seriously considering splurging for one of these: ASUS N53JQ it’s $900 for i7 cpu, 4gb mem exp. to 16gb. and dedicated graphics (1gb).
am sure will run zbrush just fine but what do you guys think?
never go on the gpu’s RAM, 1GB is nothing if the actual core is crap. The 425m gt is a basic upgrade over integrated and nothing more. The Laptop though looks very solid for the money, I highly recommend it, I don’t think you can do much better for that price, but check out these people; www.xoticpc.com
They got some great lappys there.
yeah, i figured that would be the case with the gpu.
my main dilemma when purchasing electronics/software:
should i buy now or should i wait? do you see any break points within the next few months that will make the prices on models like these drop? i don’t care to be on the leading edge; but would really like to take advantage of logical mark-downs on everything else when a new technology hits the market.
Well, technology doesn’t move that fast. That type of thing only rarely happens. The continuous influx of new tech is usually only marginally better than the previous generation. Few exceptions are like when the Core 2 Duos came out, stuff like that. But if you want to find out what new laptops are their way, you need to start doing some research. I personally don’t any website per say because I tend to just go for the benchmarks directly and build desktop clones, but you can check out this website for laptop gpu benchmarks;
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Geforce-GT-425M.34152.0.html
Then just google something like “notebook news” or “new laptop news” and just find a website that tracks upcoming releases. They usually state the price point as well.
mmk, feeling much more confident about this late christmas gift to self, heh.
thanks a lot for the advice
oo… and happened across a refurb’d wireless intuos 4 for 300 flat.
crossing my fingers that it isn’t a lemon! 
Don’t get something that you’re later going to regret. Make sure you get a solid system that will handle all of your needs.
i have a macbook pro 17" with 8g of ram.
i run zbrush 4 using windows 7 64-bit in bootcamp
it works amazing and very fast.