New Laptop

This may be an old question, so sorry in advance. I can't find a specific answer. I am in the market for buying a laptop that is the best to run SL. I'm thinking of in the $1,500 range to spend. Can someone help me with a couple of recommendations?

ibuypower.com

i recently "test configured" one with a 2.8ghz intel core2, 4 gb 667mhz ram and a geforce 9600M GT

for 1,509$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220344

As always, I'll repeat that I'm a big fan of ASUS laptops. Because they're the only laptop manufacturer in the world that makes their own motherboards and graphics cards, they're typically able to offer far more bang for the buck than other brands. They also happen to make the nicest screens I've ever seen on laptops, which is definitely a plus.

My mother is a photographer, and when she recently found herself in need of a new laptop, I steered her towards the ASUS M50Vm-B3, which is basically the same as M50Vm-B2 in the link I posted here, just with a couple of minor bells & whistles added. (The B3 seems to have disappeared from NewEgg's listings in the last few days; no idea why.) She absolutely loves the thing. She brought it over the other day, and I played with it for about an hour. Vista annoyances aside, it's a really nice machine. I was very impressed.

For $1499, the specs on the B2 are top-notch.


If you want to go up to 17", there's also the m70Vm-X1, which is very similarly spec'ed, for the same price. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220346

To keep the price the same, it basically trades the bigger, more expensive screen for half the video memory (512MB instead of 1GB) and a smaller hard drive (320GB instead of 500GB). All the other specs are the same.

Either machine should be very good for SL.

If you can go up to the $2000 range, the G series is even better than the M series. But if $1500 is your budget, the M's are great.



Now that I've made my recommendations, let's talk about what to avoid.

First of all, don't get anything with an nVidia G92 or G94 graphics chip in it. Those are the ones that have been overheating, leading to all kinds of problems for Dell, HP, and other laptop manufacturers that have been using them. The problem is in the material that coats the chip, and at present, there are no good ones available. Ordinarily nVidia is awesome, but somebody blew it big time on this. Whether the fault is nVidia's or of the company that supplies them that coating material is unclear. I suspect the material supplier is to blame, but regardless, the damage is done. Don't get any cards that have those particular chips in them.

In the mobile GeForce 9 series, the ones to avoid for now are 9700's and 9800's, from what I've read. 9600's should be OK.

Second, I would steer clear of anything that doesn't have a high-res screen. In a 15", you want 1680x1050. In a 17", you want 1920x1200. Don't go below that if you plan on doing any texture work, photography, etc.

Here was my thread:

/327/f7/266724/2.html#post2050723

And as usual my advice is to go into a store and try a high resolution screen before commiting because high def certainly is not ideal for everyone.

A medium res screen is adequate for most users and your eyes will thank you for it if you sit at the computer for more than a few minutes at a time.

1920x1200 on a 17" screen is too much for alot of people (I know because I own one and I watched many others use my laptop and comment how painfully small everything is). If you can hack it then great, the extra real estate is useful, but recommending it out right every time someone asks for laptop advice without so much as a caveat is not the best advice IMHO.

I couldn't disagree more, Anthony. If on-screen text is too small for those with weak eye-sight, simply increase the font size. It's really not a big deal. If icons are smaller than what you're used to, you can make those bigger too if you really want to, or you can just get used to the smaller ones.

I'd be willing to be that most, if not all, of the people who complained about stuff being too small on your screen wouldn't say that anymore if they just used the thing for a couple of days. Most of what they're complaining about is just the fact that it's different from what they're used to.

What IS a big deal is if a screen doesn't have enough pixels physically on it to display your work at full size. No one doing any texture work should EVER consider a screen with less than 1050 pixels in height, for the simple reason that that's the absolute minimum you need in order to view a 1024x1024 texture at normal magnification. Ideally, I don't recommend going below 1200, but not everyone wants the additional bulk and weight of a 17 inch notebook, which is certainly understandable.

