I'm a student looking for an affordable ultralight laptop (don't have money for a top line laptop). I won't be working on it (I'll work on desktop) but I need some thing ultralight to bring to class and walk with all day.
the two best available in my country are:
lenovo Edge 11 - with an AMD dual core chip and a dedicated READON graphic card and a 5400rpm hard drive.
Thinkpad x121e - with a brand new intel i3 chip but integrated graphic card and 7200rpm hard drive.
I will be mainly using autocad and sketchup - BUT I want to learn and work on 3ds max and revit latter on.
what is more important to these uses? a good CPU like the i3 or a dedicated graphic card like the Readon?
does the rpm make a big difference?
Thanks in advance, I'm really lost in all the different specs 🙂
annoying that there isn't an affordable ultralight 11 inch intel with a dedicated graphic card and 7200rpm hard drive 🙂
Yuval.
Sorry, you have mutally exclusive goals.
No laptop is good for learning a cad program, especially revit or 3ds. There's just not enough screen size. Add in the fact you want something light & inexpensive, it's just not there.
The menus now take up so much screen real estate that DOING anything other than panning & zooming is next to impossible especially on anything with less than 17" for a screen. Now if you add in the tutorials you have NO place to work.
Now, if you have access to a desk top & use the laptop just to run the text of the tutorials, you might be able to learn something. An ideal single monitor size is now going to be about 24". It's preferable that two monitors be used, so menus and dialoge boxes can be on one monitor & the drawing on another.
Of the two you are looking at, the I3 (if it's a Sandy Bridge) is the better choice, but put as much ram in it as it'll hold. The hard drive doesn't need to be all that big either. Look for a system with SATA 6.0 capability, and spin it as fast as you can afford. A 300gb or so should do you fine.
Reid
Thanks for the response
couldn't find the edit button.:
this is the edge 11
and this is the x121e
the x121e is sandy bridge, al teast acording to the salesman.
I'm aware I won't be able to work on it (except for taking notes). I just want something to show my models at class (maybe in no toolbar expert mode) and even hook it to a projector or bigscreen in the lab. I just need it to work and rotate the model if needed 🙂
my friends have 2.5kg 15' laptop and they really regrate it.