I am going to change my old Dell Precision M70 (Pentium 1.73GHz 1GB RAM Quadro FX Go 1400) because I need more mobility and because it starts to give me problems with the newest software versions.
I need a small and light laptop that can still allow me to install the latest software (Alias - Rhino - Pro-e… not much renderings) to exercise in the spare time. For work I will use the machine I got there.
I will mainly use the machine for daily tasks like internet excell word movies and blablabla
I can not really choose between the two following laptop… so I was wondering if you could tell me which one is going to be the most powerfull between the two or with better compromises in your opinion.
The Vaio is better designed, with better screen and Processor… but the Alienware has better Graphic card and is smaller, which is good considering that for demanding CAD tasks I will use a secondary LCD at home.
Any of those has reliability issues?
…
£769 ALIENWARE M11-X 11.6"
Intel® Core™ i3 2357M Processor
(1.3GHz, 3MB Cache)
1GB DDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M
4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
…
…
£899 SONY VAIO VPCSB1X9E/B 13.3"
Intel® Core™ i5-2410M Processor
2.3GHz (up to 2.9GHz with Turbo Boost)
3MB L3 Cache
Dual-core
4GB installed DDR3 RAM
AMD Radeon™ HD 6470M + Intel® HD Graphics
…
P.S.
Are this laptop going to be far better then my old precision… or I better have to save money?
I had a M11x, it was a nice machine but my biggest gripe was the display was junk. Really poor viewing angles, and the chassis was big relative to the display size (it’s probably bigger than some other 13" notebooks).
My only comment about the config you listed for the M11X is it’s a much slower i3 CPU - wouldn’t be very good for much in the way of 3D work unless you’re just needing to open and spin around a few simple models.
Don’t know much about the Vaio but the CPU will be a good bit faster than the i3. If you’re not doing a lot of 3D then the CPU will make the whole system a snappier than the video card will impact anything.
The video card performance probably won’t be much different, but Nvidia historically has better driver support for professional apps. Some programs (Alias) have issues with most of the recent ATI/AMD drivers when it comes to redraw artifacts and the like.
The M11x is cheaper with the config you listed, which means IMO it would be worth spending the additional money on the i7 offered, or at least the higher spec i5 CPU.
Could also be worth considering the M14x which is a very nice machine if you have the extra cash.
M14x looks too much like a not portable machine… at this point I would probably be better to buy a Precision.
But my aim now is having portability… if M11x is as big as the Vaio 13 and the Graphic Card will not bring much disadvantage, I will go for the Sony I think, it looks like a more complete machine.
I will consider the M11x with i7, but again for that price I feel like I should buy a precision.
Horrible machine, it is much more noisy than my 6 years old machine, the screen makes me vomit, if you move your head a tiny bit you start to don’t see anything… speed looks the same as my old machine… hopefully I will be able to install new software version atleast.
All in all I feel I just thrown away 800 pounds… keep away from VAIO. go Dell