Also, the quality of the screen makes a huge difference. If you're talking about the crappy, abnoxiously-high-whitepoint, abysmally-low-contrast panels that some companies use (Dell's typically among the worst of the worst in this regard), then yes, those are hard to read no matter what. Combine the fact that they already look terrible with the fact that small pixels can be hard to distinguish individually, and things can easily become illegible on those screens, even for those with relatively decent eyesight. But with a good quality panel, that's never an issue.

That goes for eye-strain too, by the way. If your eyes hurt after looking at your screen, it's NOT because the pixels are too small. All other factors being equal, smaller pixels mean sharper imagery, which in turn means LESS eye-strain, not more. The problem is that the other factors usually are not equal. What causes strain is low screen quality, improper settings, improper balance between the screen and the ambient lighting, or any combination of the three. A quality screen with good contrast, proper refresh, proper white point, sufficient brightness, etc., properly adjusted, will never cause eye pain, no matter what the size of the pixels.

Consider the fact that the ink dots on the pages of any decently printed book or magazine are far smaller than the smallest pixel in existence. Yet no one complains of eye strain from that. Again, dot size alone just cannot be the culprit for that sort of thing. That's just not how it works.



I do agree with you, though, that it's worth seeing something before you buy it, if at all possible. Unfortunately, however, most of the good quality laptops the world has to offer are not sold in stores. It's a shame that they're not.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8780198&type=product&id=1204332501169

What I got, it is a 64 bit, so untill I used the Nicholaz Viewer I did have mem leaks in world.
No problems now and it is upgradeable. Love it.

This is not about agreeing. It about recognizing the fact that a significant percentage of people will find high def screens too much and that it's prudent to mention that before all out insisting people buy them. By all means give your personal recommendation and what works for you but at the very least add a caveat that this is one thing to check before buying one.

Finding any 1920x1200 17" display to try out at a local store will give an appreciation for how big things appear on screen and whether the real-estate vs DPI is a good trade for the individual. Many people havent seen a screen with such a high DPI and they may not know what they're getting themselves in for.

As for my own screen, it's flawless quality Sony x-black display with perfect contrast and ideal ambient lighting with zero reflections. I've used lots of displays and it's as good as they get.



You're trying to explain the fundamentals to someone who already understands this. I'm making a very simple point. High def screens are not for everyone. If OS and apps were resolution independant then I wouldnt be suggesting people check for suitability before buying. It would be a no brainer.

Changing environment settings, namely the OS DPI setting and resolution setting, are not ideal. A non-default DPI setting throws out many apps because so few people change this setting that developers forget to account for it, especially in dialogs, and non-native resolution gives fuzzy results. Font sizes and zoom levels help alot but not all apps and certainly not all UI components/toolbars/dialogs etc allow this.

Bottom line is high def screens are not ideal for everyone. If you're contending that high def screens are perfect for everybody without reservation then we better leave it there

Hopefully everyone knows by now that you get the best screen, with highest resolution you can for the buck. Many times there is only $10 or $20 more to "step up".

Once you have your screen, then all you have to do is right click the desktop and set it on the resolution you want. My screen will go up to 1280x1024, but unless I am doing some detail work, it stays at 1024x768. It would have been more then slightly silly for me when I was shopping to limit myself to a screen with a MAXIMUM resolution of 1024 x 768. I also use Dualview and watch movies etc on my hi-def TV with a completely different resolution at the same time.

I have never, ever run into an app gui that was hurt by changing the resolution. PS, Autocad, Gimp, Maya, XSteel, Irfanview, Acrobat etc. So, silly me, has to ask this question. If it hurt your eyes to use your screen at 1920 x 1200, why in the heck didn't you just change to a lower resolution???????????????????????????

"Best" laptop is an open question, because there are tradeoffs between size, weight, features, battery life, and cost.

If you want a laptop that approaches desktop-level graphics performance, you're looking at the desktop replacement class of machines. Those typically have 17" screens and weigh somewhere around 8 pounds, but they can be bought with high-end graphics accelerators such as the NVidia 8800.

