Laptop buying advice

[After G]

I need some help picking out a PC laptop for work.

I haven't really been looking at PC hardware recently, because I love my Macs too much. So I'd really appreciate it if the MR community could help me out.

I will be using this laptop for 3D CAD (Solidworks specifically).

A few questions about buying:

1) Vista or XP? I like XP just fine but worry that I would have to shell out later for Vista because of Vista-only future software or features.

2) My boss recommended I price out a Dell laptop. I'd like some pointers to good deals, keeping the intended purpose of the laptop in mind.

3) Any CAD experts: should I go for the OpenGL cards? Or would the gaming cards be good enough? I've heard horror stories about graphical glitches and cards even crashing Solidworks. How would I justify the expense if I were to go for one?

4) I'd like to hear about the systems other people here use and their personal experience with them.

 

[ebouwman]

if you need it right away i would get XP, from what i've heard about vista so far you might want to wait a while.

You could allways get a mac laptop and then use bootcamp.

 

[lamina]

The Dell XPS notebook line is pretty solid... good pricing compared to Apple stuff. My buddy recently picked one up, and the build quality is great.

 

[robPOD]

one word: "Bootcamp"

 

[Aniej]

agreed boot camp or parallels or if must be a true windows based system then an IBM is very nice.

 

[chriscorbin]

I really hate windows, but if you have no other options i would say go with a Sony i love them(using linux and windows) go with a higher-end model because of the software you use.

 

[Vidd]

You've obviously considered it but just out of interest, why is Bootcamp insufficient?

 

[furious]

Bootcamp is only beta. So it is not a safe option.

 

[TechHistorian]

Bootcamp is only beta. So it is not a safe option.

So is Vista ...

 

[clevin]

1. Vista. absolutely, its very nice, I tried my roommate's Vista machine, must say, its really much better than my old XP.

 

[After G]

The reason Boot Camp is not an option for me is because I tried running SolidWorks on my Mac mini and I had repaint issues with the GMA 950. Windows is unsupported on Macs as far as problems go - which is not Apple's fault. And it's beta too, as previous posters have mentioned. I don't want to spend on an MBP + Windows license only to find that the video card is unworkable.

I wish SolidWorks ran on Macs ....

if you need it right away i would get XP, from what i've heard about vista so far you might want to wait a while.

1. Vista. absolutely, its very nice, I tried my roommate's Vista machine, must say, its really much better than my old XP.

I guess I should try Vista in a store for myself before making any judgments ...

 

[johnee]

I bought my daughter a windows machine a few weeks ago from dell. it came with vista, and i'm not impressed. it's still got buggy issues with it, albeit small, but annoying. she's running it on a core duo, but it still seems a bit sluggish. I'm sure it could be tweaked to run faster, but i really don't want to play with it.

I should note I only got 1GB ram instead of 2. Until I know how she'll treat it (it's a laptop) I didn't want to go overboard on $.

 

[ebouwman]

The reason Boot Camp is not an option for me is because I tried running SolidWorks on my Mac mini and I had repaint issues with the GMA 950. Windows is unsupported on Macs as far as problems go - which is not Apple's fault. And it's beta too, as previous posters have mentioned. I don't want to spend on an MBP + Windows license only to find that the video card is unworkable.

I wish SolidWorks ran on Macs ....

I guess I should try Vista in a store for myself before making any judgments ...

Bootcamp does load the video card drivers for you, and i *think* that some the graphics cards on the MBP are the same as on PC's because they use Nvidea and such, not really sure about that though.

From what i've heard about vista it's not worth getting unless you go all out and get the ultimate edition, and then i think you would need more ram, better graphics cards and all that to run it.

Maybe you should get an alienware laptop lol