Autocad recommended laptop

[ohiocad]

I can find all sorts of recommendations online, but those are from retailers wanting to sell hardware, so I'm looking for real world experience.

One of our guys here is wanting to update his current laptop, and is looking for something that will run autocad reasonably well, along with general word processing, adobe acrobat, etc.

Biggest concerns for him are weight, since he does a bit of traveling, and probably a 15" screen, so it isn't a monster to carry around.

Most of our autocad files stay under 5 meg, but every now and then we'll get one that hits 25-30.

Little to no 3d, LT would work for most projects, but he has full installed instead for lisp routines. Currently on Acad 2010, but upgrading to 2011, 64 bit, once he gets the new machine.

Any input for a price range under $1800 or so?

 

[JG2828]

Check out the Lenovo Thinkpad W510
System components
Intel Core i7-720QM Processor (6M Cache, 1.60GHz)
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64
15.6" HD Anti-Glare Display with LED Backlight and WWAN Antenna
NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M Graphics with 1GB DDR3 memory
4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader
Camera, 2.0 MP
320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Multi Recorder Optical Drive (12.7mm)
Express Card Slot & 5 in 1 Card Reader
9 cell 2.8Ah Li-Ion Battery - Dual Mode
Country Pack North America with Line cord & 135W AC adapter
Bluetooth w/ antenna
Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (3x3 AGN)
Integrated Mobile Broadband (Gobi 2000 3G with GPS)
Total $1,619.00

 

[dik]

I picked up an ASUS G73JH, 17" laptop a couple of months ago. It's an i7 with 8G RAM and 2 - 1T harddrives. It's pretty peppy with a good clear screen. It loads 3D megabyte files quickly.

I'm running Bricscad on it (AutoCAD workalike) and it's an extremely good machine. Quite fast... only problem is the 17" screen size makes it a bit cumbersome.

Dik

 

[francesca]

Thinkpads are awesome. For 2011 don't get anything with less than 3 GB of RAM.

 

[JG2828]

Thinkpads are also great because of their docking stations / port replicators. You can go from "desktop" to laptop without any setup or plugging in multiple monitors / keyboard / mouse etc.

 

[looslib]

For Windows 64-bit, don't go less than 8GB!

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli