Powerful Laptop Buying Help
 

Hi guys!

Can anyone please provide opinions or suggestions on what laptop to get? Feel free to chime in what you think is best from other manufacturers such as Asus, Acer or Samsung...

My needs for a budget of probably $1500, though able to shell out more if needed:
1) Run 3D CAD software (Solidworks and AutoCAD)
2) Run programming IDEs (Visual C++, Programming)
3) Run math simulation software (Matlab, Maple)
4) Run Photoshop and video editing software
5) Run Office products
6) Last at least 5 hours on batteries
7) Last me 4 years
8) Doesn't look like plastic shit

My shortlist so far, but feel free to add
1) Macbook Pro 13" Non-Retina 2.9GHz i7
Pro: Looks good, long battery life, seems easy enough to use
Con: 1 year old tech, expensive for the specs

2) Lenovo IdeaPad Y510
Pro: Great specs, dedicated video card, Haswell i7 CPU, CHEAP AS SHIZZ
Con: Shitty battery life of 2 hours

3) Razer Blade
Pro: Great specs, dedicated video card, Haswell i7 CPU
Con: EXPENSIVE (but I can probably call it an "investment")

4) Alienware 14
Pro: Great specs, dedicated video card, Haswell i7 CPU, within budget
Con: HUGE and doesn't seem too portable

5) MSI GE-40/GE60
Pro: Great specs, dedicated video card, Haswell i7 CPU, Good battery life
Con: No clue about the quality of MSI laptops

Like I said, feel free to add to the list. Personally I prefer the look and power of the Razer Blade, but for $1800 128GB of space is definitely not enough. The Lenovo Y510 would be an instant buy if not for the deal breaker of a battery life.

So any opinions?

Thanks a lot, guys!

Just a plug, but I bucked up for a 2.9GHz, 8GB Retina Macbook Pro 13" and I fucking LOVE this machine. I was not stoked on spending the money on the Retina but you also get the new case, 1lb lighter, and this AMAZING screen. It's really spendy but I don't regret it for one second.

Cheers

One questions regarding the software - do they all work on Mac?

Another thing is that the 13" Retina's i7 is dual-core, not quad-core, so it may not be as fast when running simulation software or video-editing suites.

My suggestion to add to the Windows side of things is the Samsung 7 Chronos. Great 15" laptop with a decently long battery life (7-8 hours in daily usage), SSD cache drive on hand, quad-core CPU, Radeon 8800M graphics and pretty stylish.

Samsung Series 7 i7-3635QM 15.6inch Notebook - Silver - NP780Z5E-S02C - London Drugs

Refurbished 15" MBP Retina. It's last year's model, so it doesn't have Haswell, but still has 7-hr battery life.

You still have the normal 1-year warranty with Apple refurbs, and you can purchase AppleCare if you wish to extend it to 3-years.

Refurbished 15.4-inch MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel i7 with Retina Display - Apple Store (Canada)

Worst comes to worse, if you have to run Windows-specific programs, install Windows along with OSX.

Might I interest you in my laptop. It's a year old now but it probably has about 3 month use time. Used it for dual boxing here and there and that was it. Never left my house so it's still in pristine condition.

According to your preference, you will want a quad core and definitely 16gb ram or higher.

i7 quad 16gb 1.5tb 17.3in gtx 675m + accessories (GOOD DEAL!)

I recommend a macbook pro, I have a mid 09 pro and I run cad, office, and photoshop with ease. I also had an m11x from Alienware and it is junk. If you do a lot of graphics work avoid Alienware products. The screen on those things are garbage; they are way too reflective, not bright enough and its like lugging around a brick everywhere you go.

Thanks for that suggestion. AutoCAD works on Mac, Solidworks doesn't officially according to the Solidworks system requirements page, and even dual booting Windows it's not officially supported.

I knew I was missing the Samsungs, but the Samsung Canada site only listed the Ativ Book 9 (Series 9) which costs just as much as an Apple, so I figured I'd look at them later.

Just a curious question for the MBP users. That refurbished 15" MBP has got me intrigued. How do those perform under CPU- and GPU-intensive applications such as CAD and other productivity programs?

AutoCad for Mac is missing a lot of features just to let you know so if your getting a mac you will be doing dual booting.

I don't do CAD work, however, I am a heavy Photoshop and Lightroom user working with LARGE (100mb+ PSD files) and often several at a time - enough to choke my work PC pretty easily. My Macbook handles it well, it's not always instant when I have several open, but it never crashes or hesitates, it always just works through reasonably quickly and properly.

Mark

Generally speaking, AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks and other related engineering software works best on Windows machines. With that being said, I'll recommend:

ASUS Zenbook UX32VD Intel i7 3517U 6GB 500GB+24GB SSD GT620M 13.3in IPS FHD Win8 Ultrabook
or
ASUS N56VJ-RH71-CA Intel I7-3630QM 8GB 750GB 15.6in FHD GT635M DVDRW BT BANG&OLUFSEN Win8 Notebook

both similar in specs

For the zenbook, you might wanna upgrade the ram to at least 8GB

ThinkPad W530 Portable Workstation | Lenovo (CA)

To get a better rendering experience through CAD or digital art creation like 3dMAX or Maya, you'll need a workstation class graphics card. Those fall into ATI FireGLs or Nvidia Quadros. Normal video cards like a Nvidia geforce or ATI HD won't give you any extra processing power when it comes to rendering 3D objects.

The laptop linked also has a LCD upgrade with a colour calibration to get better colour accuracy when you're doing photoshop and it has a 1080p screen.

I don't know about batter life. [edit] upon further research, laptopmag clains that is has around 6 hour battery life.[/edit] I would assume that's not using the graphics card, but with light use only, where the graphics card is turned off using, what i would guess, optimus.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/lapt...kpad-w530.aspx

Lenovo ThinkPads have legendary keyboards that are a delight to type on and are all black with a magnesium chassis.

Programming in an IDE is pretty light for the most part, most programs that let you code should run instantly, except MS.net....

Matlab is a monster of a program to launch. Get an SSD and you should be a big difference. Not only in Matlab but starting up all of your programs.

I find that the more RAM you have, the faster Photoshop does its tasks. Especially for big files.

I am a ThinkPad fanboy.

MacBook pro will be out of your budget even a reb one. I would try looking at Lenovo and Asus.

Well I did say I can shell out more if that's what's called for. Though at this stage it really should have been $2K for what my needs are.

There we go! Bingo! Thanks for this one! Just exactly what I was looking for!! a workstation laptop! For some reason I forgot the word "workstation."