Mid-end Laptop?

[Playdo]

Any recommendations for a mid-end laptop? Just checking if there are updates to Andrew's 2011 selection. I won't be creating heavy scenes on it.

[AJLynn]

Yeah, sorry, those lists all need an update, which means I need more time on my hands, which means hopefully next week. Meanwhile, I like this one - it's thicker and heavier than I go for myself but has a lot of power for the price tag and a very high res screen. (I hate the ones that have stupid low res screens, like 15" but it's 1366x768 or something useless like that.) Build quality isn't as good as some others.

 

This one is less power but a better build quality. This one is bigger but powerful with better cooling, so it's going to be better as a rendering box.

[Tommy L]

I have an Asus, build quality is awesome. Its heavy though, more a mobile workstation than a laptop. Comes with a GTX560 with 3G ram. 2Ghz i7 2630QM, 12G ram, nice big screen (1920x1080). Also has numeric keypad which is not too common on laptops. Got mine for around $1300 at Microcenter.

Just had a look on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Gamers-G74SX-AH71-17-3-Inch-Gaming/dp/B005UUS6MO/ref=sr_1_15?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1337298493&sr=1-15)

Looks like theyve increase the standard RAM allocation to 16g and upgraded the processor since I purchased. Highly recommended!

[Dimitris Tolios]

What's you budget? Mid-range is kinda vague.

For a potent workstation, the "gaming" laptops line the Asus G5x/G7x are a safe bet, just like the equivalents from MSI. Tend to think them as better value than the Dell ones. I would say wait a bit before buing a G74 though, as the G75 is out and offers better features in a smaller (and cooler) package.

[AJLynn]

Actually now I see a newer model of that large Asus, less than a month old. It's a bit more expensive but it looks like a winner. Thinner and lighter (but still more than 8 pounds!), the new CPU and GPU are more efficient and they're using air filters you can clean yourself, which would improve cooling.

 

They've been releasing laptops in this class for some time now, usually launching at $1500 street, with the latest and greatest tech but in a package that's only considered small by the sort of people who think that bringing a desktop computer to a party is a good idea. But they're usually a good bet when you want as much power as you can get in a mobile.

[Playdo]

I'm aiming for under £1000, and it's primarily for product visualisation (3ds + MR/Vray) and photo editing. I'd also like to use real-time renderers, Shot and Vray Rt.

 

Andrew you mention SSDs in this thread: http://forums.cgarchitect.com/70890-need-advice-modeling-rendering-workstation.html

 

Hard drives - the SSD is optional, but recommended. It speed up load times. Once your software is loaded it doesn't really do anything. So it cuts down those annoying waits but it's optional. The things are nice but they're a much bigger deal in laptops, I don't know why people get so enthusiastic about them that they're now considered a necessity in a desktop.

- So there is no speed increase when working on files - the only thing effected is the time taken to open up the software? Why are they a much bigger deal in laptops?

 

- Are there any new advancements in the pipeline that I should hold out for, either for better specs or it causing a price drop? (eg Processors, RAM DDR?, Graphics cards etc)

 

- Do you think that a 15" screen is too small? I had a look in store today, but it's hard to tell without actually working on it.

 

- That's interesting to hear that Asus is high quality. I always perceived it to be otherwise. Dimitros, you mention staying away from HP: http://forums.cgarchitect.com/70867-laptop-archviz.html. Any other manufacturers to be aware of?

 

Thanks a lot for the advice.

[Dimitris Tolios]

That's interesting to hear that Asus is high quality. I always perceived it to be otherwise. Dimitros, you mention staying away from HP: http://forums.cgarchitect.com/70867-laptop-archviz.html. Any other manufacturers to be aware of?

 

Thanks a lot for the advice.

 

Well, I don't have a way to validate those claims 100%.

My source is the Square Trade (squaretrade.com) statistics for 2year and 3 year failures in laptops. Square Trade is an independent corporation selling extended warranties for electronic devices - I would hope it is not paid to mess up with our minds altering statistics.

 

The graphs for the last 3-4 years are pretty identical: Asus is leading the pack, HP and Gateway are trailing it. Google "squaretrade laptop reliability" for the graphs. The one that pops up faster is the 2009 one that got a lot of publicity, but you can find the PDF reports from the company itself.

http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf

 

The publicity came from the fact that Apple is in the middle of the bunch instead of leading it as everybody loving the brand would hope. The "image" gets worse by the fact that exactly after Apple, (not for 2009) is Acer, a company that people have learned NOT to respect. The image gets way more distorted when you read that those statistics included netbooks: netbooks are cheaply made (thus the ultrabook wave in a way) and fail way too often. With Acer being the #1 netbook seller by far, that means that the average is brought down a lot for it. So technically someone could claim that the company that sells machines that average $1500+ , does not build more reliable machines than a company that does its bulk of sales with $400-600 machines.

