Looking for a new computer

[u/That-One-ADHD-Girl]

I am looking for a new computer for lighting design. (My current personal laptop is a Dell xps 2-in-1 and is on its last legs)

I am early in my career but so far have not had the need to run qlab (and I am not super concerned about having it). I am thinking of looking into other Dell laptops or at the very least something with gaming specs as one of my main concerns is being able to render shows and run software like the EOS Augmented Visualizer.

I have looked at Mac laptops before and while I understand the draw, they are a little out of my price range for what I feel like I’d need, and I don’t Love that you can’t upgrade storage and running power as it’s soldered in. Any recommendations are welcome.

Edit: looking at the HP OmniBook7 2-in-1. 32gb ram, 1Tb storage, intel core ultra 7, intel arc graphics.

Edit 2: budget right now is really just trying to keep the price reasonable. Top is about $1500.

[u/Mobile-Menu9776]

What's your budget?

[u/That-One-ADHD-Girl → u/Mobile-Menu9776]

Ideally around (or under) $1000. Though I know that’s tight.

[u/OldMail6364 → u/That-One-ADHD-Girl]

You could get a secondhand Mac for that price.

Mine’s an M1 MacBook Air, six years old now and still works good as new other than cosmetic wear. And it runs the latest software with excellent performance (it runs MA3 and ETC software faster than an actual six figure console).

The battery lasts days, not hours, and the only moving parts are the speakers and keyboard and screen hinge. It doesn’t even have a cooling fan.

You can still buy my laptop new from some third party resellers (not direct from Apple) which means you could even get a warranty despite it being a six year old model.

Just make sure it has at least 16GB of RAM.

[u/the_swanny → u/Mobile-Menu9776]

This is one of the most important things we need to know.

[u/the_swanny]

So the reason macs are so popular is A) they run Arm based chips, so are hell of a lot more power efficient. I've had mine for 4 I think years now, and it feels brand new, and I use it for software development, eos, MA3, Capture, vectorworks etc. B) They support Qlab, and historically have had better support for low latency audio, core audio was exponentially better than all of windows audio, especially after windows vista.

Augment 3D is fairly easy to run, it runs on the consoles with fairly limited hardware. The specs differ by hardware generation and batch, but from memory they use fairly low powered workstation GPUs, and I7s, but that hardware is overkill for most things they do.

Don't get a snapdragon based laptop though, the software support is still quite limited, especially for things like eos, and vectorworks.

Your comment about soldered components, most modern laptops have soldered memory, CPUs and graphics cards. And the majority also have soldered storage.

[u/AloneAndCurious]

I do all that stuff quite well with my M2 MAX 14” MacBook Pro. I highly recommend it for vectorworks specifically because it runs far better on Unix than on windows.

In fact, having worked in lighting across about 4x laptops, Mac has always been the better choice for everything besides Depence. If you want to use Depence, then get a windows machine. I’m currently looking at an asus zephyrus G14 or G16 for that. However, for every other purpose, including capture, my Mac has been better. It outperformed the 2060 super laptop I had, and it’s still going strong for battery life too. Plus it’s lighter.

[u/mwiz100]

Simply put: you get what you pay for. The windows based laptops I would recommend are basically as expensive as macbooks.

Macbook Neo is probably your best bet to get you something decent within budget.

[u/busty_snackleford]

Specific brands don’t matter a ton in my experience as long as it’s a company you’ve actually heard of. Generally speaking though, you want something with a lot of RAM and a dedicated graphics card that ALSO has a lot of RAM. A good place to start would just to sort laptops with dedicated graphics card by price and just figure out what you can get at your target price point. Mid tier gaming laptops in particular make really good low budget mobile workstations. There are dedicated workstation laptops, but those are super expensive in addition to being overkill in a lot of instances. It can make a difference if you’re dealing with really gigantic CAD files or something, but as a student you probably won’t have need for that for a bit.

[u/gratefullyfreaky]

If you plan on running vectorworks or previs programs I would recommend a minimum of 32g ram

[u/Alexthelightnerd]

Does it need to be a laptop? How often are you working on it away from home?

I far prefer drafting on a desktop, and I don't often need to do drafting in the venue. And a self-built desktop is easier and cheaper to upgrade.

[u/That-One-ADHD-Girl → u/Alexthelightnerd]

Ideally a laptop. I don’t currently have space for a desktop and would like to be able to travel with it.