Laptop for Grad School?

[dmw16]

I haven't been keeping up with PC hardware recently, so I figured I'd turn to the experts for help.

I am going back to grad school (probably) this spring and I am going to get a laptop. The school has their basic recommendation, but it seems very generic.

I am going for a masters in systems engineering. What kind of hardware should I get? I don't want to spend more than $1000. I want something pretty portable. It doesn't have to be a 3lbs laptop, but I also dont want a 10lbs desktop replacement. It needs to have enough horsepower for matlab. If anyone is in a similar program what software do you use?

Should I try and wait for Vista or is it a ways off?

So what brand and specs do the gurus suggest?

 

[darkswordsman17]

I would say that Vista is at least 3 months away for the OEMs to start packaging it with the consumer oriented laptops. I don't know that it will offer much for you to wait for.

I would say you're going to want a Core 2 Duo CPU, and 1GB, maybe 2GB of RAM. Not sure how graphics intensive Matlab is, so I don't know about the GPU (and in the under $1000 you're not going to probably do much better than an x1400 mobility).

One thing you might wait for is the new hard drives that feature I think about 4GB of flash memory. They should help with battery life and overall speediness of software. It might only show up in laptops out of your price range though, so I don't know if it will really be worth waiting for.

Dell has their mid-range 15.4" laptop. Sorry for the shameless plug but I have one for sale, it only has a Core Duo, but you can upgrade it to Core 2 if you want to. Has pretty decent specs otherwise, and is much below your budget so if you need extra RAM or a better CPU then it should still fall within your price.

I would guess that HP and some other brands have some decent offerings as this is probably a very common price range for laptops nowadays.

 

[magomago]

you won't need a real videocard for matlab...well that isn't true - but anything out there should suffice without a problem Matlab is all about number crunching so its processor intensive, but unless you are doing some kind of massive simulation that you coded that takes days to run...most things in matlab execute fairly quick for java bloated software I would think a 1.5Ghz processor of any sort - even AXP - runs fine. I had it running on an "old" 2200+ and never had to worry about processing time.

 

[dmw16]

thanks for the advice. i ran matlab all thru undergrad, but always on my desktop. i will check out the flash memory drive thing.

I may be able to wait it out. i am waiting to hear back from the dean as to whether i'll be starting spring or fall. if it is fall then I have some time to wait out stuff like vista.

 

[krotchy]

I run matlab on my inspiron 700m. It has a 1.6 GHz Pentium M in it and cruddy integrated video but it actually runs matlab decently well. So a Core 2 Duo based laptop should fly in comparison. Matlab in general is horribly inefficient, but the Core 2 runs it about 2.5x better than Pentium 4/D's ever did. The Turion x2's are no matlab slackers, but the Core 2's are definitely a good deal faster clock for clock.

I would recommend a dual core for matlab no matter what though. Mainly because if you run something long your computer would be completely locked up if you have only 1 core, Matlab tends to dominate the queue. Also if you dont plan to use your computer at the time, you can open 2 instances of matlab on a dual core, and run 2 long m-files at once.

If you dont plan to game, do not bother with a mobility radeon/geforce. Its a waste of money if your not gonna game. Intel's integrated proset is garbage for gaming, but I can upscale video to 1080p on my little 1.6 GHz pentium M with integrated video, although its stressed pretty hard. A Core 2 would more than suffice though.

As far as manufacturers go, Ive bought quite a few Dells before with no complaints. Although with the new Apple Intels, I kinda like the Idea of getting a Macbook with windows on it because they are nice looking computers. IBM's are ugly but very well priced for the power you get. VAIO's from sony kinda piss me off, because they pre-install more than even dell, so Sony is the only one I would avoid for sure. HP has a nice line of laptops overall. Alot of the non major system builders seem to be providing people with nice laptops (Asus, MSI, Acer etc). Overall Dell, IBM or HP are my choices, though I might get flamed for this.

No matter what you get though, I would recommend getting a re-install disk for your OS, and immediately formatting the Laptop from anyone and reinstalling windows as soon as you get it.

 

[50]

I am doing matlab right now and if you are going to do 3d models or that kind of stuff I suggest minimum intel 950. I am about to sell my z60t lenovo because it has a 915 and can't handle some of the 3d features.