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MEMichael Elkin25/09/2012

Hi, I am looking for a new reasonably high end laptop to run solidworks.

It should be portable so no bigger than a 15" screen; I will use an external monitor if needed. And it should have no less that a full I7 Quad-Core processor.

The price needs to be under $1500 and that is for ultra-high end. I would prefer something in the $1200 range.

This seems like a good option from Dell:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=swct72b&model_id=precision-m4600&c=us&l=en&s=soho&cs=ussoho1

Upgraded with the I7 2760QM it comes out to 1039+tax. It only has 2 GB of ram, but I can get another 8 of my own for under $40, I can even afford to add an SSD HD.

The graghics card is FirePro M5950 which is more than adequate for solidworks according to http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-FirePro-M5950.51673.0.html

This is the same laptop with some more features:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=swct73b1&model_id=precision-m4600&c=us&l=en&s=soho&cs=ussoho1

It has 8GB ram and a 750GB (vs 320) hard drive and a 9-cell battery for $1189 or $150 more.

I know that these have the slightly older I7, but it should still be more than fast enough.

The latest M4700:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bwct47b&model_id=precision-m4700&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

Is $1289 with the quad-core and stll would need more memory, and I don't think the new I7 and M4000: http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-FirePro-M4000.77893.0.html

are worth the price premium.

I am welcome to any other suggestions you can give me, but so far these are the best I have found.

Thank You.