OT -Laptop

[claw]

Received TurboCad from Mr Claus. Looking to buy a laptop for it. Can you all recommend one? Looking at a budget of about 500-600. Is this realistic? Dont want to put it on this computer, may slow it down more than I prefer. Besides, I like the idea of portability. Thanx for the advise.

[rockrat]

A buddy down the street runs a computer store. He tells me that he just cant beat Dell and some of the sales that officemax (and the like) have. His sales are based on the "I need it now" idea.

Might start there and watch for sales.

rock-

[Ron LaDow]

Re: Dell
Just hope you *never* need to call Tech support. If so, allow at least 3-4 hours and presume the problem will not be solved.
They may be cheap, but I think I know why.
Thanks,
Ron LaDow

[Dawai]

Dell, check for rebates..

I got one from the Office depot cause a friend had a big discount.. got the damn thing home and "it didn't have a serial port" for programming plcs.. it does however have a parallel port for Mach3.. I bought a usb-serial adapter but not tried it out yet. It does not work with the moto-board serial programming software..

Make sure it will do what you want is the moral of my failure.

I gave $1500 for mine, 3.2 gig speed, big screen, Wireless G router, extra Microsoft ergonomic usb-wireless keyboard and mouse, DVD burner, lots more junk than I needed. I should've bought a cheaper used one.. but..

[Your Old Dog]

David, are you sure you can't get a PCMCA card for it with serial port? They gott'em for Firewire ports. OR, I'll be happy to trade you my Toshiba Satelite 1805s for yours straight across! Hell, I won't even make you box it up, I'll drive down to pick it up http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net//biggrin.gif It's admittedly only about 1/3 the machine as yours but it do have serial port!

[claw]

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=333040&pfp=BROWSE#
opinions on this?

[Dawai]

Don't ask me, I made a mess of my purchase. Looked pretty good.

Evan or one of the computer guru's can direct you.

I love the wireless, check into a motel, set it on the table, turn it on.. about 75% of the time it hooks up and you are net surfing.

[cuemaker]

I got my dell off ebay. I saved about 300 in total. But I got a higher end lap top. It was new in the box, everything original.

What I did was shop Dell for the laptop, then took my time with ebay.

Some good deals and some not so hot deals. Also watch out for refurbished laptops. They will be pretty cheap.

[IOWOLF]

I have a Compaq, I like it.

------------------
The tame Wolf !

[JRouche]

I bought a used Toshiba off the bay. I am able to run Mach 2 without problems. Toshibas tend to be on the big side though and they get warm. JRouche

[nheng]

** Danger Will Robinson **

Notebook graphics are typically far behind desktop cards and especially with integrated, shared memory graphics, may not render or generate images properly.

Not AS big of a problem for 2D software but can be a real BIG problem with 3D graphics.

Best thing to do is make sure it has at least a separate graphics card (in that price range, maybe an ATI Rage - something).

Even then, get a full refund option IN WRITING based on the ability to function with your package.

Been there and done that http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net//wink.gif Den

[Bruce Griffing]

I agree with Den. I would use a desktop for a 3d graphics package.

[Dawai]

I've had problems with Amd processors myself.. Mostly in desktop machines.

My laptop, intel p4, ATI video, runs solidworks 2005, Mach3, Mastercam, most the cnc simulators.. so far..

It ain't perfect. I'll look into the serial cards for it. I have a usb-serial adapter but it ain't perfect either.

A computer is a tool, you normally purchase it with a desired use and settle for what you can afford. I'd rather had a sony vaio, the one I looked at only cost twice as much.

[littlelocos]

Hello,
I have been running TurboCAD for about 6 years now and have been recently looking for a laptop as well.

Currently, I run TurboCAD Pro v11 on a Pentium III / 1.2 GHz and 1Gig of memory. I use a 17" flat-screen/CRT monitor. TurboCAD runs pretty well on this system. The point -- it doesn't take much to run well.

