FROM dual athlon TO laptop

[Cesar R]

I am thinking of purchasing a laptop to replace my dual athlon 1900+ bc i want the freedom of mobility specially now that that I go to school. Its much easier to have my own laptop like some other people in my studio instead of having to go home or carry my files on a CD and burn back and forth. I dont have any problems with my workstation, i use it for VIZ ACAD and not archicad in addition to photoshop and flash for acassional web design. - mostly 3d and archicad.

 

What configuration is out there or will be out there in the next 2-3 months that will meet my needs without making me feel im steding down the ladder(system wise) oh I plan to hook it up my screen at home when I am working there, but mostly ill be at school. One of the things that concern me is the 64MB card on some models.

 

any comments will be helpful thanks

[xgarcia]

Cesar,

Because I was in your same situation 2 years ago, I'll give you my opinion. I went with the crowd and bought the best laptop (well from my research anyway) you could get at the time: Dell Latitude c810, 1.13 gHz PIII, 256 MB pc100 RAM (I bought a second 256MB Dimm from crucial.com to total it out to 512 MB), Nvidia Geforce2 GO 32 MB video, and some extra stuff such as internal zip drive, dvd drive, xircom ethernet/modem card. Well let me tell you. I regret paying for all $3200 of it. Many of my studio classmates simply bought powerful desktops and placed them right on their studio desks. I know the arguement of mobility is powerful, but I personnaly feel that laptops are just underpowered. Not only that, I just can not get used to having such a small screen/keyboard/mouse setup.

 

So, just consider how much money you're going to spend on a laptop and take that money and spec out a desktop and you will see it's a much better deal. Not only that, with the desktop you can at least upgrade certain parts, such as video, tons more ram, more hard drives, even cpu. I'm just against laptops for studio use. By the way, I've just completed my last semester of design school at UF SoA and I must say I only used that darn laptop one semester at most. I would simply either place my desktop at the studio for a couple weeks or work at home and use CD-R's or zips to print/show my work.

 

If you must buy one though, consider this previous forum topic. Best of luck. By the way - what school are you at? Suerte.

 

Xavier

[Cesar R]

Hi Xavier,

 

I was thinking things out tonite and I decided to upgrade my workstation and not buy a laptop. BTW lucky you that you are done with school. How is UF SOA program?

 

Thanks

[bigcahunak]

Same experience here when I was a student.

When I was in 4th year I got me a Latitude too. Luckily for me, I found out that I don't like it within a month or so, and DELL were willing to take it back (minus a few hundreds of course).

 

If you'e in 4th, or 5th year, get another Desktop and a USB 2.0 external HDD, or just use a USB memory stick.

[Cesar R]

itzik, im in 2nd yer hehe, I guess I dont one yet that bad, I actually just got a Sony flat panel SDM-HS73 and I will be getting a new graphics card so I think im going to stick with my dual.

 

Thank you for you experiences

[xgarcia]

Glad I could help you. I just didnt want you to spend that much money on a silly laptop when....well you figured it out. UF SoA is a great program to prepare you for grad school. There is a lot of Ivy League placement from the undergrad students as well as Sci-ARC and other private school. The undergrad program is very tough and demanding. Our 24 hours a day studios is a nice feature because you can work whatever time of the day you feel. Here is a link to the school's site (the site is not that good). And here is a link to some of my work (don't look at the 3d - it's old and horrible) . Granted I've not updated it in about 1 year but you can get the feel for how much physcial modelling is demanded at this school. Enjoy.

 

Xavier

 

[ May 01, 2003, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: xgarcia ]

[garethace]

And here is a link to some of my work

I like the Carlo Scarpa Brion Cemetry project - a very difficult project to explain in visual means and i think you have managed to capture something about the experience of the space in your physical model shots.

[xgarcia]

Hey thanks for the comment. That project was acutally from my first design class. We were learning to analyze architecture and began with a watered down floorplan of the Brion and also some photographs showing the space. I had no clue, as everyone else in the class, what we were doing. But it was fun none the less.

 

Xavier

[garethace]

But it was fun none the less.

Trust me, these little projects that the staff always tell you are, "Lets put this silly little exercise behind us".

 

They are the exercises that are really useful. Because a drawing or visualisation can communicate the three dimensions of architectural space now, without much bother. What drawings convey with great difficulty, or not at all in many cases - is the fourth dimension of time spent in the real physical world, by ordinary non-architect persons experiencing motion through a city, town, environment, building or other institution.

 

I think, you managed to suggest a notion of the person's dynamic experience of motion through the space that is the Brion Cemetry - you should always remember that at the back of your mind. For all the hours you can spend in front of the hardcopies and screens in the office - architecture is the master of all the arts. But unlike all the other arts - poetry, theatre performance, music, painting, sculpture, dance,... architecture is the one art which never requires an expert to assess the beauty and power of the experience - people can do that all by themselves.

 

Don't let anyone ever allude to the notion that good architecture can only be understood and appreciated by great architects - on the contrary, architecture is unlike music, painting, writing, .... in that respect - it is for the ordinary non-architect. It is helpful as an architect to become an 'ordinary person' now and again - to immerse oneself in the physical real world around us - to get outside of the virtual web space that has become an extension of our physical reality.

 

That is why i choose that project of yours to make a comment about - in conveyed that un-tainted perception of the physical world, which all good architects must learn not to discard and forget - "once they have made it". Once a week, at the very least get on that mountain bike and join the general populus down around the sea shore in florida, and spend a couple of hours travelling a few miles on your bike, and observe the lives of ordinary people. You will learn something useful about architecture. Something you will never learn seated in front of a cg program - take it from someone who has learned that the hard way.

 

[ May 02, 2003, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: garethace ]

[xgarcia]

Hey, thanks for the words of advice. I appreciate it.

 

Xavier

[garethace]

You will find some good points raised here too i think:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=35;t=000012

[Cesar R]

I wont replace my Dual athlon for now, but I am ordering an apple powerbook 12" g4. The 15" model however comes with the ability to conect to an apple LCD, expand Ram to 1GB and L3 1M cache. The 12" power book has not cache and memory to tops out at 640MB. the price difference is $500. I want to do some work "moderate" on the laptop and want it to last me for a few years. I also want it to be sort of a washed down version of my desktop machine. what do you guys advise?