 

In my Architecture school (in California) Apple is ofc a God...more than 40-50% of the laptops are MBPs and mouth to mouth or visual statistics say that ppl that use them replace them at least once over the 3 (grad) and 5 year (undergrad). Usually because the board fails, and in MBPs CPU/GPU/Mobo are one unit that it's hard to salvage -> they make you pay for a replacement part on-top of the outrageous labor, so squaretrade is an option you should really consider (esp. if you are wiling to pay $2500-3000 for a laptop that technically is the same or worse than the $900 N55, yet requires you to deposit $900-1300 for a repair - true story repeated every quarter with the related drama (only one of my 4-5 friends that lost a $2500+ MBP in less than 2 years went to buy a PC instead -talking about loyalty). I had classes in a large warehouse like facility housing 400 students with no separating walls - trust me when I say that we know the exact moment a computer dies!

 

In the office my company uses DELL throughout for both desktops and Laptops, and in general those are pretty reliable, yet squaretrade claims are in the same league with Apple/Acer.

 

Sony plays @ 2-3rd place.

IBM/Lenovo fluctuates a lot, going anywhere from #1 to being worse than Acer.

Toshiba is a strong contender.

 

Personally I have experience with 3x Acer laptops older than 3 years (all with mid-end C2Ds/i7 and discreet GPU) and other than a flickering screen (weak cable that was repaired on a now 5yo laptop) only experienced a HDD failure. I have a 7yo Centrino Toshiba that never missed a bit till it fell and broke its screen (better screen than what the average sub $8-900 market offers today - sad?). I also have in the family 2x mid-range Sony and a newer Toshiba all with onboard gfx. I am extremely lucky and other than that HDD failure (Seagate) I am satisfied. Keep in mind that I am "bold" in cracking open and cleaning cooling systems etc at least 1x a year. Often blowing them clean with canned air (teh cheap). And most of them are upgraded with 1.5-2x times the Ram they came with.

[AJLynn]

I've stayed far away from Dell laptops after some nightmares of poor design and difficult tech support. I've been using Apple laptops for 6 years and have had a few issues, but with Apple when you have a problem you get tech support in person at an Apple store from somebody who knows the products instead of only being able to say what's in the database. To me, that's huge, because all laptops can break - and the parts I've had problems with on the Apple are the same from all suppliers, the hard drives and memory. And it's not like Apple isn't using high quality hard drives and memory.

 

But anyway.

 

SSDs are more important in laptops because of how you use laptops. Desktops are more likely to stay running for extended periods. These days they have good enough power saving modes that you can usually just turn off the monitor when you're not at the desk, and leave the computer up 24/7. Laptops, you put them in hibernate or turn them off when you move with them, and each time you do that, and bring it back up, it goes to the hard drive. So if I take my Acer mini notebook to a meeting and I have to wait for the hard drive to bring it back up before I can use it, that's several minutes. I replaced it with an SSD and it comes up in less than half the time. (This isn't as big a deal for Apples, which sleep and wake very quickly, especially if you turn off the deep-hibernate mode which isn't necessary since all it's really good for is if you took the battery out while it hibernates, and you can't take the battery out of newer Apples.)

[Tommy L]

And yes, the Asus just feels like its quality. If weight and bulk are not issues, get the Asus.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Tommy L

[AJLynn]

Wait, Acer or Asus? I've been seeing some pretty solidly built Asuses lately. More good ones than bad. Acers, they have good ones and not as good ones.

[Tommy L]

Wait, Acer or Asus? I've been seeing some pretty solidly built Asuses lately. More good ones than bad. Acers, they have good ones and not as good ones.

 

Ooops, typo, I meant Asus. Ill correct the answer.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Wait, Acer or Asus? I've been seeing some pretty solidly built Asuses lately. More good ones than bad. Acers, they have good ones and not as good ones.

 

Both companies make proper machines, many of which are extremely good value for money - especially as far as dedicated GPUs / RAM / CPU goes.

Screens are so-so, and this is the only field where by average Apple gets better using higher quality TN panels in the MBPs, for a substantial premium ofc. Hopefully after all the smacking the iPad 3 screen produced, we will see something better in laptops...

 

In the $800-900 range I would say you are pretty "Safe-ish" away from the cheaply made laptops that ofc are prone to failures.

 

Also Asus, Acer and Samsung seem to go after a sleek look, producing pretty, thin and streamlined laptop enclosures lately. MSIs are bulkier most of the times, and Sony lately produced a couple of crude "gaming" laptops that I personally would say are ugly and boxy. HP did a very good job aesthetically (IMHO)with the Envy line, but those are not that reliable - I personally know of a i7 envy 15 that overheats constantly, and an i5 14" (both schoolmate's) that had an HDD failure within 18 months of its purchase (i think it was due to o/h also). And it's 2 weeks from finals =)

It's the only PC laptops that I know that failed during my master program.

