I bought a new laptop from Dell just before the new year, and it arrived today!
Finding the right laptop for me was pretty tough. I did a lot of shopping, and the options in Canada are very lacking compared to the US. The main thing I was looking to upgrade from my old laptop was the graphics card. The last machine had an integrated graphics chip and although the computer wasn’t great in the first place, the graphics were by far the weakest link.
Unfortunately, graphics cards seem to be the most difficult thing to find for laptops in Canada! You’re either looking at bottom of the barrel or top of the line, and almost nothing in between. My desktop computer is my main workstation, and my laptop is more for personal use, when I’m on the road, and the odd time I am working on location or providing training. For these reasons, I was looking for a graphics card that was more middle ground.
After much searching, I found the Vostro 1720. I was initially looking at only 15″ screens, but doing a search on Dell’s website for laptops based on graphics card revealed all the super high end machines, and the 1720. Turns out the 15″ versions of the Vostro, which I was checking earlier, have a lesser card in them. The 1720 still isn’t an amazing card (it is a Nvidia GeForce 9600M GS), but it is still a performance card and is way better than any of the other options I was looking at. It wouldn’t break the bank either! Searching CGTalk for user reviews also revealed several very happy customers, and no negative reviews. So, this is what I ended up going with.
I am still setting everything up, but so far so good. I have Windows 7 on the new machine, and it is pretty cool. Quite a difference from XP, and surprisingly quite a bit different from Vista as well. Still learning the ins and outs, but it seems to run quite smooth, and I’m quite pleased with it so far. I’m sure I will find annoyances with it before too long, but first impressions are good.
Thats all! Was just excited about my new toy and thought I would share.
It’s hard to find a new good laptop for graphics work. 3D World usually has those nice little sections at the end of the magazine that talk about hardware and software, comparing prices and the abilities of each product.
Sounds like you got a good one!
Ah, I should have thought of that! Checking 3D magazines totally slipped my mind. I was just doing internet searches and figured that would catch everything. Good idea though. I will have to keep that in mind for my next one.