I agree this dell is sweet for a pc. I hope the outside is metal. Not cheap plastic. But this thing isn't fat at all like others have said.
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Industrial/Product Designer Setups
- Thread starter stewartlittle
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Sorry, but sarcasm and jokes often don't work when you're not talking to someone face to face.
Less so if it's not proceeded by a classic:
It's late and my head is tired. toodles.
I think he's getting upset I never answer his posts anymore
The actual 'power' Precisions as opposed to the M2 series are pretty thick - but they don't look bad to me. I just hope in their rush to sexify the machines they haven't taken the same road as Apple in overdesigning for their achievable build quality.
The mainstream Precisions are magnesium with probably a plastic palmrest / keyboard border.
I agree these are nice, it seems as everyday i switch back and forth as to if i want a mbp, hp, or dell. One of these days, once they are all released, i will just have to take the plunge. Its a tough decision, and even more tough when i come on to forums, cause everyone has a different opinion. From what i have read in forums here and elsewhere it sounds like: Yes you can run sw in bootcamp on a mac, no problems, but to some it sames like a waste to buy an osx mbp and using it mainly in windows when cadding. As for dell, it seems to be the standard for what product designers use for a pc, i know my whole company is on dells, well and 1 mac. As for hp, it seems more like the consumer option, i find students seem to lean toward the hp more then professionals... so thats what i have seen so far... i may of course be wrong, at the moment i dont own a laptop for design, just a desktop.
HP the consumer option?
Seem to get this a lot with types who embrace Apple. They haven't seen anything outside of a Pavilion or an Inspiron / Dimension.
HP is among the leaders in servers - their Proliant machines dominate Intel server machinery, as well as the emerging blade server market. The xw desktops are standard kit for professionals with heavy-duty needs when a 'workstation' like the Pro ends up being a bad joke, including actually your needs as a visualisation professional.
We use a number of xw's and Proliants but for historical reasons we're a mostly-Dell shop in terms of Windows stuff, so that means the Poweredge servers and the Precision workstations. While superficially similar in terms of specs, the Precision desktop for example is the Land Cruiser to the Pro's Escalade. The former is unglamorous and actually does what it's supposed to do properly without fuss - whereas the latter is for show, and not actually that good when you start trying to use what's under the hood.
Seem to get this a lot with types who embrace Apple. They haven't seen anything outside of a Pavilion or an Inspiron / Dimension.
HP is among the leaders in servers - their Proliant machines dominate Intel server machinery, as well as the emerging blade server market. The xw desktops are standard kit for professionals with heavy-duty needs when a 'workstation' like the Pro ends up being a bad joke, including actually your needs as a visualisation professional.
We use a number of xw's and Proliants but for historical reasons we're a mostly-Dell shop in terms of Windows stuff, so that means the Poweredge servers and the Precision workstations. While superficially similar in terms of specs, the Precision desktop for example is the Land Cruiser to the Pro's Escalade. The former is unglamorous and actually does what it's supposed to do properly without fuss - whereas the latter is for show, and not actually that good when you start trying to use what's under the hood.
At work we all use precision desktop workstations as well. I believe mine is the 380? Not sure. Anyways, I am not 100% sure what you are saying. From it i get, that dell is the standard, no flash, no wow, just gets the job done. So do the hp and mbp do the same as the dell, but with style. Oh is this flash on these computers cause them to be not as good as the dell. If they are close in performance, i will take the cake and eat it too and get a mbp, but if the dell is going to greatly outperform for my type of work, then the decision is obvious.
yes, of course you can make product/industrial/equipment design with any of the software i've mentioned, that depends on the rank of control, precision you want! i've seen people making ID with google sketchup!!
but in which 3d mac app i'm able to have an actions history tree, which is huge in the creative process (just to mention one thing)? perhaps cobalt? from my point of view, it's better to have these possibilities and never use them (which i don't believe), instead of wanting control and couldn't have it, don't you think?the real point is, windows machines are better for 3D, 'cause of the wide offer! buying a mac for using in 3D seems to me like suicide. i'd love to have solidworks or solidedge for mac, so i can seemly integrate them with cinema 4D, after effects or flash for rendering and animation, without having two different machines.
i've worked as a product designer in a company with internal manufacturing, and we used both solid edge and inventor. i recognize that solidedge made lots of improvements, besides "solid modeling" uses surfaces and blue dots, which sometimes come very handy, but still, i don't recommend unless the company budget is low. 'cause it still has a lot glitches.