In the middleweight class, you can buy systems with 15" screens and mid-level graphics such as an NVidia 8600. The weight drops a bit; some of these are under 6 pounds, some are close to 7. They run SL reasonably smoothly, though they won't achieve the frame rates of the heavyweight systems.

The lightweights have screens in the 12-14" range and low-end graphics such as the NVidia 8400. Some of these weigh as little as 4 pounds. They won't satisfy you if you are a serious content creator and the laptop is meant as your primary Second Life computer; on the other hand, if your goal is mostly to stay in touch with SL while you're on the go they might be just the thing.

The price of any of these classes of system starts at around US$1000 and goes up from there. More money gets you better graphics chips, higher screen resolution, faster CPUs, lower weight, and better build quality.

Less expensve laptops (there are systems under US$500) almost always lack separate GPUs, and instead use integrated graphics. They range from bad to awful for Second Life. So far, there is only one integrated graphics chipset that is even halfway decent (AMD 780G), and it's for desktop systems, not laptops. You can get SL to walk (if not run) on most of them, but the experience is less than ideal.

Still, if you really want an ultraportable SL system as a supplement to another computer, one of the better netbooks like the MSI Wind, the higher-end Asus Eee models (the screen of the origiinal Eee is just too small, but the 901 or the 1000 series are better), or the Acer Aspire One might be worth a look; they're the only reasonably affordable computers in the under 3 pound class. (Dell and Lenovo also have competing systems on the way. Avoid the HP MiniNote; it's a very bad system for SL, and it's pricey.) There are some expensive subnotebooks with higher performance, but they're mostly $1500 and up (sometimes WAY up; price a MacBook Air with the SSD or a Lenovo X300) and the SL experience is still substandard because of the lack of a GPU.

Sadly, some combinations of hardware just don't exist. I'd love a system in the lightweight size/weight group but with a high-end GPU. But nobody makes such a beast, and its battery life would be terrible.

The new hybrid SLI (NVidia) or hybrid CrossFire (ATI) feature (systems that combine integrated graphics and a discrete GPU (the GPU shuts down when it's not needed to decrease system power consumption) could be a winner once the feature finds its way into laptops. The best of the integrated graphics now available are good enough for anything not involving 3D, so you could still get decent battery life for general office applications, and the GPU would improve performance for Second Life and other 3D apps.

So.... what is "best"?? It all depends on what is important to you. If the machine is going to travel a lot you'll want to stay toward the lightweight end of the spectrum, but you'll have to accept some performance compromises. If your laptop will only move occasionally, you get more computing bang for your buck with the heavyweight class. You have to decide what balance of size, weight, power, and price works for you.

And I guess one more topic needs to be discussed when it comes to the subjects of laptops. People that have not been stuck using a laptop think they must be the ultimate symbol of cool. There are really only two scenarios where someone needs a laptop thou. If you need to travel a lot for work (or pleasure) or if you are a student and need to bring your laptop to class.

The initial cost for a laptop comparable to the same performance in a desktop is much higher and you have seriously limited your choices when it comes time to upgrade your laptop. Face it, the lifespan of a computer is now around 4 years max if you are looking to run higher end programs or games. (I do have some computers still up and running that are 10 years old but in two of those cases, they have been stripped down and loaded with Linux to run as servers.) At the end of that 4 year time span, it is no problem to upgrade the components of a mid or large tower(I also never suggest a mini tower, you once again have limited your choices) to get it running spiffy again.

At work I had an AGP motherboard go out on a 5 year old machine a month ago. Brought it down to the computer shop I frequent and changed the power supply, installed an AM+ motherboard and chip, 2 gigs of memory, installed 5 fans and an 8800 GT video card (oops almost forgot the new DVD burner I threw in). Know how much it cost for my "new" computer? $600!!!! This would have been impossible with a laptop.

Me either. I didn't say it would if you read what I said again. I wouldnt expect it to either.



No need to get excited. I'm quite comfortable with my setup. The areas where I spend prolonged periods of time focusing on (code editors, browser) I have set to comfortable levels. But to answer your question, I want native resolution so everything is pin sharp.

