Which laptop help?

[nadlad]

Ave got a budget for around 650 that includes the second hand market..

Am looking for around 15'' screen plenty of ram and basically soemthing faster then my current vaio

the specs of mine  are intel core 2 duo 2.1GHZ and 3gb ram

i mainly use it for web browsing and cad watchign movies downloading streaming not really into gaming

Theres so much choice out there that i bought htis abut 3 years ago and kind of lost touch with whats in and whats out whats fast and whats slow

i quite like the sony vaio range as this is what ave had last couple of years. Not sure if i want to go to the MAC range as i have a number of engineering programs that i use which are Windows based.

Pls advice

[stealthwolf]

I specced my laptop from PCSpecialist. Cost £2000 but they do laptops in the lower price range too.

[edd666999]

for that sort of money id think u'll get
6gb + ram
3rd gen i7
SSD + Data drive

make sure you get a 1080p screen.

have a look at dells XPS range, don't but from the website as calling them can usually get you 20-30% off.

Keep an eye out on hotukdeals as good stuff comes up on there regularly.

Or buy a mac it will be the spec of your current laptop but people will look at you and think your better than them  

[nezquick]

Dell 

Keep an eye our for alienware second hand but your budget might be stretched. i have a lovely asus and will definately get another one. or samsung.

[nadlad]

I don't actually like the style of the alien ware ones wiukd a i7 processor be something to look for quite like the vaios style

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[stealthwolf]

I think the question is which CAD software do you use. No point in looking at multi-core processors if it won't use them all.

[nadlad]

2010 and sometimes cad rc

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[eddy_30]

new HP Elitebooks are good, but them i'm biased because i work for them..

tablets are the way forward tho, we'll all have then in 5 years and only the great uncool will have laptops still.
bluetooth keyboard to make it look like a laptop if you want, but then run your cad program in the cloud somewhere..

[majinvash]

How about something like this?

http://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/range/novatechnfinityn1405.html

Light, Well powered and excellent battery life.

[nadlad]

Yeah it looks ok just missing the i7 processor a nd blue ray am thinking of the ultrabooks as a good option like a MacBook air k n steroids

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[majinvash]

The difference between an i5 and an i7 in most software applications is minimal for the cost increase. The main difference is the i7 have Hyper threading.

For what you want the laptop for, you probably wont stress the laptop enough to need it.

You listed the word CAD in what you wanted to use it for. If you are looking for a laptop to do "decent" rendering you need to look around £1400 and one carrying a Quadro card.

Bluray drive, they should be able to fit one in that laptop. They customise stuff there.

But I have used Ultrabooks and Slimbooks by several different brands. The Apple ones are still by far better built, but at almost 3 times the price should be.

[stealthwolf]

I'd have thought for serious CAD work, he'd need a desktop computer rather than a laptop. But this is coming from someone who likes playing games at high res on his gaming laptop.

Do you really need a laptop? Or are you better off with something like a desktop + iPad?

[R32UK]

+1 for the Dell XPS

I picked up a XPS14Z i7 8GB RAM, with SSD for just under £1000 last year. Its roughly the same size as a mac book and with SSD silly quick. This gets transported about everywhere with me!!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-XPS-14Z-CORE-i7-3-5GHz-8GB-SLIM-LAPTOP-1GB-GEFORCE-256-GB-SSD-HD-14-BOXED-/261117334248?pt=UK_Computing_Laptops_EH&hash=item3ccbce52e8

[majinvash]

Hi

I have seen a Laptop used for serious CAD work.

It was, if I remember correctly it was an i7 with 32GB Ram, 512GB SSD and an Nvidia Quadro card .
Will never be as fast as a dedicated workstation but it is portable will do a fine job.

Apple could see a real dip in sales if Windows 8 takes off and the Ultrabooks are picked up by the masses.
Add to that when the Windows 8 RT devices really hit, they could take a large share away from the Ipads.

I have a 4 year old 13" Macbook and its still going as strong as the day I bought it.. For the money they last so so well and the Metal Unibody are so robust!

[Squeeguk]

Have a look on Ebay, there is a guy on there who sells Dell returned units for far less than Dell sells them for. I bought a brand new Dell Precision M6500, similar to the spec above, from him a year ago, for less than I could from Dell with our corporate discount with full Dell warranty. You might be able to pick up a less well specced unit with the smaller 15" screen. I bought mine to do large assembly and surfacing CAD and high res rendering for when I was contracting and it's been superb, quicker than the desktop workstations the guys were using.