besides modeling, inventor is for mechanical simulations, i agree, but that does necessary points to an engineer? just because i want to have "full" control of what i'm creating, and testing some door opening, or opening a bottle or whatever, i'm an engineer? most of my co-workers designers and engineers will laugh
yes, of course you can make product/industrial/equipment design with any of the software i've mentioned, that depends on the rank of control, precision you want! i've seen people making ID with google sketchup!!
the real point is, windows machines are better for 3D, 'cause of the wide offer! buying a mac for using in 3D seems to me like suicide. i'd love to have solidworks or solidedge for mac, so i can seemly integrate them with cinema 4D, after effects or flash for rendering and animation, without having two different machines.
i've worked as a product designer in a company with internal manufacturing, and we used both solid edge and inventor. i recognize that solidedge made lots of improvements, besides "solid modeling" uses surfaces and blue dots, which sometimes come very handy, but still, i don't recommend unless the company budget is low. 'cause it still has a lot glitches.
besides modeling, inventor is for mechanical simulations, i agree, but that does necessary points to an engineer? just because i want to have "full" control of what i'm creating, and testing some door opening, or opening a bottle or whatever, i'm an engineer? most of my co-workers designers and engineers will laugh
A quote from a news item on the core77 site: (bold face mine)
"Autodesk just launched the Plastic Features Technology Preview on Autodesk Labs which adds a load of plastic part design tools for Inventor, so thin wall parts are easier to build and there's a bunch of features such as grills, rests, bosses, snaps, lips, grooves and fillets. Autodesk has been working on this technology for the last couple of years, and even drafted some of the guys from ImpactXoft to work on some clever bits to better handle thin wall parts. Is anyone using Inventor for industrial design I wonder and does the AliasStudio connection make it more interesting if you don't?"
I'm not saying that Cobalt is the most wonderful program in the world, but it is quite usable. To compare using it to using Google Sketchup is ridiculous. Sure, I'd rather be using Solidworks, but I'm semi-retired and am not going to make the investment of either money or time to switch at this point. As for Inventor, no thanks. Not even if I were just starting out!
The fact that Inventor is useful for mechanical simulations and similar engineering functions (whether you're an industrial designer or not) doesn't make the ability to run it a good enough reason to choose a particular platform if your overwhelmingly primary need is a good ID program. If you really need to be able to run Inventor occasionally, you can do it on a Mac. After all, as evidenced by quotes in one of my previous posts, people are running Solidworks on Macs every day.
He does have some underlying points:
That
a) The role you set out for yourself as an industrial designer depends on how much you're going to get involved in the overall product design and production. Increasingly you're not an island unto yourself, but need to cooperate with other parties and digital prototyping is becoming far more prevalent. Merely shaping geometries onscreen, giving them nice textures and then passing it on no longer cuts the mustard in many product development scenarios.
b) It is something of an idiot's game to pick OS X as an industrial design platform. Why settle for second (or arguably, third or fourth) best?
That
a) The role you set out for yourself as an industrial designer depends on how much you're going to get involved in the overall product design and production. Increasingly you're not an island unto yourself, but need to cooperate with other parties and digital prototyping is becoming far more prevalent. Merely shaping geometries onscreen, giving them nice textures and then passing it on no longer cuts the mustard in many product development scenarios.
b) It is something of an idiot's game to pick OS X as an industrial design platform. Why settle for second (or arguably, third or fourth) best?
so what's the point of having a mac if you need windows to run solidworks? 'cause it looks cool?
if it's for an every day use (if you're an industrial designer surely is) simply buy a pc and that's it! most ID just need the app for modeling and if needed an app for rendering. hey, i'm a big "fan" of apple, but this time windows machines are way ahead. i rest my case so what's the point of having a mac if you need windows to run solidworks? 'cause it looks cool?
Because you can run SketchBook Pro, PS, Illustrator (for graphics) etc., as well as all of your non-ID apps without having to deal with a truly crappy OS that has as many crashes as a demolition derby!
If you can have a dedicated workstation for Solidworks, fine, get a PC too, but from stewertlittle's original post I gather that this will be his only setup. I'm sure a lot of us would be happy if Dassault would bring out a native Mac version of Solidworks. Maybe if Mac keeps gaining market share that will happen. It's happening with Rhino right now.
As JWH2 said I need one computer for all my work and play. I am in Australia for just one year then back here. Makes no sense to get two pc's. A year ago a dell would be all I would even consider but then I met the world of mac. Now my decision is tough. Do I go for an unstable dell precision laptop with xp but it is great for sw alone. Or do I go for a mbp with slightly slower performance in sw but stable for everything else. Truth is that 90% of the design I do is on sw but I only design for work. Normal use and play is part too.
