recommend laptop for my prof

[konakona]

My advisor told me earlier today that he is ashamed to bring in his aging vaio to group meetings with all the noise coming from the dying cpu fan. Although my first impulse was to suggest replacing the fan, I got a feeling what he really wanted to do is to find an excuse to get a new laptop. He asked me if I knew anything that met his criteria reasonaly well:

He travels quite frequently, so size and weight is of the utmost priority to him. Yet at the same time, he is not very fond of shrinked keyboards or undersized screens found on sub-laptops. I don't think hes into gaming at all, none of serious video encoding or 3d rendering for him either; to my understanding, he just needs something functional with a dual core, not something severely compromised like the EEE (he wouldnt want that for the size alone).

As noted in the title, he doesnt mind paying a top dollar for a good laptop to last him a while. How about Lenovo IdeaPad U110 (11") for a starter?

 

[SergeC]

If money is no object, the small VAIO is pretty awesome. Easy to type on, as well - and I have big hands.

 

[Slowlearner]

The IBM (now Lenovo) T series should have something to meets his needs, and it doesn't mean very expensive either ~ 1500$. Of course if he is willing to make the switch - there is no question about their useability - he has to go the Apple route, there again we are talking 1700 - 2000$.

 

[xSauronx]

X300? small. light. awesome. full-featured. pricey

or a T series.

 

[konakona]

Originally posted by: xSauronx
X300? small. light. awesome. full-featured. pricey

or a T series.

X300 only comes with solidstate drives right? Is the technology reliable? he seemed to be somewhat skeptical of those. Intel powered Macs vs competition is more about style in his and my views, and neither of us are big fan of them.

Thanks regardless, I will look into that vaio and T series as well.

 

[TheStu]

x300 is Lenovo, so not sure when or how Mac got mentioned.

But, I am mentioning it now. MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacBook, all of those are quite light and thin, the MacBook is the thickest Apple laptop at 1.06" closed, so thin is in for them.

 

[konakona]

No, I am fully aware what x300 is and was merely combining my responses to the replies in one paragraph. xSauronx mentioned x300, which sounded like a more interesting option, so I brought it up first. Then I moved on to comment on Slowlearner's apple usability bit.

Prof was more concerned with weight then size, but I assume (and hope for his sake) thin also means light? being able to use macOS is not a plus for him, he has no desire to do so, or so he told me. Thanks though, its good to know macs do have some genuine pros to offer.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: konakona
No, I am fully aware what x300 is and was merely combining my responses to the replies in one paragraph. xSauronx mentioned x300, which sounded like a more interesting option, so I brought it up first. Then I moved on to comment on Slowlearner's apple usability bit.

Prof was more concerned with weight then size, but I assume (and hope for his sake) thin also means light? being able to use macOS is not a plus for him, he has no desire to do so, or so he told me. Thanks though, its good to know macs do have some genuine pros to offer.

Well, thin does not always mean light, though I have never had issues with the weight on my macbook, and they have actually gotten progressively lighter since the Core Duo was released, which mine is. The MacBook Air is around 3 lb, which is pretty good.

The x300 is quite solid, though crazy expensive.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: konakona
No, I am fully aware what x300 is and was merely combining my responses to the replies in one paragraph. xSauronx mentioned x300, which sounded like a more interesting option, so I brought it up first. Then I moved on to comment on Slowlearner's apple usability bit.

Prof was more concerned with weight then size, but I assume (and hope for his sake) thin also means light? being able to use macOS is not a plus for him, he has no desire to do so, or so he told me. Thanks though, its good to know macs do have some genuine pros to offer.

another X series may be good for him. the X60s have a tablet version, theyll come in pricey, but far cheaper than a X300 while still being quite thin and light.
theres also the dell latitudes, some of those are 12" and pretty light/thin, such as the XT

 

[Rottie]

3D rendering on a MacBook Pro? It must be a joke right? I think you should go with Lenovo notebook any model

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Rottie
3D rendering on a MacBook Pro? It must be a joke right? I think you should go with Lenovo notebook any model

Why do you say that? What about the MacBook Pro do you think would make it a bad idea for 3D rendering? At least, my interpretation of what you said is that you think it would be a bad idea.

 

[Parasitic]

He's probably going to buy it with research funds most likely. So money is definitely no object, although you're probably going to be limited by manufacturers/brands.

What companies does your university have contracts with? If Lenovo then probably go ahead and suggest the X series. What kind of research do you guys do? Most likely he just wants a computer with a VGA output so he can hook it up to projectors and give PowerPoint presentations and maybe watch a DVD when he's on the road.

 

[SilthDraeth]

ASUS-LAMBORGHINI VX3
or Asus U2E

 

[konakona]

Originally posted by: Parasitic
He's probably going to buy it with research funds most likely. So money is definitely no object, although you're probably going to be limited by manufacturers/brands.

What companies does your university have contracts with? If Lenovo then probably go ahead and suggest the X series. What kind of research do you guys do? Most likely he just wants a computer with a VGA output so he can hook it up to projectors and give PowerPoint presentations and maybe watch a DVD when he's on the road.

