New Laptop Advice

[Anonymous]

I'm a college student who'll be using Maya for the first time this next semester.  I'm worried that the computer I have now won't be able to run the software we will be using in class very well (if at all).  Currently I have a...

Dell Inspiron 14R

-Intel Pentium

-2.0 GHz

-14"

-4GB RAM

-320GB Hard Drive

-Intel Integrated HD Graphics

-Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

I've been looking into the specifications for both Maya 2013 and 2014 and have browsed around for computers in my budget (at most $1500).  What I'm most concerned with at the moment is finding an appropriate graphics card.  Does the graphics card have to be one that is certified?  Also which part of the computer is going to most effect rendering speed? (RAM? Proccesor speed? Graphics Card? a little of both or all?)

Here's a list of the specs on 4 laptops I've looked into so far...

ASUS  $1250

-Intel 3rd Gen i7

-2.4GHz (with turbo up to 3.4GHz)

-17.3"

-8GB RAM (expandable to 16GB)

     -DDR3

-1920 x 1080

-1TB Hard Drive

-NVIDIA GTX 670MX

-windows 8 (not thrilled about that)

ASUS G75 $1450

-Intel 3rd Gen i7

-2.3GHz (very if-y about that part)

-17.3"

-12GB RAM (expandable to 16)

     -DDR3

-1920 x 1080

-500GB Hard Drive

    -7200rpm

-NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M

-Windows 7 home premium 64-bit

HP EliteBook$1300

-Intel 3rd Gen i7

-2.9GHz

-14"

-8GB RAM (expandable to 16)

   -DDR3 SDRAM

-1600 x 900

-500GB Hard Drive

   -7200rpm

-AMD Radeon HD 7570M

-Windows 7 Professional

HP EliteBook $1430

-Intel i7

-2.8GHz

-15.6"

-8GB RAM (expandable to 16)

   -DDR3 SDRAM

-1920 x 1080

-500GB Hard Drive

-NVIDIA Quadro 1000M

-Windows 7 Professional 64 bit

Which of these would you recommend if any?  Building my own computer is out of the question.  I don't know enough about tinkering with computer parts to trust myself with putting one together and/ or installing all of the different devices if need be.

[dgorsman]

If you don't absolutely need the portability, get a desktop and save a few bucks (or even better, grab some extra RAM).  Good news is if you don't want to/can't build your own those who can will usually do it for a pizza and/or beer.

Maya is pretty taxing for rendering, with preferences being given to processor speed and RAM.  Good-quality gaming cards usually suffice unless you're planning on something special like GPU rendering (which won't be a good idea on a laptop).  Screen space is *always* at a premium, you'll want as big a screen as possible (14" is way undersized).  Laptops will also throttle down processor speed and other hardware when on batteries to extend life, so don't count on speedy work if you aren't docked/plugged in to AC power.