Specific laptop advice sought.

[zapjb]

OK. Thanks folks for taking time to read this. I have a good friend who is going on the road for ~2 years. He does CAD for a living. Price limit $2,000 USD or less. He needs great graghics, large & clear screen. He wants at least a 17" screen. Reliability is paramount. Should be able to withstand long periods of use & not have heat issues. Battery duration not that big of a deal, maybe 2-3 hours or whatever. Mostly it'll be plugged in. And satellite & wireless connectivity, maybe bluetooth also. All this should be geared towards CAD. And average to good stereo speakers, dvd burner & any ordinary stuff I forgot. I don't know if a laptop with these qualities can be had for <$2,000 USD. What brand & model laptop should he get? Let me know. Thanks.

[lynx]

Sounds like he needs to consider some of the Asus notebooks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...SubCategory=32

These (the first two) are the only ones which seem to have all the required features and still clock in at under $2000 (after rebate).

[Seedler]

Sounds like he needs to consider some of the Asus notebooks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...SubCategory=32

These (the first two) are the only ones which seem to have all the required features and still clock in at under $2000 (after rebate).

That $2400 one looks hawt.

[zapjb]

My friend will be doing mostly simple 2D stuff. So hopefully that will drop the price. Please suggest a brand & model. Thanks

[lynx]

This should help.

[fkdup74]

You know, your friend could probably go with a entry-to-mid level notebook and save some money for his trip.
Surprisingly, CAD doesn't need that heavy of a system, especially 2D CAD.
We have CADers running on systems as slow as 1 GHz Pentuim III's.
(Until recently some of em were running around 733-866 MHz, we're trying to phase those out.)
They aren't anything compared to today's systems, but they do the job.
Our top end systems are 2.8 - 3 GHz P 4's. Which you can grab for next to nothing now that the D's are out.
I currently have a Dell Latitude with a Pentium M 1.75 that takes AutoCAD without a hitch.
Had an Aspire notebook with a Sempron 64 3000 that took CAD without any problems.
I think his biggest deal is going to be with RAM. Minimum 512 MB. 1 GB would be better.
This is of course with AutoCAD 2004-2006. 2007 requires a bit more I think.
A mid level D/ X2 core and 1 GB RAM may be the recommendation on '07, not sure.

-edit-
The Aspire I spoke of ran about $700 USD at the time, and that was maybe 6 months to a year ago or so.
Dell has Pentium notebooks that would probably get the job done starting at about the same price.
He could pay a little more and get a little more, but I don't think he'll need to shell out the whole $2000.