core i7 laptops (and other recent monsters)

[rodberry]

HI all, I have been shopping around for a new laptop for designing and showing work in Touch. I need a laptop because I need to work in different locations a lot, so lugging a shuttle is not a good fit.

I'm going to be short of money for the next year or two as I've become a full-time student so price matters - however, I'm not above starving myself and family for a few more frames per second (sad, isn't it?)

So I'm going to start a thread on monster laptops.

I'm biased towards 17" screens at 1920 x 1080 for designing with Touch. I am tempted by the 15" 1920 x 1080 ones appearing now, but I'm concerned that my old eyes might not be able to see the small print in parameter boxes etc. I'll check some out in a showroom before I make the big decision.

I'm going for core i7 and big graphics card 1GB - Nvidia (ATI and touch are a bit hit and miss)

I'll add to this thread as I go along. Please pitch in if you have experience of any of these or other candidate machines...

[rodberry]

hunting about, I have these so far...

alienware M17x - not core i7 but still a possibility. Dell will no doubt update this from Core2 Duo to i7 but probably not before my shopping window closes (late feb 2010). 17" screen appeals to me but it goes through batteris pretty fast I hear.

Alienware m15x - also tough on batteries but that comes with the territory. can switch between discrete graphics and onboard for writing and surfing in cafes. The alienware machines seem to have solid build and solid keyboards.

alienware m11x - netbook from hell (not released yet, I think)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZkl8chN ... tube_gdata
apparently specs something like this...
Intel Core 2 U7300 1.3GHz
Nvidia GT335M 1GB VRAM
11.6″, 1355×768 display
2 hours of battery life (maybe more if not using graphics hardware etc)
weighs about 4 lbs.

Toshiba Qosimo X505 screen 18.4" /1920 x 1080
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptop/ ... spx?page=1
good balance of price, power, battery life. very shiny fingerprint-collector exterior. weighs 10.4 pounds (4.7Kg) witout power brick. there's an x500 too but I can't see what the difference is.

more coming ...

[teflonjf]

Hi Rod,

I have one of the AW m15x and I've been quite pleased with it . . . I considered the Sager, but went with the Dell mostly because they offered and 18 months no interest deal. The Sager seems more portable and has the 280m chip, if I'd had the cash I probably would have gone that route

Good things -

- Built very solid, runs quiet and cool even with Touch blazing away
- Screen for me is plenty big, seems more like a 17" than 15.6"
- Runs solid, have done a few performances running 6 hours straight w/ no crashes
- 1 GB VRAM is nice on laptop

Could be better -

- I wish they would offer an m280 GPU
- I wish someone would make a smaller system, say a true 15" or even 14", with an i7 and 280m. I can live with a smaller screen in return for more portability, especially comfortable use on an airplane
- Even with an i7, fast disk and 260m the system is 1/2 the speed of a desktop with a quadcore and GTX275.

[rodberry]

okay, this isn't core i7 yet but still a potentially cool touch machine.

Reviewed here:
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews.p ... 4&pageid=1

these reviewers were greatly impressed. the graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M - a 40nm munchkin with 72 CUDA cores, 1GB of DDR3 on a 128-bit memory bus

I am sorely tempted by this. It would be great for designing touch stuff on the move (or on the sofa) and, when you want to surf, you can switch it to an intel graphics card that's still pretty powerful (touch will crash of course) enough to watch videos and surf the net - and have 6 hour battery life! The way the thing conserves power, I'd guess at over an hour's heavy touch use and maybe more.

The CPU is Core 2 Duo SU7300 and the bios let you overclock it enough to get about 20% improvement all round for the price of a one degree temperature increase (and less battery life I assume).

I'm leaning towards getting this for on the move and building a cheap(ish) desktop system and overclock it a little for more hardcore use.

Rod.

[teflonjf]

Well damn, that looks like just the perfect Touch traveling machine. I really miss my Dell m1210, I got a lot of Touch work done on it because it was the perfect combination of size, power and battery life. Only reason I sold it was because the older chip in it didn't support some of the new features and only had 256MB.

I've taken the m15x on quite a few flights and while it is easier to use than I thought it would be (even in coach), the 1.5 hour battery life is pretty limiting. I'd image the 150w power supply would be too much for the empower outlets, I think they're rated around 75w.

[rodberry]

I've taken the m15x on quite a few flights and while it is easier to use than I thought it would be (even in coach), the 1.5 hour battery life is pretty limiting.

Is that 1.5 hours running touch?
6 or 9 cell battery?
I'm guessing that a solid state hard drive would increase battery life a little too? (bankruptcy, here I come!)
hmmm... guess not! :(
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd ... ,1955.html

the m11x is still tempting me but I'd probably have to make up a desktop machine to balance.
I may still have to go with the m15x for pure power.

[teflonjf]

Yeah 1.5 hours full time Touch with a 9 cell battery. The battery does add a lump on the bottom, but it still fits nicely within my backpack - overall it is much easier to transport than I thought, I don't really notice the weight difference from the smaller system I used to carry around. An obvious upgrade would be to get a second battery, the higher screen res is really nice, so is the i7. Decisions, decisions . . .

[felix]

search no more!
Dell Precision M6500 with Core i7:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/dell-precision-m6500-mixes-core-i7-with-business-savvy/
unbeatable, but maybe expensive.
and 17 inches at 1920x1200 is the portable workstation standard, don't go any less than that. Yo'll just live longer that way.

[rodberry]

hmmm... I'll take another look before committing myself to the m15x blingasaursus. I must admit I had really got used to 17" and am afraid I'd need glasses to do 15" at 1920x1200. can't seem to get it in red though in singapore - I'\ll try tthe oz website

I'll pass it thru the website and get a quote before blowing my savings (again).

Rod.

[teflonjf]

Update to my m15x experience . . . I ended up buying an m11x as the m15x was just too big to haul around and work while traveling a lot.

The m11x is great, it runs about 60% speed of the m15x (even with just a dual core), I get 3 1/2 hours of work out of it using Touch with the CPU overclocked, easily fits on a standard airline tray. It is the perfect traveling Touch machine, great for sketches and prototyping, but not as a main performance machine.