I am not all too sure, but I think we do have some sort of partnership with lenovo. Our research involves solid state devices, nanostructures and other EE/MSE topics. You guessed it right about what he wants to use the laptop for, he gets to travel A LOT to meetings, seminars and whatnot.

Originally posted by: Rottie
3D rendering on a MacBook Pro? It must be a joke right? I think you should go with Lenovo notebook any model

Looks like lenovo x300 or x60/61/s would work best for him.. but I never said he would require any 3d modeling; on the contrary, I implied he would only use it for most general purposes like reading documents, giving presentations, etc. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

 

[Parasitic]

Based on what you said, I think he might want to look into a Dell XPS M1330, or a Dell Vostro 1330 (the business counterpart, I believe). My advisor just got one and while there are all sorts of funny issues with it (95% of those issues relate to that stupid Media Direct thing they put on), it looks like a nicely equipped system. The M1330 also comes available a HDMI port along with a VGA port, and with little effort he could hook up the laptop to a VGA projector or a DVI display (via a HDMI-DVI adapter).

He's a professor with most of his work done on a PC. While Macs are awesome as they are, crossing over is not really a great option. Office 2004/2008 does not complete read 2003/2007 files without issues, especially PowerPoints. Unless you have enough free time in your PhD research to troubleshoot every little thing (he's not going to bother to do it himself, and since you're the one making the "suggestions", be prepared to be the go-to guy), stick with PC's. Remember, if you recommend him a decent and new laptop he might thank you for it, and if the purchase turned out to be a lemon or not 155% up to satisfaction he'll give you a ton of grief.

Edit: another thing I think need to be stressed over: MAKE SURE THAT THE COMPUTER COMES WITH WINDOWS XP PREINSTALLED. While I like Vista, most people may not. My advisor told me to clean out Vista and put Windows XP on his machine the minute he signed for the delivery. Don't argue with your advisor and do as he says. To avoid this grief, get Windows XP. Unless he's already using Vista day-in and day-out, I bet you $5 that he'll want Windows XP on it if he's a Windows guy.

 

[Rottie]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: Rottie
3D rendering on a MacBook Pro? It must be a joke right? I think you should go with Lenovo notebook any model

Why do you say that? What about the MacBook Pro do you think would make it a bad idea for 3D rendering? At least, my interpretation of what you said is that you think it would be a bad idea.

To be honest with you I worked at movie studio and I never seen any mac running 3d rendering programs like Maya or 3DS Max etc but they have Final Draft what program can mac do 3d rendering?

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Rottie

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: Rottie
3D rendering on a MacBook Pro? It must be a joke right? I think you should go with Lenovo notebook any model

Why do you say that? What about the MacBook Pro do you think would make it a bad idea for 3D rendering? At least, my interpretation of what you said is that you think it would be a bad idea.

To be honest with you I worked at movie studio and I never seen any mac running 3d rendering programs like Maya or 3DS Max etc but they have Final Draft what program can mac do 3d rendering?

All of them, IntelMacs can run Windows.

My comment was directed at the idea that the hardware in the MacBook Pro was somehow deficient for 3D rendering. Since i do almost none of that work myself, I really have no idea what 3D rendering software there is out there. I know that Blender will run on OS X, but that is the limit of my knowledge.

 

[Rottie]

run on both OSes - Vista and OSX 10.5 are the best way to go

 

[konakona]

So he ended up getting X300 back then. He felt it was a bit sluggish at first, so I did a fresh install of vista to get rid of all the clutter that came with it and all was well.

Now, he's not very well versed with computers and his usage habits slowly degraded everything again. He says the SSD is too small and wants something new with a hdd (250gb+). I have recommended installing a new hdd, but in the end it appears he just needed an excuse to get a new laptop. It's his money (or school's), so whatever.

Again, he doesn't do anything fancy on it - mostly office aps, email and web browsing for the most part. Anything outside of underpowered atoms should fit the bill performance-wise. One thing he does care about is weight (not so much about size, a bigger screen is a plus) and battery life.

With a projected budget of $2000 or so without taking special deals with coupons/rebate/BCB into account, what options does he have for a 12-14''? Knowing that his windows proficiency would bog the system down again, I asked him if he wanted to test the waters with a macbook. He says he doesn't want to be bothered familiarizing himself with OSX, so no apple.

Personally, I think x300 would be still fine with a new hdd but oh well. Note that he doesn't need any high performance GPU. As long as the weight and size is right, price could move in either direction. Any thoughts?

 

[aceO07]

Thinkpad X201s. 12", 1440x900, 2.5lb, i7 processor, good keyboard.

 

[konakona]

thx for the suggestion ace, I will add that to the list of contenders.
anyone else?

 

[konakona]

thx for the suggestion ace, I will add that to the list of contenders.
anyone else?

 

[Brainonska511]

I second the X201, either the "s" or the non-"s" version.

 

[lambchops511]

x201 or x301 ... x201s if u can get it...

 

[Aarondeep]

I second the X200 or X201. They are also available in tablet form. If he does alot of power-point presentations with his laptop in class he would love the tablet. My professors used it in class so they could write notes on top of the slides during lecture. They would even post these lectures online that were "ink'ed" from office online post-lecture.

It prevents the need for the professor to use the white board when he could do it all electronically.