 

So, I would say weight and bulk is an issue with Asus only if you are going for the G5x/G7x and republic of games series, which pack top of the line GPUs, and cooling is a huge issue: some of these cards a rated @ 75-90W. That's more than a i7 MBP, including the CPU, weakish GPU, screen etc...so when you pack twice the powa, you cannot make it thin enough. One the other side of the coin, the gorgeous MBP enclosure, rules itself out of powerful hardware like that being so thin and light (and it is still too hot for comfort when stressed on your lap).

Edited May 25, 2012 by dtolios

[AJLynn]

How to make an aesthetically pleasing laptop, if you're HP - make it look like an Apple. Couldn't resist. But yeah, you want to make a gamer's laptop, it's going to burn some watts. That means heat, which means cooling, which means air flow, which mean size. My Apple will also heat up if I'm taxing the system, but I have a util that lets me change the fan speed as a function of temperature, and that keeps it mostly under control. Since it's aluminum and conductive, if I want to do anything really crazy I can put it on a base with a fan in it that makes a big difference. But for the most part I still recommend PCs in normal sized enclosures for serious 3D work.

[Playdo]

I see. If the SSD only affects software startup time, I can't justify the additional cost for it. I always thought that they did more.

 

Dimitrios, your Apple loyalty story sounds very similar to that of my friends too . They are beautiful machines, but the price difference is too large for me for it to consider buying one anyway.

 

And do all you guys work on 17" laptop monitors? I'd guess a 15" would be more portable (size and weight), but I have no experience on working on a laptop, so I don't know if it's too small for work.

 

I was thinking of holding out for 2-3 months, to see if there are any new releases. I'm not in a desperate hurry for it.

[Dimitris Tolios]

My "newest" laptop is a 17.3" Acer 7745G - It was the only affordable one that could meet my minimum criteria: not a 768p screen, i7 processor, dedicated GPU (Radeon M 57xx series 1GB DDR5 128bit)...on the pros were 2nd HDD bay and 4x Dimm slots. It was the "closest" I could do to the mainstream-> hi-end king of the day - the Asus G73, and equivalent Sony's would be closer to the $12-1300 but would also buy me a 1080p panel. Now I have a 1600x900 - meh, but I hooked up my cheapo 22" though the HDMI and worked on it flowlesly since day 1 when home. Remember, that was back in late 2009, and this Acer was a $800 machine, packing to of the line punch. Equivalent MBPs would be in the $2500 range for the 15" with weaker GPU. The new 2012 MBP is the only one that actually packs a better GPU than that Acer did 3 years ago...and I could replace it 3 times for the same price - gorgeous or not. After all the 7745 is not that bad looking - I hate the keyboard (in comparison to other laptops I've owned and tried), but other than that I would say it's pretty elegant and was running pretty quiet even under load. Lately it's getting a bit louder the hot days, but that's not unexpected as the fans grow older.

 

Was bought with 4GB DDR 1333 but went up to 8 and now 12GB as prices were ridiculous - tho before the CS6 and Illustrator becoming 64bit, I don't think I ever stressed the 8GB, even running multiple programs simultaneously. Such upgrades are way more expensive in 2-slot boards as you have to to go to 8GB sticks which used to be more than double the price. Now 2x8GB DDR1333 is almost "dirt-cheap" in comparison to when I bought the 1st 4GB upgrade back in 2009. The only task I regularly do that exceeded 5GB utilization was converting DSLR Raw files with LR3.

 

A very noticable upgrade I've also performed in 2010 was upgrading the slow 500GB WD blue (5400rpm) drive it came with, with a Momentus XT 500GB hybrid. Now it has an SSD working with it, but that's hard for laptops with 1x HDD slot.

Currently the Momentus XT 500GB sells for $80-99 on Newegg / Amazon.com (I do amazon most of the times to avoid taxes - not for long), and 2x8GB so-dimm DDR3 1333 is around $75-80 in the low end. Thus I was writing in another post of mine, that RAM and HDD speed should not be your decisive factor when choosing a more expensive model over a cheaper one, as for $160-180 you can get one of the best HDDs with "desktop" HDD or better performance, and as much ram as the Home premium version of Win7 can handle...for these upgrades manufacturers charge outrageous differences most of the time, so it's a no-brainer to avoid them altogether. The Momentus XT 750 is said to be much better than the 500, and if you laptop has only one HDD slot, I would pick it over a SSD. My laptop has a 256GB m4 i grabbed for 250 or so, and I have to say that I could not live with just that space...half of it almost is my Win + programs deployment (and a couple of games). SSDs are getting cheaper, but not cheaper enough.

