.... going to buy one (laptop that is). I see plenty of people mention that they have one. Looking for recommendations, complaints, etc. Will be WinXP. Thanks in advance. Larry F

My personal opinion, and without naming any brands: 1/ a Centrino 1.4 or 1.6 works just fine and produces less loise than a P4. It also is compareable with a P4 that is much faster: C1.4 is appr a P4 2.4GHz 2/ try to get one with an extended 1024(so this is larger)x768 view (comes in handy for the library) 3/ get at least 512MB DDRam 4/ get a real vid card, no shared "act-as-if", 64MB is opk as Poser cannot make use of OpenGL etc. If possible, see that you have an output for an external monitor. Advantage: at home you connect to your desktop monitor if you want to. 5/ If you happen to have a desktop, see that you can network files, but don't install Poser on both as they may not be active together (Eula!!!) 6/ get an usb mouse, prefereably with light instead of a ball

I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now I'll be mad. (Rumi)

A good screen is essential for grahic work. I recently got a Dell Latitude D600 laptop (not my Poser machine, but anyway) and I'm very impressed with the screen. I also read a test where the Dell lap top screen got praised. It runs with 1400 x 1050 resolution and has excellent picture quality.

I have made plenty of Poser images and mesh models on a laptop.

Get as much memory and as large a hard drive as you can afford. If doing a PC an AMD will give you more bang for the buck. If you're going Intel, Toshiba seems to make consistently good pc laptops. I'd strongly consider a Mac power book, they're great machines - disclaimer: I hate windows XP. Unzipped

Thanks everyone! This is very good feedback, most especially that of Aeneas with its specifics. I'm doing a good deal of research on this and, since I will need to be out more in the next few months, being able to run Poser on it will be a fun diversion. unzipped, I considered a Mac briefly, having a couple of good friends who swear by them, but decided to pass, not a negative reflection, just staying with the familiar. Thanks again.

I've an HP Pavilion, 2.6 GHz with a half a gig of ram. Don't really know what the graphics card is but it can't handle tough renders like my desktop can. (which is a 1.8 GHz, same ram) Anything print size, especially if it involves the firefly render and water reflection, has to be done on my desktop. Quite frustrating.

...... Kendra

Couple months ago I bought a HP Pavilion ZD7000 laptop, 2.66g, 1g ram, 128 meg video ram, wide screen (900 x 1400, I think). I love it. I was a lazy shopper and just bought the PC Magazine best buy in the desktop replacement category customized a bit for my needs. I also run Animation Master, Carrara 3.0 and Maya PLE on it with no probs so far. I really like the wider screen and full size keyboard. The wider screen affords a good chunk of space for tools on the screen without interfering with the view of your projects.

I've had both a Gateway (deceased quite quickly while rendering) and currently a P4 IBM. Reliable? yes. Rugged? yes. Good for mobile utility work but not alot of fun for graphics. It's been faithful but if I had it to do all over again (with my graphics apps more prominently in mind) I'd be checking out Alienware. Their stuff is HOT!!!

I have an Alienware laptop-- fast, works Poser ok, but screen is too small and refreshes strangely-- in columns. Would not recommend. I've run Poser very well on a Sony laptop and a Dell. Sony monitors are often either toolight or too dark compared to others-- this seems almost endemic to Sony, look for contrast ratios to compare late screens. Mainly for Poser, you need enough memory RAM and enough scratchspace. Those are the crucials, along with a large enough screen. Poser does not utilise a graphics card. Emily

Flat screens not late screens, sorry.

Ha ha, queri, "been that, done there" in re typos. And I earn money proofing, LOL! Say, thanks to all who have replied. It is all very helpful. And don't stop now, keep 'em coming. I'm pretty computer savvy but have next to no knowledge of and/or experience with laptops. I think they've come a long way since I used one "in the field" some years ago, and not for Poser, or any other graphics - spreadsheets mostly - then. Like to hear more.

A few things to consider. Any laptop that will run the graphics programs with the speed you desire will also do anything else you want it to very well. So get all the RAM they can cram into that thing. Video RAM isn't necessary but if it is offered and can be had for a reasonable amount, get it. Alienware and Falcon are two of the high end suppliers so if you can afford them, you can't go wrong. My experieces with hardware both at work and at home keep me as far away from gateway products as possible. So far in the last 1.5 years we have replaced 378 faulty power supplies in our gateway machines, where as the dells, had one HD bad out of the box and no other problems so far. Gateway sent us enough power supplies to replace all of our machines twice after we had about 6 go out in one day. In my mind this says they expect it to happen again, and it did.

I have a Gateway 505X. It's centrino 1.4, 512MB memory, 40GB hard drive, combo DVD ROM player/ CD-RW burner, wireless, ATI 9600 mobility video, 15.1" widescreen display. It's pretty light (compared to my other laptop - Thinkpad 570 and ultrabay with DVD ROM player and extra battery). Also, the battery on the Gateway lasts about 4.5 hours. I've been able to play Unreal Tournament 2004 demo and also tried Star Wars Galaxy while using wireless. Haven't tried any graphics programs on it yet. I'll probably copy my poser folder on an external firewire drive and try it on the laptop.

eMachines M6805. I'm generally not an eMachines fan, but I'll admit when they have a killer laptop at a great price. It's an Athlon 64 laptop with a widescreen, Radeon 9600, etc, etc. Best Buy has them for about $1250 (after rebates) till the end of the month. If I hadn't just bought a new desktop (I was too lazy to build one...), I probably would have bought one of these.

http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=eMachines_M6805

BTW, check out some smaller name brands. Sager makes high quality laptops (in fact, Alienware slaps their name on some Sager laptops and marks the price up). I have a friend with one and he's been very happy with it.

http://www.powernotebooks.com

If you have the funds $4000+ fully out-fitted check out Alienware's Area 51m Extreme Laptop a 3.2GHZ with 800MHZ FSB 512 Level 2 Cache and 2024 Level 3 cache. http://www.alienware.com/Configurator_Pages/area-51m.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51-M&SubCode=SKU-EXTREME

More good suggestions all, but 'fraid that ".....$4000+ ..." is a bit outside the scope of my budget. I'm looking at lots of things, even that, but just looking in that case. Whoopdat, going over to the local Best Buy tomorrow for something else, will take notes. Thanks again.

Also, do some reading at this forum: http://www.notebookforums.com Lots of reviews of different laptops.

n3k0, thanks. I'm on it!!!!