# Search for a Laptop



## WSMkid (Jun 18, 2013)

Hello all,

                 I am in the market for a laptop for collageand am completely lost. I dont really know anything that I need as far as arunning system. I dont know the difference between a ram and the possessor. Iwill get a copy of the newer Solidworks on account of my major (Mec. EngineerTec) and I cant find that the operating requirements are for it. Im guessingthat I will need a lot of memory and something big to keep up with the graphicsand whatever elce there is. 

I tried searching and all thevideos talked about things I didnt understand. 

A tecish friend suggested Asus and HP. But said he cantreally help me with what all I need to run that software. :wall:

 Can anyone help me?
Anyhelp will be much appreciated.

 Thank you 

  GJ


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## moya034 (Jun 18, 2013)

I used to be a Dell laptop field service technician, among other companies. I also support them as an IT professional in the health care industry. (My company currently uses HP products). I'm not endorsing any company over any other. All the parts are made in China. The only difference is features vs cost and support. The big companies like Dell and HP tend to have the better support due to size of scale.

The best advise I can give you is get the laptop that has the best warranty for the length of time you wish to use the computer before upgrading. Buy only what you "need". In 3-4 years you'll be buying another one most likely anyway so don't get caught up in getting the biggest most bad*** machine there is in hopes it'll last you for a long time. It's not a question of if but rather when a laptop hardware will fail.

As far as specifications are concerned. Solidwork's website, or their technical support should be able to give you both the "minimum" and "recommended" system requirements. Write these down and compare. If you go HP or Dell, you should be able to call up their sales and relay the technical information from Solidworks.


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## jwcnc1911 (Jun 18, 2013)

You will find that Solidworks will run on about anything... having said that look for the best graphics card you can find and also a multithread processor.

Are you planning on purchasing Solidworks as a student?  It's quite expensive, go to their website and look for the student version.  I know for a while back in 2009 they even had a download that was free for a few months.

Dig into the possibility of getting the software before buying a laptop.

Also, consider Geomagic (formerly Allibre).  I can tell you from experience it is VERY similar.  If you can draw in one you can draw in the other.

Hope that's helpful!


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## Tin Falcon (Jun 19, 2013)

I am running geomagic (Alibre) on my two year old  base level Toshiba. 

Tin


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## Tin Falcon (Jun 19, 2013)

> Are you planning on purchasing Solidworks as a student?



As a student he will likely be getting a student licence IIRC usually under $ 100 some times free. 

I have been told by a good source US military  veterans can now get a SW student licence for $20 must sent scanned copy of DD214 and fill out and sign an application/ user agreement. I need to look into that. 

Currently Alibre is costing me $99 a year. 
Tin


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## WSMkid (Jun 19, 2013)

Thank you every one I think I will take your advice and call the solidworks help guy and see what they say. 
 As far as I know I will be getting the full student version. I was told at no cost to me but we will see. I will make sure I update with what I find. 
 Thank you again

  GJ


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## WSMkid (Jul 28, 2013)

Sorry guys I just realized that I had not posted about what laptop I ended up geting.
 I settled on an Acer 15.6" Touch-screan with 8GB of memory and 1TB of Ram.

 I have yet to use it for any thing because I dont really have any thing to do! 

 Here is the link to Bestbuy. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Acer+-+...1306016634.p?id=mp1306016634&skuId=1306016634

 Thank you all for the advice.

  GJ


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## aarggh (Jul 29, 2013)

I think my scotch must be too strong atm, because being in IT, I was glossing over the specs you posted, and just saw the 1TB of RAM! Took a fraction of a moment to sink in, but my instant thought was, My God man, what operating system are you running on that monster? Must be Vista 

cheers, Ian


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## WSMkid (Jul 29, 2013)

Ian it has windows 8


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## starnovice (Jul 29, 2013)

Ian, I had the same reaction 1T RAM!!! WOW!  Then I checked the link and saw it was 1T HD.  

Hey Ian, any experience with solid state drives?  Are they ready for prime time yet?


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## aarggh (Jul 30, 2013)

starnovice said:


> Ian, I had the same reaction 1T RAM!!! WOW!  Then I checked the link and saw it was 1T HD.
> 
> Hey Ian, any experience with solid state drives?  Are they ready for prime time yet?


I'm using them in a few machines/laptops inwhich the data isn't important, and I also built a machine to be my new cnc controller, but I chickened out and swapped it for a SATA drive.

The throughput and MTBF rates are much, much improved over what they were just a couple of years ago, but I still sort of distrust them for real time use like a cnc controller, unless I fitted two in a RAID1. That would be great then, and highly reliable.

The funny thing is, I've worked in IT for many years now, and for all the talk about platter based disks dying and being unreliable, it actually doesn't happen that often in reality. I've maybe seen a few dozen or so disks (out of literally many hundreds) die or develop bad sectors, and most of these failures were a manufacturing problem with a batch. Individual disk failures that I've experienced have been pretty rare, and usually because of power cycling issues. So I stick with SATA for most stuff now, especially as I have a metric ton of em!

cheers, Ian


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## starnovice (Jul 30, 2013)

Thanks Ian, that confirms what I thought.  I also agree about platter failure.  They are  rare and almost always show up on power up.


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## Capt,n John (Aug 24, 2013)

I absolutely hate windows 8...a lot of other people say the same thing.

Capt,n:wall::wall:


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## aarggh (Aug 25, 2013)

Capt said:


> I absolutely hate windows 8...a lot of other people say the same thing.
> 
> Capt,n:wall::wall:



Funnily enough, I hear that Windows 8 is the bestest, fastest, and most powerfulest version yet!

Although I did hear the same when Vista came out, and we all know how that turned out!  

For all my general work and control machines, I still use Windows XP, rock solid, lean, and just works reliably.

cheers, Ian


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## RonGinger (Aug 25, 2013)

I have windows 8 on a tablet, an Asus Vivo. I bought it mostly on impulse when playing with it in Best Buy I downloaded the mach Mill Wizard and it actually ran. I couldnt beieve it would really run on a tablet. Even Mach3 runs, but I have not tried to hook it to a smoothstepper yet. 

I almost immediately downloaded one of the Start button aps, I think it was Start is Back. Now the tablet opens with the desktop and a start button and I almost never see that dumb Metro screen. After that is just looks like windows and runs great.

I do still have XP on most of my shop PCs, I even still have Win2K running my router.

I wonder if that dumb Metro tablet screen was Balmers idea? Why anyone would think that with millions of users knowing how to use a Start button taking it away would be a good idea. Among the dumber things Ive seen in 45 years of computer work


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