[ddotm]

Wanted to talk to the esteemed crowd about choosing a laptop. If your criteria were that the laptop be powerful, light, quiet, and run VS2008, CS4, SQLServer without hick-ups, what would you choose? I have always stayed on the software side of things and have not been a gadget fan, so I am a bit lost in the sea of choices out there.

[JackOfAllTrades]

Hi, and Welcome to D.I.C!

We recently had a laptop thread that might be helpful.

I've heard good things about Lenovo laptops (they took over the IBM ThinkPad line a few years ago). I use a MacBook Pro with VMWare Fusion to run various Windows versions, and develop with VS2008 in XP on it. Main thing is probably to make sure you have enough RAM (not usually a problem nowadays), and a faster hard drive. Some of the less expensive laptops use slow 4200 RPM drives. You should look for at least 5400 RPM, preferably 7200 RPM.

[ddotm]

JackOfAllTrades, on 22 Feb, 2009 - 08:52 AM, said:

Hi, and Welcome to D.I.C!

We recently had a laptop thread that might be helpful.

I've heard good things about Lenovo laptops (they took over the IBM ThinkPad line a few years ago). I use a MacBook Pro with VMWare Fusion to run various Windows versions, and develop with VS2008 in XP on it. Main thing is probably to make sure you have enough RAM (not usually a problem nowadays), and a faster hard drive. Some of the less expensive laptops use slow 4200 RPM drives. You should look for at least 5400 RPM, preferably 7200 RPM.

I have heard good things about Lenovo. But I remember IBM Thinkpads being heavy and noisy. I am looking for light and quiet. Is your Mac light and quiet? Do you find using VM slows down Visual Studio intellisense and other things?

[PsychoCoder]

I'm not sure of your budget but I'm quite smitten with my Dell M1730. Expensive yes, but she has a ton of power and runs everything I need without a problem

[JackOfAllTrades]

My MacBook Pro is very quiet, but it's heavy because it's a 17". I have not had problems running multiple VM sessions, like one in XP, one in Vista. I did upgrade to 4GB of RAM, though (from the two that came with it) for just that purpose.

[ddotm]

Thanks for your recommendation!
Looks like a good laptop. Heavy, but it is quiet?
I need it to run VS2008 and CS4 without hick-ups. What are you running on yours?

PsychoCoder, on 22 Feb, 2009 - 08:59 AM, said:

I'm not sure of your budget but I'm quite smitten with my Dell M1730. Expensive yes, but she has a ton of power and runs everything I need without a problem

[NickDMax]

Well I was drooling over the Xtreme 917v notebook -- However I can't find anyplace to actually BUY the thing. I don't think it really exists. No news about the company folding of anything like that... just reviews of this supposed laptop. The website 404's -- no products on google marketplace... MAN that would have been cool.

[thbp]

im also looking for a laptop again (yes i broke my last one (screan busted)). I dont care the age as long as i can run win 98/95 on it (prefferably model 97+) and can boot from disk (floppy/zip/cd/usb(for external cd/zip/floppy/usb). Its got to be decent ram thanks. with USB slot.

My budget currently i have 200 dollars but i can get more if needed plus i got spare parts to sell.

This post has been edited by thbp: 23 February 2009 - 06:51 PM