Depending on what you intend to draw with TurboCAD, anything at or above what I have above may be just fine. I use TurboCAD-pro to design miniature IC engines in 3-D using solid modeling. TurboCAD does this well - even on my system -- UNTIL I go all out and render every part down to the fasteners and place the whole thing on one of the drawing sheets in paperspace. I get by by not rendering the wireframe images until the drawing is printed. To give you an idea, on my current project, a flat-head four-stroke model airplane engine, it takes 15 minutes of crunch-time on the computer to print out the exploded view. All of the other sheets are ok at less than a minute to plot. There are 19 sheets total, plus the model in the drawing file.

To bring this around, I have a separate drawing file for the tooling required to build the engine. It is 11 Mb compared to 63 Mb for the engine file. For the smaller file, everything works very quickly.

My 17" monitor is barely adequate for CAD work. I could not imagine working with one smaller. Most laptops have a 15" monitor MAX. As with most CAD systems, TurboCAD has PLENTY of menu taking up the screen (even though it is one of the best CAD systems i.r.t. hogging up the screen for menus). By the time you get the menues where you want them, the 15" monitor will give you about a 6" or 7" by 8" or 9" area to draw on.

Another thing to think about is whether you would like to have the separate numeric keypad. Most laptops do not.

I have looked at probably 50+ laptops over the last month and for my use, my own choice for a laptop would be the one here:

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pavilion-Noteboo k-PC-ZD8205US-/sem/rpsm/oid/126347/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pavilion-Notebook-PC-ZD8205US-/sem/rpsm/oid/126347/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do)

However, $1200 is currently not in the budget. I have pretty-much decided against a laptop and am looking at upgrading my desktop with a larger monitor and a faster processor.

If you would like to see some of my work, check out http://www.littlelocos.com/pip for my 3-cylinder radial. I have an exploded view posted there. The flat-head can be found at http://www.littlelocos.com/news

Or, better yet, stop by and see me at Cabin Fever. We set up in the West Hall along the wall backing up to the entrance to the show.

Overall, I would recommend looking at what you have, deciding on what you would like to draw, and go from there.

My e-mail address is in my profile if you would like to talk off line.

Hoping this helps,
Todd


------------------
Todd Snouffer
Littlelocos Model Engineering


[This message has been edited by littlelocos (edited 01-01-2006).]

[Paul Gauthier]

Ron LaDow
You are so right, Dells customer service is terrible. Spent 4 hrs on the phone and problem not solved, Son in law spent 5 minutes and cured it.

------------------
Paul G.

[JIMofalltrades031]

Acer makes a model with the 15in screen at your price point. Good one not exceptional but pretty good.

[Rustybolt]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by David E Cofer:
Don't ask me, I made a mess of my purchase. Looked pretty good.

Evan or one of the computer guru's can direct you.

I love the wireless, check into a motel, set it on the table, turn it on.. about 75% of the time it hooks up and you are net surfing.</font>

Reminds me of a story. My oldest daughter lives in Cali. The last time she changed appartments she had to wait two months for her wireless service. So she would drive around the neighborhood with her laptop on and stop when she got a signal and read her email.

[Dawai]

Rusty:

I was involved in with a "skip tracer" a few weeks back. They tried to hire me to locate someone who has been living out of motels.

My suggestion? one of the ip addressable cameras on ebay and old clunker cars. Park it at the motels and watch for him on the net.

They sent this small build attractive woman out of one of the local PI shops on her own. I kinda guess she is heavily insured back to the company via contract. She had no martial arts experience, nor combat training, nor any basic self defence, nor any common sense.

Yeah, I love my laptop, have trouble keeping it in the case. It is on the coffee table now where visitors can prop thier feet on it.

[BillH]

Turbo Cad doesnt require massive resources. It runs just fine on my compaq presario, 1.6ghz 768 megs of ram.(It ran fine with 256 megs of ram in xp).
Need to ask yourself if a notebook is really what you want, and if so, go look at them in person.

[PHiers]

This laptop does have a numerial key pad. I bought two of them last year for my tax office. (we simply cannot do with a numerical key pad) It also has a 17 inch screen. A little costly tho....


http://www.gateway.com/products/gconfig/proddetails.asp?seg=sb&system_id=s7700nb

------------------
Paul in NE Ohio

[claw]

Thanx to all for your replies. I am anxious to use the program but now realize this notebook purchase is not something to rush.