As much as you two buddies like to keep turning this on me, I'll say again. This is just a passive observation after seeing others interact with my laptop that not everyone is comfortable with a high def screen. Changing from the native resolution doesnt give results as sharp because it's not being mapped pixel for pixel on screen. So best to see which resolution someone is comfortable at and buy a laptop with that resolution to save fussing around afterwards. That's all I'm saying.

FWIW my answer when someone asks me this question is, if they think they'll find the extra real estate useful (heavy graphics/texture editing being the obvious one) then try a high def screen to see if you think you can handle it long term, and if so definitely go for it. Else an average resolution is perfectly fine. I don't see why this is so unreasonable. What I find hard to understand is someone insisting unreservedly that others get a high res screen just because its the best screen for them.

Anyway I don't care to turn this into an argument. I only wanted to point out one thing to consider before commiting to purchasing a laptop and I've done that.

Not picking on you and apologies if you felt that way Anthony. I have been on the forums a long time and respect anyone who is here and giving up their free time trying to help others. I did do some googling and have seen that yes, if you get a 1920 x 1200 LCD monitor then you are pretty much stuck at that resolution and are forced to tweak the font size etc as Chosen pointed out. Personally I don't like wide screen monitors because with cad I prefer height over width to allow for the command line and there really isn't much loss between 1280 x 1024 and 1024 x 768. Plus the 8800 GT has a plethora of settings to correct the display across different resolutions anyways.

So to sum it up and to keep from derailing the thread anymore. Guess I am even more happy now then I was before that I have a desktop now instead of a laptop, with more options then if I had spent a third to half more money for a laptop and been forced to compromise.

Anthony, I'm not sure who the "two buddies" you're referring to are, but in case I'm supposedly one of them, I'd invite you to consider that just because two (or more) people happen to disagree with you in the same way doesn't mean they know each other, or even agree with each other. For what it's worth, there are a few names in this thread I recognize as frequent forum users, and a few names I don't know if I've ever encountered before or not, but there's no one involved whom I know well enough personally to be "buddies" with at this point in time.

In any case, I think the only person "getting excited" right now is you. I certainly didn't see anything in anyone else's posts that seemed emotional to me.

If you're interested, here's my take on how this dscussion has gone so far. You disagreed with something I said, which is fine. I replied to express my partial disagreement and partial agreement with the points you raised, which is also fine. You then chose to respond with "agreement has nothing to do with it". As I see it, that's where the discussion's flavor began to sour. Even though I don't think you quite meant it as such, a statement like that can easily be interpreted as an insulting dismissal, and an open invitation for anyone who also disagrees with you to speak up combatively. From there, the seeds were laid to turn a simple and trivial difference of opinion into the beginnings of an argument. I chose to ignore it myself because I didn't see any point in feeding it, but I can see how it likely prompted others to jump in.


You're certainly not wrong that whenever possible, try-before-buy is always the best policy. I don't think anyone was disputing that. But as I said earlier, that's not usually possible with good quality laptops, as most of what is sold in stores these days is junk. About all we have to go on (unfortunately) therefore is brand reputation and personal recommendations.

You asked what is possibly unreasonable about suggesting that someone go to the store to try a high-def laptop screen before buying one. Let me try to answer that as plainly as I can. The problem lies in the fact that there are far more variables involved in judging a screen than just the number of pixels that are on it. And since most people aren't technically inclined enough to understand fully what they're looking at with each one, it's very easy for people to misjudge.

You yourself illustrated this point perfectly with your erroneous mention of eye-strain as one of the drawbacks of high-def, which as I pointed out, and as you later seemed to agree, is simply not true. Anyone can go to a store, look at the low-quality panels that are on display, see a high-def one that happens to have worse specs than a medium quality one (which is common, considering the price-points stores need to stick with), and conclude that "high-def hurts", when in fact it's not the resolution that's the problem, but the contrast, brightness, white-point, etc.

