meg ram would be handy.
Problem is, it all adds to weight and size, not to mention cost.
If can manage with smaller hdd, there are some new Sony's coming out 64gig solid state drives, would make it lighter and easier on the batteries, but hard on the pocket.
Keep in mind Vista will want about 15gig for itself, and a lot more if you want to keep the restore points.

Consider a few things... Find out from your campus help desk what you will need for classes (Computer science departments will typically have higher reqs than say the fart...err Fine Arts department, Real Sciences normally are more demanding than panzy stuff )

Second, look at your campus Bookstore / Technology store. They will have several laptops to meed the needs of the campus departments, and use a student discount for hardware/software.

I'd probably recommend first checking with the technology store, as you may find they have a campus agreement with Microsoft and Adobe. At the university I worked for we could get any MS product for $35 per CD (office Enterprise, XP / Vista...) It may be cheaper to buy a laptop without OFFICE installed, buy the cd cheaper and install it yourself.

On a brand front, I have seen very few problems with Toshiba. They appear to be rather durable, and stylish.

Of course, If you want, you could get a MAC and do just as well in MOST cases, but they appear to cost more. Actually, they are comparable to other brands when you match the hardware/software in price.

More later when you digest all the advice and have other questions.

__________________
I'm here, you may now make your next two wishes.

Beat Me, Whip Me, Make Me Use Windows!!

Every Piece of Electronic Equipment runs on a finite amount of smoke. The systems are normally very efficient at reclaiming the smoke and recycling it, however, should you do something to let the smoke out, your system will become useless.

SAVE THE SMOKE !!

New PC :
New: Phenom 9500 Quad 2.2, 4gb ram XP Pro 64-bit (Sata 0), XP Pro 32 bit (sata 1), 40 eide HDD (music), Pioneer Blu-Ray Burner, HP Multidisk CD-RW/DVD-Rom, 2x250 Seagate HDD's, ATI Radeon 3870, Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi-AP

Old PC:
P4 1.5GHz, 768 Ram, hda-80Gb (80Ubuntu), DVD R/RW

Have you checked out the laptops that Alienware has to offer? There like the best out there...

__________________

thats brilliant.

thanks for the advice so far.
for those that asked, my budget is approximately £1 000, (or $2000).
i've heard that buying an independent graphics card would be better, are there any suggestions regarding the current availability on the market? (thanks for the advice for 256Meg), does brand matter when shopping for graphics cards?

finally would anyone suggest whether buying extra hard drive storage would increase the laptop performance?

cheers!

Hi there CCwhite Buying an independant graphics card is good if the one you get standard is no good, but it can be quite a task replacing them in some laptops. As with graphics card stick to one of the better known brands. An external hard drive will not improve the laptops performance as such, if your main drive was full then yes it would benefit the laptop but for £1000 you should get a decent size hardrive anyway. I think for £1000 you would get about 250-300gb hard drive. If you need more then yes consider an external extra. Could you also confirm what country you are in so i can give you more advice on the laptop. As Jam mentioned Alienware are extremly good, but prices start at £1049.00 let me know if you need anymore advice.
________________________
This user added the following:
________________________
Okay, ive had a little look around, if it was me buying I think I would go with something like this HP Store item details - HP Pavilion Media center dv9667ea Entertainment Notebook PC (KC200EA)

It has 17ich Screen which is handy and reasonable storage 320gb (2*160)and 2gb Memory Upgradable to 4gb. The only downside is the weight over 3kg. But this is a nice powerful laptop and as its made by HP you know you are getting good quality.

__________________
Mr Pickles
Moderator
Please consider Premium Member Ship Here
Please follow and obey the rules of the forum. Failure to do so could result in an infraction or ban
NO PM's For help, they will be ignored
Please vote in Contributor of the Month
For all your Hosting Centicero

I would go with a VAIO or Toshiba.

Alienware is to high priced but agree'd there laptops are the best by far, if you are looking for a Multimedia mobile workshop then you need a MAC bro, there made for that stuff. If you are looking for a Windows one then your goiing to be looking at about £600 plus for something very good

__________________
I love metal music.
I love CSI.
I love computers and games.

I think that covers everything about me to be honest