[Thad E Ginathom]

My Compaq laptop is at the repairers again.

Don't let this put anyone off the brand: it is over seven years old!

Hoping for resurrection, or else ... it's shopping time. As we don't use it for travel, Wife sensibly suggests that a desktop would be a better buy if we do have to shop.

[d_payne]

My 1-year old Sony Vaio Z is the center of all my computing work - from photo-editing to video-edits to casual browsing to email and everything I do. It's perhaps the best all-rounder I can ever reco, if you have the budget.

Specs
2.66Ghz Core i5-580M
6GB DDR3 RAM
nVidia GT330M with 1GB vRAM + Intel HD3000 graphics (Hybrid, switchable graphics)
2 x 60GB SSDs in RAID 0 (this is super-fast in everything - Windows boot, app load times!)
1 x 750GB Seagate HDD in the optical drive bay (removed DVD drive and put this in with the help of a custom-made aluminium caddy! )
Back-lit keyboard
1600x900 13.1" IPS Screen (the literal centre of my attention every single day)
1.3kilo chassis with carbon-fibre lid, aluminium palm rest and mg-alloy underbody!!

Unbelievably kicka$$ laptop which has kept me very very happy for a year now.
Cheers!

[Mr.Boss]

Originally Posted by d_payne

2 x 60GB SSDs in RAID 0

Does it come with 2 SSDs as default?

Originally Posted by d_payne

1 x 750GB Seagate HDD in the optical drive bay (removed DVD drive and put this in with the help of a custom-made aluminium caddy! )

Sounds interesting. Could you please post some snaps?

[d_payne]

^^ Yes, its default. The highest end Vaio Z comes with 4 in RAID 0 for an insane 512GB mad configuration.

2nd hard drive / SSD caddy - Sony VAIO Z, Z11, Z12, Z13, VPC [SONY-2BAY-Z11] - $43.00 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks
That's the caddy. Love the usability, and its a proper flush fit.

[cruiser@0523]

Installed this a couple of weeks back.

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by cruiser@0523

Installed this a couple of weeks back.

Attachment 605391

awesome! how big a hole did it burn? what kinda PSU do you need to run this?

[cruiser@0523]

Originally Posted by IronH4WK

awesome! how big a hole did it burn? what kinda PSU do you need to run this?

18K bucks, ya i had to upgrade to a 600W coolermaster extreme power plus. Now im planning on upgrading my cabinet to something with better airflow.

[creative420]

Hey guys. I'm planning to buy my brother a good 22-24" monitor. He's a graphic designer and his current monitor is no good (some AOC 18"). What do you guys suggest? Something which'll be awesome for the graphic designers? Display true colours etc.

[optimist]

Originally Posted by creative420

Hey guys. I'm planning to buy my brother a good 22-24" monitor. He's a graphic designer and his current monitor is no good (some AOC 18"). What do you guys suggest? Something which'll be awesome for the graphic designers? Display true colours etc.

Look at dell ultrasharp. The 24" also rotates.

I personally use a dell 27" Ultrasharp and it rocks.

[Durango Dude]

Had been using a system bought in 2001 and constantly upgrading and finally in the May this year was browsing the Dell website and suddenly my fingers registered and then made an online configuration and placed an order for a i7/1TB HDD/12GB RAM/1GB Graphics card/24"Full HD LED monitor. The process was rather transparent and paid full amount online and got the system in around a weeks time. When it arrived, felt like I had suddenly whisked directly from Dharavi and relocated in 'Antilia'. Left a big hole in my pocket and permanent grin on my face when ever I sat in front of it. And my ISP provider, Airtel BB, perfectly timed across the board increase of speed from 512 Kbps to 2 Mbps, though it was a limited plan.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by creative420

Hey guys. I'm planning to buy my brother a good 22-24" monitor. He's a graphic designer and his current monitor is no good (some AOC 18"). What do you guys suggest? Something which'll be awesome for the graphic designers? Display true colours etc.

I have this monitor which I am now using as a TV
LG M237WA | 23" Full HD LCD Monitor & Monitor TV - LG Electronics India
This is the most cost effective solution.

For my CAD/GIS I have a 3 monitor set up
. 2 x 24" 1920x1200 : LG
. 1 x 19" 1600x1200 : BenQ

I suggest a 2 monitor setup. One high resolution monitor for Graphics and the present one for other tasks. Most of the graphics cards in the 6-10k range support 2 or more monitors. If the Motherboard has an onboard graphics then you can have three, like I do.

I had bought my 24" monitors for 25K each, while the 23" was only 15K. The more expensive solution is to get the Dell/HP/Apple 27"-30" monitors, but these will be upwards of 70k.
Dell UltraSharp U2412M 60.9cm (24-inch) Monitor with LED Details | Dell India
The Apple Store (India) - Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
HP ZR30w 30-inch S-IPS LCD Monitor (VM617A4)

[Thad E Ginathom]

I have a Samsung 22". It's fine, but it wouldn't rock the socks of a graphic designer.

It cost me about 13,000. The stuff that people who work on pictures all day buy is, what, three to four times that amount?

[creative420]

Thanks Thad and Aroy. Guess I'm going to go for Dell Ultrasharp. Even he mentioned in passing that he loved it when he was working on it at his friend's place.

[animdas]

My HP Laptop (ze 5385us) is 8 years old now- although past 1 year it was in hibernation- after I had replaced it with a MacBook. Oldie had started getting very hot-> fans running always-> battery died faster!!

So, my son wanted to take a grab at this oldie. I thought of loading ubuntu into it- since WinXP could not manage with 512MB! Unfortunately, I started getting HDD error while installing ubuntu.

Now, I have 2 options:
1. Buy a new laptop (of course, then, I will include 10 yr. old Desktop too in the sellers dock)
2. Get the oldie throughly cleaned, serviced- probably get RAM upgraded & HDD replaced.

What do you guys suggest?

[mav2000]

Originally Posted by cruiser@0523

18K bucks, ya i had to upgrade to a 600W coolermaster extreme power plus. Now im planning on upgrading my cabinet to something with better airflow.

Thats a nice card, though I cant really make out the model from the pic. Is it a 6950/6970 by any chance.

Anyway on the PSU front, please keep in mind that the extreme power plus series is really not good. It has caused failures in multiple rigs that I know of and I am sure, a lot more that I dont know of. If you can I would suggest you change it.