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17.3'' Laptop recommendations?

snowsnow77snowsnow77 Posts: 100
edited December 1969 in The Commons

Hi all,

I have lived, built and enjoyed the world of the desktops for many years, but I am thinking of giving the laptop a try!
Besides changing the memory and hard drive in my son-in-laws, I have very little experience with Laptop/notebooks. Any thoughts on a good 17.3'' display on the market under $1,000 or one that would be good to up-grade to be suitable for Daz studio?

Thanks for your time,
mj

Comments

  • daveleitzdaveleitz Posts: 459
    edited December 1969

    Earlier this year I bought an HP Envy dv7 with Nvidia graphics and 17 inch display. It's been a nice computer so far and with its i7 processor I have no complaints with processing power. About the only things I could wish for would be more RAM (it has 8GB which isn't bad) and an SSD. The hard drive is the slow point. It does have an empty bay for an additional drive, and I can upgrade the RAM eventually. It cost well under $1000 at a local big box electronics retailer. I think you can get something similar or better for the price now. Just be sure you don't settle for Intel integrated graphics.

  • Subtropic PixelSubtropic Pixel Posts: 2,388
    edited December 2013

    I responded to a similar thread just yesterday. Check out the Asus line of G750 gaming laptops. 17" monitor (don't know about 17.3; I hope you're not THAT picky), i7 quad-core Haswell processor, SSD (with room for more HDD or SSD drives), I think now they have Thunderbolt, and something like 32 GB RAM capable, which will come in handy if you begin working with HD meshes.

    But fair warning: they'll be over your price-point, especially if you get Nvidia graphics (which I would recommend, even though Haswell comes with integrated graphics).

    The hard truth is that if you plan to render, you'll probably need to adjust your price point expectations.

    Post edited by Subtropic Pixel on
  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,644
    edited December 1969

    A 17" laptop that can render costs $1500 to $2500 for a "decent" one normally. If you get one for $1000 at all, it's going to be a Lenovo or another off-brand, and it may blow up the first week or it may last ten years, there's no telling. Check Newegg if you must.

    I'm out around $1500 for this Toshiba Qosmio. I do not recommend it. It was a pain uninstalling Windows 8 and reinstalling Windows 7, particularly getting all the device drivers again, and it still has hardware-based wifi connectivity issues that my cheap little Acer netbook doesn't have (we still use that one for hooking up to the TV to watch Netflix and Hulu). Next time I will go to xotixpc.com or somewhere else like it and have one made to order. It costs about the same and I would not have the issues I presently have.

  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 14,263
    edited December 1969

    I got my Sony Vaio for about $1100 and it renders awesome

  • Takeo.KenseiTakeo.Kensei Posts: 1,303
    edited December 1969

    For that price you must do some concession. Base criteria would be Core i7 Haswell, 8Gb Ram, a dedicated graphic card if you just want to use DS, however 16Gb or more Ram could be better.

    Had a look in Amazon and the best I saw was an Acer. From my point of view Acer doesn't have a good reputation but the hardware is quite interesting :
    17 " display with HD resolution (instead of 1600x900 like in many mid/low range model)
    Nvidia GTX 760m
    750 GB classic Hard Drive + 120 GB SSD
    It is sold with 8GB memory but seems to support up to 32GB

    http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V3-772G-9656-17-3-Inch-Sophisticated/dp/B00EY50IKE/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1387055899&sr=1-2

    The question is about the reliability. I have no experience with Acer and don't know if they are better than few years ago when they were only on the very low end market

  • nDelphinDelphi Posts: 1,869
    edited December 2013

    SickleYield said:

    I'm out around $1500 for this Toshiba Qosmio.

    Toshiba, stay away from this brand, although I suspect that most laptop/notebook vendors have about the same level of issues and horrendous quality. I have read many brand forums to get to this conclusion.

    And if you live outside of the 48 states, including U.S. territories, forget sending your Toshiba laptop under warranty in for repairs (you may as well forget about the warranty and pay to have it serviced locally) unless you have someone living in the 48 states that you can trust, like a close friend or family member, because you need a U.S. address for them to send you back the repaired laptop. I had to do this for a laptop I hardly ever use and the repaired laptop already has issues, like the battery draining even though it is suppose to be shutdown (configuring the power settings via Windows 8.1 and the Toshiba control panel has not helped one bit) and one USB port dead (within a few days of me receiving it back).

    I waited more than a decade to purchase another laptop and it seems the quality has gone down, not up.

    My next portable purchase will have to be a cube computer. I am done with laptops.

    Post edited by nDelphi on
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