by Kariudo » Sun Aug 19, 2007 2:08 am
it seems almost every laptop I run across is widescreen nowdays
for the cpu, I'd recommend an intel core2 duo or amd turion 64 x2
whatever you do avoid anything with celeron, pentium, or sempron in the name
for ram you'll want at least 1 gig (depending on what OS it comes with, you'll probably want 2 gigs if it runs vista)
hard drive...uhh, anything is fine I guess. find the largest drive you can.
you don't really need to worry about spindle speed and interface
graphics. You want a dedicated card, end of story
ATI Mobility Radeon or Nvidia GeForce go is what you want to look for.
Alright, so the card itself isn't terribly important to making amvs...but if you get integrated graphics it'l claim a part of your system's ram (which means you have less ram for memory-intensive tasks...like editing)
for wireless, integrated is fine. Last I heard, wireless N wasn't doing so hot...so don't shell out extra for a card that has wireless N, your standard b/g card will do fine
bluetooth shouldn't be a priority as it's only practical uses are mice and headsets (a few keyboards and printers [though personally I've never seen a bluetooth printer])
usb is still very useful, especially if you have external hard drives. My laptop has 4 usb ports...and I still need a usb hub (for 2 externals, a flash drive, mouse and a printer. I have other usb devices but they aren't used so much)
make sure to get a dvd drive too, regular, spuer-multi, lightscribe, dual-layer...whatever you find
although onboard ac97 audio is fine for everyday use if you need to listen for specific parts of a song or have a 5.1 speaker setup you'll want to look for a sound card (either pcmcia or express card slot)
for size, 17" is too bulky imo (that and you'll have a harder time finding a case or chillpad if you want to move it around/use it like a desktop)
mine is 15.4" (1280x800), 14.1" is a bit more mobile. Go much smaller than that and you might have a hard time fitting everything on your screen (or being able to see it)
card readers are pretty standard, useful if you have something that uses a card...that's pretty much it. if the model you want doesn't have a card reader (or can't read what you have) it's easy enough to find usb card readers
I'd suggest a pc over a mac for amv-making (mainly because of avisynth, vdubmod and meGUI)
XP over vista for program compatibility, stability and security issues (not to mention XP uses way less ram than vista)
hope that helps