|
Misconduct -> RE: Suggestions for a WITP AE travel laptop? (3/24/2011 4:07:37 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
Before I start looking for a new laptop (my current is a five year old Sharp), I was hoping that some of our knowledgable Tech Junkies might be able to suggest features or brands that I should look for. I intend to use this mostly for travel, and especially for WITP AE while I'm on the road. Should I rely on WIFI, hotel hook ups, or a Card from a cell phone (mobile for our non-American brethern) provider. Any features you find indispensable? Any traps to look out for?
Help me Obi-wan! I'm a geezer! (both in life and current tech). [:D]
Yeah I got trapped in the laptop I got now, I would not buy anything Gateway again. Basically this was a $1750 laptop reduced to $999, its got blazing power (more then enough to replace a desktop) with a major flaw design which is the entire laptop is over-voltage which means it basically is to powerful for its own design, instead of lowering the voltage, they basically threw them on sale and didn't tell anyone. Once I figured out what I needed to do, I basically had to cut the laptops power by half just so it wouldn't overheat everything, Im talking the GPU, Video card and Harddrive were all above crash levels.
Sadly I once adored Gateway as I have a few desktops I bought back in the early 90s and they still run to this day (remember the old 486's?) I still have one running a small BBS with a Dot matrix printer (no joke).
About the laptop, I would highly suggest you cater to your needs. For example, I just about always buy a gaming laptop just because I need the power to play AE or watch a movie, but I also need the speed to do video editing which is because I have digital cameras throughout my boat and I record videos of people fishing so I can give
them a copy at the end of the day, so usually a desktop replacement works for me.
Most laptops generally come with a few gigs of ram, you want to max that out right away, if your choice comes with 2 gigs (Make sure its either 32bit or 64bit first!) Max it to 3/4 gigs accordingly. I always buy my Ram the same day I buy the laptop just so I can get it in there and be done with it.
Video Cards are tricky mainly because most are after market garbage, you have to research the video card on the laptop so you can get a better understanding of how well it will work for AE/other things. My laptop has a Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS which was at the time the biggest videocard you could throw into a laptop, I am able to play AE and do video editing at the same time if I wish. Then again you might not want that kind of power or price tag either, so basically research the card and see how it stacks to others.
Finally Resolution was a big key for me, my laptop runs generally 1900x1200 and thats farking huge for a 17 inch laptop. Most generally are 1600x1200 or smaller, however I wanted that extra size for movies and gaming.
You know theres a huge difference in AE when you play on 1024x768 or something like my dad has a 30 inch moniter, 15 inch monitors should be big enough to give you a decent resolution, not sure exactly how big, but make sure you arn't getting some crappy net book like I did, mines suppose to do 1024x768 however it won't go past 800x600 so I can't get AE to run on it again.
Far as brands are concerned, its basically what you can afford, I mean If my laptop blew up right now I'd probably order from http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/
Cyberpowered has a few good designs, their tech support isn't the greatest, however the prices fairly makes up for it.
|
|
|
|
