So, my cousin is looking to get a laptop for school/himself. He will primarily be using it for doing architecture, 3d modeling, and graphics editing (and of course some video games ;P) Since I'm the computer literate one of course I'm asked to help, but I really don't know much about hardware and definitely not much about laptops. I'm not too sure on the price range, but MacBooks were mentioned as an option, so it's not too skimpy. I would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance!

I didn't have money as a limit (within reason), and I got a Sony Vaio Z. It's 13", comes with SSD's (very fast hard drive), core i5/i7, 1600x900 or 1920x1080 resolution (on a 13" screen!), and a decent 330M GT GPU. Can last about three and a half hours on full charge. And it comes with Windows, so he'll be able to run all those technical programs. I believe autoCAD doesn't run on a mac, for example. And it weighs only three pounds.

It's pricy, though. But there are some nice discounts now on the hard drive that there weren't when I was buying. You can probably get a nice configuration for about $2300, maybe less. I'd say it's definitely worth it, the performance scales well with the price. The hard drive is very fast, I can do stuff like load word in a second.

i5: http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Gamers-G51JX-X3-15-6-Inch-Gaming/dp/B00361G0ZO/
i7: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0034NGZWM/

Though those two laptops have the lower end of the i5/i7 processors.

I think the sony is a ripoff. The 330M is more of a mid range card. If you wanted a SSD, I think its better to buy it on your own.

Well, if he doesn't care that much about portability, then the Vaio Z is definitely not the answer. It's so pricy because all that they stick into it they stick into something so small. But it doesn't have any competition in its class, because no one else offers anything else that similar. It also comes with a VERY nice keyboard (which is also backlit), a very nice screen (great viewing angles. Suffers a little vertically, but just a little), and the bundle of software, while mostly crapware, is useful and I consider the media software a gem (just made a thread about it).

So, yeah, get more information. If he wants something to do all that and he wants it to be nice and portable with a decent battery life, he should really take a look at the Vaio Z. It's not built as nicely as macbooks (mostly plastic), but is firm enough for me to be very happy with it and makes up for it for being so light. If he doesn't need portability, go for something bigger - it'll cost less.

Oh, and main downsides of the Z: Sony has pretty bad customer support (supposedly) and the sound quality sucks. Good enough to watch a movie or listen to most music, but go high or low or loud and you'll notice it.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 18 2010, 4:21 am by Centreri.