If it were actually possible to see the Asus laptop screens in the flesh, of course I'd encourage everyone to do that. But since they're not sold in stores, that's not an option. And it's just not fair to suggest that someone try to make a judgment based on looking at a lower quality panel that happens to have the same number of pixels. It's not an 'apples-to-apples' comparison. I wish it were, but it's not.

I hope that makes sense to you.

I just got a HP Pavillion dv6000 with 3Gb RAM, Nvidia Pure video HD graphics and Intel Centrino dual-core. Cost £699 from Curry's and runs like a dream. First time ever I could run the latest viewer without crashing, put my graphics to max, run my modelling bot and run live chat. Didn't even have to change drivers. From opening the box to being on-line took less than 30 minutes.

on lcd's if you lower the resolution you (most likley) end up with streached pixels which look worse than a composite commodore monitor that has not been turned off in the last 30 years

or you end up with a really tiny screen with alot of black around it , like my laptop

if it kills your eyes its best to leave the high resolution and expand the window elements, you can expand everything, the header bars the scroll bars the text ect ect ect

me personally i dont like tiny screens with uber high resolutions, but a 17 inch with 1280x whatever (depending on if its widescreen or not) is very comfortable to work on for me

and that covers chosen's requirement without assuming that your now a professional who is going to take this thing out to the jungle for 4 years doing renderings of waterfalls for a billboard just becuase you want a laptop that runs SL

Thanks to all for useful information. I guess I should have explained my needs in my first post better. I'm looking for a laptop that runs SL smoothly. Doesn't need to be transportable really, since I'll just park it at work next to my other PC., so weight isn't really an issue. I'm looking for something that runs SL without too many issues (well considering SL in general) and isn't that pricey. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Cheers Jesse. I don't feel you two were trying to pick on me, in any case we're all capable of standing our ground, my "keep turning this on me" comment was referring to you two falling back to my own use when I was trying to make a general point based on watching other people's response to a high res screen.



1280x is reasonable, maybe even considered low resolution so most would have no problem with that setup. It's the super high 1920x resolution that CHosen recommended I'm saying is too much for alot of users.



I've been calm thanks. Feel free to quote me if you think otherwise. The excited comment I made was fairly clear I thought because I quoted immediately above it. A "why in the heck" comment with 20/30 odd question marks I perceived (likely/hopefully wrongly but we only have what others type to go on) as someone getting excited. In any case I wasn't referring to you.



Then my mistake for not being clearer with that. I should have said "Agreeing whether a high def screen is the best one to get has nothing to do with the point I'm trying to make.". The point I've been making is that for some people it's the best choice, for others it isnt, so can't be universally recommended without caveat.



What I was saying with that is it's best to find any high def screen to try out to give a feeling for what one is like. Granted not all displays are equal but this is better than purchasing one blindly.



Don't recall backtracking on that or indeed on anything I've said in this thread so far. We still disagree on this. And "erroneous mention" is your personal opinion, please don't state as fact. If I make a mistake or change my mind I'm cool about saying so. The larger an image is projected on the back of the retina the less someone has to strain to see it. I skipped over your book comment last time, but try halving a regular reading book in size (half physical size with double DPI) and see how many complain about fatique by the end of the book - I'm willing to bet some will, and by your argument it'll be none. (girls skip to the next paragraph please). Size matters.

Chosen Few, I didn't pick up on your comment just to pick flies, start a flame war or massage egos. We both have better things to do. At the end of the day we're both trying to help other people. I picked up on this because I can genuingly imagine people buying a high def screen (with the resolutions you quoted in the first post) where they've never used one before based purely on someones recommendation, especially if they express it with keeness, unreservedly and without caveats like in this case, and don't realise what they might be getting themselves in for. I still maintain a significant percentage of users will be uncomfortable viewing 1920x1200 on a 17 inch screen, and in those scenarios adjusting settings is noticably less optimal (for reasons I've given in this thread) compared with getting the right screen with the intended resolution for the individual from the outset. Computers aren't cheap obviously and it's something someone has to live with for 3 or 4 years so thats why I wanted to chime in on this and try to contribute something, with mixed success evidently but c'est la vie.

Best, Ant