[Frosty]

Interesting thread, but I have to make a comment

 

What the heck is Mid-End? Mid mean middle, nowhere near an end!

 

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[Playdo]

Yes Steve, it's the end of the middle that I'm after

 

Thanks for the info Dimitrios. Lots to think about. And is a 17" screen definitely recommended over a 15"?

[Dimitris Tolios]

I would say in today’s market, you can find decent basic (PC) laptops at around $500-600 and I would say the “sane” hi-end is around $1500, with custom builds, customizable etc models exceeding $2000 or more. Apple play’s its own game, just like other manufacturers but other than looks and battery life, most of the times the performance is sub-par for the price premium, as for the price a mid-range MBP asks for, you can get a way more powerful PC, usually with the screen to match etc.

Also – as I’ve elaborated above – reliability does not scale up according with price. Surely it’s logical to expect a $1000 laptop to be better built than a $500 one, but unfortunately the popular mindset “I will pay 2x the price to keep it 2x as long” does not stand. “Premium” brands are still built by the same factories using 95%+ the same components. Assembled in a more expensive (or with more cheesy lights) chassis won’t make it more reliable.

 

That said - in my opinion – “mid-range” is a laptop with decent discrete graphics and the best LCD/CPU combo you can buy for $800-1000. Most of the times, and as far as CPU / Ram performance goes, this can mean up to 90-99% of the performance you would get from a high-end laptop (monsters using desktop CPUs excluded).

15” vs 17”

 

I was always a believer that a laptop has to be as portable as possible. I do admire the sheer power the Asus G7x or large Clevos output, yet that comes with a big impact in portability: sometimes the power-brick + its cables that needs to power these monsters alone is painful to drag around. Battery life is a joke in most i7 laptops and a decent GPUs, but for those monsters even idling without switchable graphics will give you an hour or so (it gets there after the battery wears out a bit – don’t rush to say “mine gets 2H” ). The new ultrabooks - some that do pack a half-decent discrete GPU ontop of the HD4000 seem to be close to the ideal as far as portability goes, but the screen is too small to work fluently with.

 

17” in mid-range laptops used to be the easy way out of cheap 768p screens, which those “cheap b@stards” would put in even otherwise perfect for the price laptops. 768p is simply too small to work with – as soon as you drag the 3DS tool pallet to 2 columns, or even open up your Sketchup with a handful of extra toolbars you are losing 30+% of your screens real estate! Almost 10% of your screen was taken up by the Windows toolbar already ffs!

 

Unfortunately this is a double edged sword for me, as in more portable laptops (around 14-15.6”) the 1080p screens all of a sudden become too much – pixel pitch is too small, and unlike the iPad 3 and it’s scalable interface, having your tool-buttons become 2x2mm in size and having to be an FPS master in order to hit them fast is a pain. Add doing some fast stuff with your touchpad, and all of a sudden even browsing for stuff becomes harder! 15” class 900p screens are closer to that sweet spot that gives you more real estate to play with, without making things too tiny to click and read. Few decent 15” come with 900p screens – perhaps less than those that come with 1080p.

 

The 15” Samsung NP700Z5B is a nice example of a “ala MBP” execution – only much cheaper. You can get it with a 2,2GHz i7 (2nd gen) - HD 6490M 512MB (only) and 1TB HDD for $999 or around that. Lighter than MBP, pretty well build aluminum laptop. A full HD 15” is the XPS 15z by Dell (also 768p models)…overall the Asus N55 with the HD screen seems have the better GPU out of the 3. The Samsung is by far the prettier in my eyes.

[Playdo]

Thanks again for your time Dimitrios. You're a natural-born writer .

 

So to recap:

 

- A 17" screen with a resolution of 1080p is ideal. 900p is ok. But 768p is too small, and does not give enough screen space.

 

- A 15" screen with a resolution of 900p is ideal. 768p is good. But 1080p gives too small a pixel pitch, making text/icons too small.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Thanks again for your time Dimitrios. You're a natural-born writer .

 

So to recap:

 

- A 17" screen with a resolution of 1080p is ideal. 900p is ok. But 768p is too small, and does not give enough screen space.

 

- A 15" screen with a resolution of 900p is ideal. 768p is good. But 1080p gives too small a pixel pitch, making text/icons too small.

 

768p is mediocre even in 15" for anything other than really casual gaming with weak GPUs, movies, browsing etc.

I would say 768p is passable for a 11-13" ultra-light / netbook - machines that are not meant for working with - other than light coding / writing at least.

 

900p in a 15 is fine. in a 17" "passable".

1080p can be problematic in 15-15.6-16" laptops (that's my personal opinion) if your programs/OS don't have a scalable interface to make icons and text bars/labels readable. If you are good with keyboard shortcuts etc, you can work around that in design programs, but still you will be hunting with your mouse to hit icons etc.