Looking for laptop

King John The Last

Budget: €500 area. Might be able to move.

Use: Internet, odd job in school(solid works), games like Civilization 5 and The Sims 3

Warranty: 12 months

Mobility: weight dosent matter, but battery life would be nice.

OS: Windows

GarRoIT

Spent 900 on a laptop and it struggles with solidworks, they recomend 8GB of ram and a top graphics card with atleast 1GB of graphics memory. Hopefully you'll have more luck than i did.

GarRoIT

Which version of solidworks, only the 2011 version is compatable with windows 7?

King John The Last

Solid works 2009. My brother uses it on windows 7.

MASTER...of the bra

From the Solid works system requirements page. (which is crap)

For Solid works 9 you need Windows 7 professional, Ultimate or Enterprise editions.

The minimum RAM is 1, the recommended is 6 so you'll probably be fine with 4.

What graphics card does your brother use? There's a list of recommended one's but there odd, I don't see them on laptops now. You'd have to look them up and compare them to one you see on a laptop your considering to get and see if there similar.

What Processor is in your brothers one? Does his computer run it well? Put the spec up here if it does. If it's an i3 or an Athlon, you won't break your budget by to much.

GarIT

MASTER...of the bra wrote: »

The minimum RAM is 1, the recommended is 6 so you'll probably be fine with 4.

There's a list of recommended one's but there odd, I don't see them on laptops now.

Thought it was 8, obviously I was wrong. All the graphics cards are graphics card specifically made for CAD. They are a lot more powerful than most gaming graphics cards but are bad for gaming as there not designed for it. I don't think there are any laptop versions, a good gaming graphics card will do.

MASTER...of the bra

GarIT wrote: »

Thought it was 8, obviously I was wrong. All the graphics cards are graphics card specifically made for CAD. They are a lot more powerful than most gaming graphics cards but are bad for gaming as there not designed for it. I don't think there are any laptop versions, a good gaming graphics card will do.

GarRoIT and GarIT?

Is a 5 series ATI enough? With an i3?

A quick look finds this one....Toshiba....i3, 6GB RAM, ATI 5650 with 1GB RAM and windows professional for €580 delivered.

Battery life is gonna be crap though OP, 4 hours at best on any laptop good enough for what you want.

GarIT

MASTER...of the bra wrote: »

GarRoIT and GarIT?

Is a 5 series ATI enough? With an i3?

A quick look finds this one....Toshiba....i3, 6GB RAM, ATI 5650 with 1GB RAM and windows professional for €580 delivered.

Battery life is gonna be crap though OP, 4 hours at best on any laptop good enough for what you want.

Didn't realise I posed with my old account GarRoIT, I lost the password for the email account for that boards account. My vostro with i5 2.66ghz, 4GB ram, and geforce 330m is decent enough but really struggles with high detailed models, things can take a long time to load. That laptop shouldnt be much worse though.

King John The Last

Intel centrino processor, Nvidia Gforce graphics card, 3MB RAM. Solid Works works on normal windows 7, my brother uses it. It dosent work that well, but I dont think its windows' fault

King John The Last

http://www.reevoo.com/p/lenovo-g550-ntddhir
Opnions?

EDIT:The toshiba looks good, ill give it serious thought

GarIT

Its hard to give an opinion on a laptop when it doesn't give any graphics or cpu specs, all it says is dual core.

If it's only simple use though anything should be fine really. It's when you get into making things like engines with lots of parts that it takes a real toll on the system. I don't think your going to need more then 4GB of ram unless its going to be really heavy use. Id say look for at least a 2.4ghz dual cpu, 4GB of ram, and a decent gaming graphics card. I'd say an ATI 5 series should above should be good enough for the basics. For the games you mentioned you need a minimum of 256MB graphics memory just to run it, id look for more to run them well.

King John The Last

GarIT, what do you think of the toshiba already mentioned?
Also, I never saw 14GB RAM before, did you mean 4?

