New Laptop - what's the best for blender?

Hi there,
I’m looking into getting a laptop in the next few weeks - I’m hoping to get one that supports my two main hobbies : blender and college
a Macbook pro is too expensive, so I’m gonna have to go with a pc …
any suggestions?

my budget is about $1000 and I’ve already done a bit of shopping. (currently looking at an acer, 4 gb RAM, 1.83 GHz core2 duo processor , Win Vista 64)

so, my question: what’s best for blender ? (and where do I buy the laptop at ? - links would be appriciated)
OS wise : (vista 64? 32? )_
graphics card wise : (nvidia, intel, ati ? chipset / card? )
and space wise (at least 250 gb)

do you have a new laptop that blender works reeeallly well on? I’d love to know which one :slight_smile: !

thanks for commenting!

What are you planning on doing with blender? I use just a regular macbook, and blender runs pretty damn good for most things.

Linux and a lot of RAM.

Keep saving.
Buy a macbook pro.

Avoid ATI, they make crap drivers for linux , and blender in windows has issues with ATI products.

Use 64 bit Linux and get lots( > 4 gb) of ram :). windows dos not have full support for 64 bit. If you must use windows then avoid vista at all costs, its a recorce hog, not good for demanding application like 3D.

If you have to make the choice, buy a laptop with a really nice graphics card above all else.

That alone will take you farther than all the RAM in the world.

I am interested too in which laptop is the best for blender. Somebody can specify which model think is the best quality/prize? Some links with comparisons?

About the anteriors posts (without quotes):

I think that the best OS for a PC is Linux Mint. It is an Ubuntu based distro with multimedia codecs and ATI/NVIDIA drivers.

In all the webs that I have looking for a laptop the buy windows XP with the laptop (well there are some, like DELL that in some models you can choose if you want to buy Ubuntu, I think). The problem is: is legal to sell a laptop/computer always with windows (well now with Vista, even worst than XP). If you buy this laptop you can return the CD of Windows? I suppose there is no solution about this, but…

I agree that NVIDIA is a better election than ATI for blender. But I think that Geforce is better than Quadro when you analyze quality/prize. Well always people say that Quadro is more better than Geforce, I am sure, but it is more expensive. I have been working with different computers one with a professional card 3DLABS and others with Geforce, and in my case for low poly it was enough the Geforce.

About the RAM, well. For 1000$ I don’t how many GB you can put. But in that moment I think that the best choice is to put 4GB.

I just bought a new notebook a few weeks ago and I love it. I did a lot of research in the sub 1000$ spot and finally decided on the HPdv6875 se. It has a 1.83 intel duo, 3 gigs ram, geforce 8400m gs 256m, 320 harddrive and lots of other assorted goodies. I wiped vista from mine and put a xp sp3 - Ubuntu dual boot on… works perfectly. I runs Age of Conan resonable well at medium settings at roughly 25-35fps. Blender runs on here just fine also, I’ve been using this notebook for modeling mostly and really haven’t had any outstanding issues.

get one with a full keyboard, including the number pad.

quoted for agreement

I just had a 17 inch with a full keyboard and number pad. It had an ATI integrated graphics so that stunk. I ended up selling it and got an HP with an 8400 GS (15.4 inch). Even though it has Vista, it runs great and Blender is super smooth. For ten bucks more I got an external number pad that I throw in my laptop case. For me, it was better to get a discrete nVidia graphics solution that to have the integrated number pad.

You can add ram later…you can adjust OS’s,…you can update batteries…you can swap out hard drives…but with laptops, get the processor you need and the graphics you want since those items are not usually upgradeable by the consumer.

Just go for Macbook pro.it would be great for u.

I have a laptop that is over 2 years old. It’s perfect for my blender. 256 meg ram.

HOLY CRAP YES!! numpad emulators suck :stuck_out_tongue:

thanks for the suggestions guys - I’m probably going to keep saving up until I reeealy reeealy need it - (I currently have a desktop one that could use a good graphics card upgrade )

So… lots of ram,external numpad, good graphics card…
sounds good :slight_smile:
thanks

And if you are getting lots of RAM I would consider using Linux or Unix 64 bit operating systems, because you can’t access that much RAM with a 32 bit OS, Windows 64 doesn’t work great, and most of all, there is no 64 bit Blender for Windows (yet!). You can always dual-boot…