Tommy L Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 Has anyone bought a decent laptop for under £1300? I need a decent workstation for running 3d programs/rendering/2d work, but i am financially deficient. Any advice much appreciated. Cheers, Tom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 cant usually go wrong with these guys - http://www.alienware.co.uk/Product_Pages/notebook_all_default.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted August 24, 2005 Author Share Posted August 24, 2005 http://www.digiuk.com/productdetail.asp?id=4196&c=1284300&guid=&s=23&sm=# Thats the best ive found so far stat-wise. I was hoping someone could just come up with a miracle system they know about for cheap laptops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 would you risk ebay? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Moir Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 I was bought an admittedly expensive Dell M50 two years ago and I still love it (I would hesitate to recommend a Dell workstation for the office though). The thing is bulletproof. They have some M70s on their website under your budget, worth a look perhaps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 http://www.techbargains.com Just bought a Dell 9300: 17" Ultra True Bright 2 ghz Centrino 2 gigs ram 256 Geforce Intel wireless MS Office MS XP Pro 60 gig 7200rpm drive other goodies I paid about $2650 including tax and shipping. That was 35% off the regular price. If the coupon is expired (5000 uses, and they go fast), keep an eye out, they have them every few weeks. You can't beat that price. Now finding a nice bag that'll fit it, well, that's tough! I've decided on http://www.acmemade.com (just the black one), as Tumi and Coach don't have one that will fit 17inchers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oluv Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 this one maybe? http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/home/products/notebooks/amilo_m_3438_4438.html 3438: Pentium-M 770 2.13GHz • 2048MB (2x 1024MB) • 160GB (2x 80GB) • DVD+/-RW DL • NVidia GeForce 6800 Go 256MB • USB 2.0/FireWire/Modem/LAN/WLAN 802.11bg • 4in1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro) • 17" WXGA TFT (1440x900) • Windows XP Home • Li-Ionen-Akku • 4.10kg the 4438 is the same, except the display has 1920 x 1200 resolution. the interesting fact ist that you can use this notebook with 2 harddisks either raid0 or raid1 and have up to 240gb harddisk space this way. i don't know how much it is in britain but in germany you can get the configuration as above for 1999,- € which is really cheap regarding the specs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfa2 Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 I got one of the Alienware laptops with the 3.8GHz P4, 2 GB ram, 256MB video, 8x DL DVD burner and the raid 0 7200 rpm hard drives. This thing is awesome (but expensive) it smokes my PC which is no slouch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 I am curious about RAID in a laptop. Seems cool at first, but then I think about drives failing....anyone know? It's relatively new. They are expecting laptop hard drive capacity to shoot up with the next year or less, somewhere close to 500gigs, I think. That would be nice. Now if only they could squeeze duals in there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Ramsay Posted August 25, 2005 Share Posted August 25, 2005 Now if only they could squeeze duals in there... Think of the heat, your laptop would melt! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colinsmith Posted August 26, 2005 Share Posted August 26, 2005 I just bought an Acer Ferrari 4005. ShopAcer.co.uk £1200 with XP Home Although you'd think that'd be stupidly overpriced for the spec given the branding, I actually couldn't find anything better for the money that had a fast mobile processor, 1Gb ram, a decent 3d chipset and a higher screen res than 1280x800. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted August 26, 2005 Share Posted August 26, 2005 http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050824/D8C5SJ200.html Laptop dual-cores are on the way, but not for another year. (Unless AMD beats them to it.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whomung Posted September 7, 2005 Share Posted September 7, 2005 I don't know how these would be priced in the UK, but Right now I'm shopping laptops, and dealing with the tradeoffs... some of which I don't fully understand in terms of effecting CAD/Rendering performance. I tried to keep apples and apples, but.... I'm looking at a (1) a pretty loaded Sager --with a 3.2 ghz P4; 2 gigs RAM (holds 4 gigs, but I think the MoBo only see's 3), nVidia Quatro 256mg card; 100gig 7200 RPM drive; CD/DVD burner w/ lightscribe; 10/100/1000 Ethernet; wi-fi and bluetooth; 17" WUXGA (1920 x 1200) "glossy" screen. This comes around $3000K.US with 3 year accidental damage warranty --you can get it with less, or pay more up to $1000 more for the same machine at another vendor (like alienware) http://www.discountlaptops.com Upside --FAST; Highly customizable full desktop (add TV in-out, more drives/burners, blah blah blah); lot's of bells and whistles.... downside.... maybe overkill, really big, heavy with no battery life (2) Dell Precision M70 --$3700 Smaller, --15" WXGA Screen; costs $700 (3700) more. Pentium M (2.13ghz; 2 gigs RAM, 60 gig, 7200 RPM drive, same Still uses the nVidia Quadro Card (open GL) also with extended warranty (3) Asus Z70Va $2268 Pentium M (2.13ghz) 2 gigs RAM, only the ATI Radeon X700 128mb Card, CDDVD -RW.... same ethernet, wi-fi, bluetooth warrenty, Again, smaller, better battery life.... great price-- nice looking machine and asus is a major manufacturer (might even make Dells MoBo, I don't know) --but I don't know about the ATI card compared to the open GL nVidia Quatro. I have two different opinions so far http://www.proportable.com (has them next week) http://www.ynot2k.com/ Any feedback on these real world use of these machines with ADT, ArchiCAD, 3D Studio and Art*lantis would be appreciated. It will be mobile, and go to client sites as well as construction sites --but not every day This is the primary machine, there is no desktop, just a bigger monitor to plug into --so stability, reliability and service is right up there with QUITE and performance --with price being a consideration but not the main one. But on first looks, the Dell would have to be *amazing* to beat the Sager or Asus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted September 7, 2005 Share Posted September 7, 2005 I got a Sagger 3880 amd am very happy with it. There is a whole new batch of models that Sager will be coming out with in the near future. If you DO get a Sager. I would HIGHLY recommend http://www.pctorque.com/. They have a great price, great support, and are super nice and fast. On the other hand, you are in the UK, so I'm not sure about if they send it there. BTW, the Centrino proc works really well with 3D. If you get a Centrino (Pentium M), keep in mind that the rule of thumb is that its speed is equivalent to 1.7x a Pentium 4. For example, a 2.0 PM is approx a 3.4 P4. The real advantage you get from the pentium M is less weight, and much longer battery life. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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