Help needed: New trading laptop

S

smile

Please provide input for my new laptop purchase for trading.

I trade with lots of extra applications for finding good stocks to trade so I need some extra cpu power. I want to make sure I have plenty of excess capacity for all of my trading needs. I will NOT be using this laptop for anything else.

I think I want an i7 3rd generation cpu with 8-12 gb ram and a video card that can support 2 extra monitors. I want a 17 in. laptop. Don't think I need ssd.

I am strongly considering buying it from one of the following primarily gaming laptop resellers who have fantastic scores from www.resellerratings.com/

http://www.powernotebooks.com

http://www.gentechpc.com

http://www.xoticpc.com

http://www.lpc-digital.com/

Excellent customer service is very important to me.

Virtually all of the major laptop sellers like Dell, HP, Staples, Walmart,
Costco get very poor ratings on resellerratings.com

Please provide your valuable commentary. Thank you.
 
I want to subscribe to this thread as I`m in the market for one myself, but have not done any research yet.

The Dell Precision Mobile Workstation series looks good to me, but they are expensive here in Norway, so it may be possible to get something equally good for a better price.

HP got a very bad reputation on their laptops, although I`m very satisfied with the workstation I`ve got.
 
Quote from smile:

Please provide input for my new laptop purchase for trading.

I trade with lots of extra applications for finding good stocks to trade so I need some extra cpu power. I want to make sure I have plenty of excess capacity for all of my trading needs. I will NOT be using this laptop for anything else.

I think I want an i7 3rd generation cpu with 8-12 gb ram and a video card that can support 2 extra monitors. I want a 17 in. laptop. Don't think I need ssd.



Please provide your valuable commentary. Thank you.
More...


Get an SSD. It makes boot ups much faster and quieter.

The worst part about laptop trading is if it gets too hot the fan goes on and off. Very annoying. I've gone back to a desktop for this reason.
 
I have requirements other than trading alone, but I've pretty much decided to go with the Lenovo ThinkPads.

I'll probably get the 15" T430s which has no discrete GPU, but comes with Thunderbolt. I may try the optional portable USB-based external 14" display even though resolution is limited.

I can also recommend the ThinkPad W530. Which you can run up to 4 displays at once with a dock.

Lenovo (formerly IBM PC division) has always had reliable machines and great support (including on-site). They were also the most profitable PC manufacturer last quarter.
 
Regardless how many external monitors you intend to drive, if possible get a higher resolution Screen, i.e. 1920 x1080

Last Laptop I obtained was a Lenovo ideapad U460 with the Nvidia 305M graphics card to drive external monitor... great laptop very happy with it, other than the fact for trading I don't use it as often as I had initially intended.

At the time I didn't think the resolution mattered as it was capable of driving a 30" 2560 x 1600 monitor. But the 1366 x 768 on it's own really restricts the amount of data you can get on charts.

I often use multi-chart workspaces as I like to monitor multiple instruments at once, and/or keep multi-timeframe perspective on one screen... which isn't efficient with the 1366 x 768.

When traveling it isn't always convenient to drag along an additional monitor, and you will be happy you have the additional pixels available on your laptops screen.

Cross reference to give an idea of typical resolution / screen size
http://www.prismo.ch/comparisons/notebook.php

Other than that, any i5/i7 with 8gb ram from a reliable manufacture and 120gb+ SSD should be more than sufficient.
[aside from the performance increase from SSD's, there is one less spinning disk to concern yourself with when the laptop is accidentally dropped or jarred]

Caution regarding external USB monitors: I have purchased USB external monitors in the past, and tossed them all due to "DRIVER CONFLICTS"
 
Quote from Cdntrader:

Get an SSD. It makes boot ups much faster and quieter.

The worst part about laptop trading is if it gets too hot the fan goes on and off. Very annoying. I've gone back to a desktop for this reason.
More...


I may upgrade to a small 64gb ssd with a second 500gb 7200rpm hdd. Does that seem wise?
 
Quote from smile:

Please expand on this. I was looking into a portable usb monitor. Are you saying you were never able to get any of them to work reasonably well??

for example:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=830576&is=REG&Q=&A=details

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkV...d=1344442495&sr=8-2&keywords=portable+monitor
More...

I had constant video driver conflicts, frozen screens, etc... when I had the USB/ext monitor drivers installed, which was resolved USB ext drivers uninstalled. I experienced this across multiple systems and laptops.

Same as loading Nvidia and AMD video drivers on a system is not advised.
Optimally in dual card setups one uses same make and model video card. Acceptable same mfg, Not recommended mixing mfg's...

The external USB monitors are Novelties and aren't worth the hassle. [at least they weren't approximately 1-year ago]

Same goes for the USB to DVI adapters, which I believe was ENCO...

That Lenovo external monitor looks nice, however, worth contacting Lenovo to determine compatibility with your laptop, or intended laptop.

Perhaps there has been an improvement, if they accept a return if conflicts worth a try... off brands I would be a little apprehensive

If you decide to get it and it works, would appreciate you updating this thread with your experience...
 
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