Help please - college laptop

Gloomendoom

I have Autodesk Inventor, a step up from Autocad, on an old Dell XPS desktop with 4Gb ram and it works fine.

Unless you are working with huge assemblies you can get away with the minimum spec.

neilmcl

I'm guessing most of his CAD work will be done in the lab rather than at home so the Vostro will probably be fine but it's worth checking.

kingfisherblue

Neil, only a small number of students will be on the same course. It's not a large college, and not everyone is doing the same. I've no idea what laptops others have, but I do know that my son hasn't been able to access Fusion 360 for a few days now, as there is a fault at college. Even then, he can't always access computers at college as there aren't enough for everyone to use. He's been using AutoDesk and has homework to complete.

Tarambor, if the Vostro meets the requirements, I don't know why Dell Chat said that it won't support any CAD programmes. Obviously not knowing myself, I trust them to give me the correct information.

I'm waiting for the college to clarify the situation, but I don't know at this point whether it is a teacher who has decided on these laptops (and whether that teacher deals with AutoDesk), or whether it is the bursar who has decided, perhaps because he has a decent deal with Dell.

Heedtheadvice

Almost certainly it will be a Dell deal with a one size fits all policy for word processing, spreadsheets, browsing and a bit more.....
......but not designed for more demanding tasks which cad is.

Your approach to tutors/heads is a wise move. They can perhaps advise what is the best rather than just acceptable. Much will depend upon the complexity of the cad, how frustrating it might be if slowish response is produced and level of use!
If you cannot get any flexibility in provision such as extra memory then if needed it could be buy independently - if money is tight dell 'outlet' machines (returns, returns, opened packages etc.) are available at reduced costs and with flexible specs.

were

Those dell Vostro 15 3000 series screens do not have the greatest resolution @ 1366x768. By the time you put a few toolbars on, the working area could become cramped

forgotmyname

Does it need to be a laptop and portable? Build a decent desktop which can be upgraded as needed.

Just upgraded my desktop due to CAD software and 3D stuff.

kingfisherblue

Yes, it needs to be portable so that he can use it at college as well as at home. There are not enough computers at college. Also, a desktop isn't an option available to my son.

However, his Head of Year is looking into whether a different laptop can be applied for. We're just waiting for an answer.

RobertoMoir

I'm an IT manager at a college where we run courses using Autocad / Mechanical Desktop on desktop PCs without any extra dedicated graphics cards. The desktops we use have a similar spec to the Dell Vostro 3568.

They can be a little slow but they're "good enough". We did add more memory though, is an upgrade to 8Gb of ram an available option with the laptop, or could you add that afterwards? If there's no way to upgrade the RAM then I would avoid the laptop.

Where Dell are saying something isn't supported, that doesn't mean it definitely won't work. It means they haven't tested that particular combination and cannot guarantee that it will work or that it will work to a particular standard and that if you try it, the risk is yours. This is a "standard phrase" in the IT industry.