~$700 General Purpose and can play HD video?

[Xibalban]

OK, so in this thread we've gone over a pretty large selection of light-weight but capable notebooks. I'm wondering, for curiosity's sake what the next step up would be keeping in mind a 14" max size. The reason I ask is that I have a meeting with some Engineering Advisors early next week to talk about some classes and I will be mentioning that I'm purchasing a laptop. I'll see if they have any recommendations, especially as far as CAD is concerned. Do you think a GT 130 is powerful enough to run CAD as-is? I would guess that it is, but I only really use a lot of CAD on full workstations, so I'm sure some of you have better experience with it on a laptop. I really don't want to get a beast mobile workstation though, either.

EDIT: You know, never mind that. I'm not going to spend the extra money on something like that anyway, and if I need something more capable then what I'm looking at I can always use one of the Engineering Lab computers. But if you want to voice an opinion for fun, go for it.

[Red_Dragon]

GT 130 is MORE the enough trust me on this.

i think there will be a time where we will se 14" notebook in 1680 x 1050 or 1600 x 900 its just a matter of time.....

i see you still have your ming set on the lenovo and that is a fine choice.

[Xibalban]

I think the only thing that concerns me a little about the Lenovo is, as mentioned before, the 16:9 aspect ratio. The pixel density seems fine, I just worry that it will seem awkward to work on. It's really a nit-pick since I have a monitor that I could hook up to it if I wanted some extra vertical space anyway.

[Red_Dragon]

16:9 is perfectly fine man dont listen to what everyone is saying.

I own a Vaio FW, and the 16:9 is actually pretty sweet. Its hard to explain, but theres nothing about it that would make you say "i wish i had a 16:10" screen. I know i never ever sat there and said that.

[Xibalban]

Have you run across any situations where the 16:9 has caused some sort of problem for you? Say a game that just wont display without squishing something or maybe web browsing where you feel like you have to scroll forever?

[Red_Dragon]

no i havent.
these days everything is optimized for games for example, almost all games now have an option to have both 1366 x 768 and 1600 x 900 Res which both are 16:9 resolutions the optimization will happen really fast and it wont end up being a big deal.

[DefconZero]

Like RD said, almost every game out there today (besides the battlefield series who think widescreen is *unfair*) has an option for widescreen, whether it be 16:9 or 16:10, so you're good there.

The only thing that makes me a little iffy is how usually laptop screens have higher resolutions; so won't the 1366x768 look large and pixely'ish?

[Xibalban]

I doubt it. I have a 19" 4:3 monitor that is 1280 x 1024 and the pixels arent large or noticeable on that. 1366 x 768 on 14" is more dense, so I think I'm covered on that front.

[Red_Dragon]

Like RD said, almost every game out there today (besides the battlefield series who think widescreen is *unfair*) has an option for widescreen, whether it be 16:9 or 16:10, so you're good there.

The only thing that makes me a little iffy is how usually laptop screens have higher resolutions; so won't the 1366x768 look large and pixely'ish?

actually it doesnt look bad

there are two Sony Vaio Z's one with a 1366 res and one with a 1600 res screen.

if you looks at pics of the Vaio Z at 1366(they have a couple around the site) It looks REALLY REALLY solid. Way more then adequate.

[Xibalban]

I wish there were more laptops offered with switchable graphics. I love that idea, but I'm concerned the current offerings don't have enough graphical oomph even in discrete mode.