GarIT

King John The Last wrote: »

GarIT, what do you think of the toshiba already mentioned?
Also, I never saw 14GB RAM before, did you mean 4?

Yeah sorry, must have hit the one key by accident, it should have only been 4, The Toshiba laptop is good if you couldn't find anything else for that price but I feel its a bit unbalanced in relation to solid works. the most RAM I've ever seen SolidWorks use was 3GB and that was when it had a fairly well detailed sky scraper open. Even at that 4GB should be enough if there's nothing else open at the same time. So the ram is slightly too much in relation to the processor which is only 2.13ghz. The main thing SolidWorks uses is your GPU and your CPU is a close 2nd, the ram is less important. SolidWorks is never going to need the 6GB of ram if the CPU doesn't allow the designs to get that detailed.

I'm probably getting too into this as its not like your going to be using it everyday. The Toshiba is good and you'd probably not going to get much better for the price, but I'd personally look to a slight improvement in the CPU possibly at the sacrifice of the extra 2GB of RAM.

King John The Last

I will be playing way more games than solid works. Solid works is for Leaving Cert DCG. They cant give me anything too complicated, can they?

GarIT

I use it for the same actually, it can get quite complicated when your doing your project, it depends on how good you are at it and how well you want do your project. If you don't mind waiting 2 to 3 mins for things to load you should still be ok.

King John The Last

I know I am throwing the budget out the window with this one, but opnions? http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=ECE2154585#spec

GarIT

Its a good buy if you can afford it.

VenomIreland

What are the specs? Elara link is broken.

King John The Last

Dont know what happened the old link, ill try again http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=MME404N338#spec

Also this interests me much closer to the budget http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=MME94333TY#spec

Is i3 v i5 a big deal?

Oclib

Theres a Samsung RV-511 in Harvey Norman Swords with an i3 380(2.53ghz) processor,6GB Ram,1GB Dedicated gfx and 640 GB Hard Drive for 649.Bought it Yesterday.Am well pleased with it

VenomIreland

King John The Last wrote: »

Dont know what happened the old link, ill try again http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=MME404N338#spec

Also this interests me much closer to the budget http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=MME94333TY#spec

Is i3 v i5 a big deal?

The first one would definitely be better. The i5 processors are better than the i3 processors. The first one also has more RAM, which will be very helpful.

King John The Last

Oclib, what is the graphics card in your laptop?

Ill see what I can do with my budget.

King John The Last

Oclib, do you have any experience with games/solid works on your new laptop?

Is this it? http://www.dabs.ie/products/samsung-rv511-core-i3-380m-4gb-ram-500gb-hdd-15-6--windows-7-home-premium-laptop-79N9.html

King John The Last

If I do decide to go mad, the only 2 that I saw and liked are the toshiba and this sony http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE2146160

What do you think venom?

VenomIreland

The Toshiba has a bigger screen and should have a better graphics cards, as long as ATI used the same naming scheme for their mobile cards.

King John The Last

Ill think about it.

King John The Last

Do ye think the HP is good value?

GarIT

King John The Last wrote: »

Do ye think the HP is good value?

It's ok on value but it only has half the dedicated graphics ram you need minimum should be 1GB, it only has 3GB of ram, id recommend 4GB. It also has Win7 Home Premium which isn't supported by SolidWorks, id say most of the earlier ones are better options.

Samsung. This is a definite no, it doesn't have a proper graphics card, only the one that comes built into the i3.

King John The Last

Thanks for all the help the lot of ye, I just bought a laptop and so I dont need any more advice.

GarIT

What did you go for in the end?

King John The Last

A dell inspiron 15R with ATI mobility radeon HD 5650 and 6GB RAM. It cost me 899:eek: in PC world galway, but I got a nice bit of free stuff with it. I am quite happy with it.

King John The Last

Forgot to mention, it has a intel i5 prossesor.

GarIT

Sounds good