Laptop question

[Aneks]

Buying shake for linux is going to cost more than 2000 euro anyway ! For the money you save buying an osX version of shake you could spend a bit more and get a decent g5.

Depending on the work that you are doing in shake a laptop may be ok. ie for Standard def PAL jobs... but still I would not recommend a laptop for any serious compositing. On any app.

Wait until Mac world January 9th it is likely that Jobbs will announce intel Mac laptops. With any luck these should be dual core and pretty powerful. Then you can run osX, linux and Windows on the same laptop. Buy your shake for half price and pretend its a linux box !

[Zag]

Thanks Aneks!

For the moment its not my intention to buy shake. Ill just use a trial version. I just need a laptop because i will attend a course (digital comprehensive - shake) at escape studios and i need a laptop to practise.

Im not sure if i should buy a mac or a pc for shake!?

[Aneks]

Ah ok. At the moment Linux is faster but shake on any laptop is all gonna run slower than ideal.

Like I said new apple laptops are just around the corner ( i'd be betting on an announcment at macworld Jan 9 released soon after). If you can wait then I recommend getting one of them as they will probably be intel based (can run linux and windows) and a heck of a lot faster than the current crop of powerbooks.

Also linux means no photoshop, and lots of other things unless you dual boot or run an emulator. Having been windows and irix (sgi) for many years I have actually really come around to Mac since osX (and since I have a really nice mac at work I'm a bit biased ! ) That said I have a dell laptop that runs windows for home use ......

[Praedicator]

Regardless of whether you decide on a Mac or Windows/Linux laptop, there are a couple of factors that you'll want to consider:

• Max the CPU to the highest you can afford
• Max the RAM to the highest you can afford
• Get a fast (7200RPM if possible) HD
• Get a large screen with high resolution
• Get the best GPU you can afford

The downside of doing the things listed above is that they will suck the battery life dry from any laptop. At that point it really becomes a portable workstation rather than a laptop because running on battery power won't last a full day at work, so you'll need to be plugged in to an AC line.

Working on a laptop is a real give-n-take for features, but well worth the trade offs. A while back I purchased a 17" Apple PowerBook and have been really happy with the results. It's not as fast as a PowerMac G5 but it definitely lets you get tons of work done while on the road. It came with 512MB of RAM and there was a significant performance boost when I upgraded it to the max 2GB of RAM.

Good luck on choosing a laptop! :D

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