Picking a new laptop

[btsdev]

I'm looking for a laptop for a 3d design and graphics studio that I'll have to traveling to and from often. I'll be needing to do a lot of rendering but I'd like to avoid a ridiculously huge notebook. My budget is about $3,000-$3,500. I've more or less come down to four different choices;

1) An Alienware mj12m
2) An Alienware Area-51m
3) A Dell Inspirion 1100
4) A IBM Thinkbook T Series.

The Alienware mj12m has a P4 3.2 GHz, 1GB DDR 400MHz, Mobility Radeon 9700 128MB, 60GB ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive, 4x2x8x DVD+/-R, Wireless Ethernet, Norton Internet Security, and Office 2003 Professional and costs $3,700. With the same configuration (at least as close as I could make it), excepting a GeForce FX 5700 128MB, the Area-51m is $3,500. The Dell is virutally identical to the mj12m but only costs $3,300 with a student discount. IBM was having website problems and would only let me configure a system that was more expensive, with a Pentium 1.8M and a Radeon 64MB at $3,800. I'm not sure whether Pentium M or Pentium 4 based systems are better for 3d-modeling and I think I may be going a little overboard, but I'd like to be able to use the computer for a while. Let me know what you think and thanks for your help.

 

[btsdev]

If you have any other suggestions that would be great too, thanks.

 

[Wuzup101]

Just wondering but have you considered an apple Powerbook? A 15 or 17 inch model might be right up your alley. You could get a nice one and a firewire external HDD with that sort of money. Remember buy your ram third party in whatever instance... 1gb sodimms in pc2700 are going for under $200... pc3200 are well under $300...

 

[DaWhim]

ibm t42 all the way 15" with flexview. you can call to ibm.

 

[jdiddy]

Originally posted by: DaWhim
ibm t42 all the way 15" with flexview. you can call to ibm.

Seconded. T series no doubt!

 

[fbrdphreak]

IBM makes some of the best quality laptops out there and if you get a 15" model with the ATI FireGL T2 128MB card, it will be better for your rendering than the mainstream cards (Altho not as good as an nVidia workstation class card). I almost got a T42p with that one, but it was too much for what I needed. Look into IBM.
Technically the P4 would be better for 3D rendering, but a P4 notebook won't be as mobile and I haven't seen a workstation class card in P4 notebooks (i.e. FireGL or Quadro). BTW, if you are using this for school you can get an educational discount through IBM.