Try Googling "Vista problems 2008" (not in quotes). I included the "2008" to try to minimize topics regarding early adopters including MS executives. http://www.smh.com.au/news/technolo...-vista-problems/2008/02/29/1204226975087.html You'll get more than 84,000,000 matches! Similar phrases will turn up tons, too. Even if running the latest hardware cured all of the issues, which apparently it doesn't, there are a lot of users who are very unhappy when they find out that a Vista upgrade means a hardware upgrade. That's a major reason why Mr. Softy agreed to keep supporting XP.
Sorry I should rephrase, it is not "as" stable as osx. I have always used xp for solidworks, and if i get a laptop, i will get the downgrade option to xp because i have sw 07 which does not run with vista. Even if i convinced the boss to fork out the money for sw08 whose to say it will run fluidly with vista. So my choice is an xp laptop or a mbp. still trying to make the decision...
For the most part, that's complete bullpuckey. You rely on Google, I rely on my own - and my business's - experience. Vista64 is every bit as reliable as OS X - and in some cases, then some.
LOL!!!
stewartlittle, for ID and sw07 you're good with xp, stay away from vista!
mac still sucks for games and if you're an hardcore gamer, get a good damn pc...
peace
the only game I play is cod4. I would say that overall usage of a pc for me is 60% work, 30% general usage, 10% cod4.
sw2007 does work with vista (well atleast it does on the 32bit version) although you may need a service pack version. Same as sw2008, it will work but only after iirc sp3.1.
As to vista x64 being stable, as a whole vista is fine, some of the drivers supplied by some companies (logitech nulooq ones are appauling) are complete rubbish and can cause issues though.
Codec support on x64 could be better but thats mainly due to laziness on the part of the codec companies - this isn't an issue as such as 32bit ones work in the 32bit wmp11 but the 64bit ones are needed for things like media center.
I would say out of xp and vista, vista is more stable for me personally, however it does depend on what hardware you have (drivers play a huge part here) and what you install onto it. As long as the software/drivers has been updated to work with vista then you will have a very stable system. Mine is and the only issue I have is as I said lack of 64bit codecs (I want to use media center) and nulooq drivers but logitech are useless in this respect. Everything else is fine.
Hmmmm. I think you have a moral obligation to tell the multitude of people suffering with Vista that it's all in their heads. If I have to rely on consensus versus your stated experience, I'll take consensus.
Um, you've just had 2 business users come out and say they have very stable and useable vista installs. I'm not saying its all roses for everyone but a well configured/setup vista install will be just as stable as an xp or os-x one.
You'll find that most of the people having issues with vista now are people who are still using legacy hardware which was at its limit in xp or the manufacturers are after a quick buck by no longer supporting them (think scanners). Most of the issues aren't even there with 32bit because most things can still have xp's 32bit drivers forcefully installed.
Home users will always have more issues than a business due to the home users always installing the free junk they find online rather than sticking to what they really need.
I'll admit that for best use vista does need dual core/cpu rigs and atleast 2GB of ram but in this day and age anyone trying to run vista on less is just stupid with the prices for upgrades being so relatively cheap.
Hell I brought my issues on myself by going 64bit but thats has more advantages than the minor inconveniences of codecs and nulooq drivers.
To be honest, i dont think vista is even coming into my mind at this point. I know sw07 and 08 works with xp sp2 or 3, i dont know for sure if it works with vista, i know people who have had problems getting it to run. Its a no brainer for me on that one, this laptop has got to be my prime source for doing work, i have no room for a computer that i cannot trust. Really the debate comes down to, getting a vista pc, downgraded by manufacturer to xp (dell precision) or get an osx mbp, install bootcamp, and buy a copy of xp sp3 and install it. At least to me, that is the dilemma.
I don't quite understand why you'd not go for a more up-to-date operating system which is more reliable, especially with ISV-certified hardware like the Precision series and an application that *does* work with it But that is entirely your call. It's a slightly dumb call at this point in time, but nevertheless, yours.
But that is entirely your call. It's a slightly dumb call at this point in time, but nevertheless, yours.I would only go with a vista pc if i had a 100% garantee that sw 07, works with it. With zero problems. It wouldnt be a stupid choice getting a mac either, because its simple to add xp on there. More simple then buying a pc laptop, and formatting vista just so i can run solidworks
The only reason sw2007 would not work with vista 32bit is if you haven't got a legal version of it, sp4 (free to legal owners) onwards should support 32bit vista even though this page says it can't, I'm sure it used to though as this is where I checked
Now obviously 2008 is a better option as its newer but hey sw isn't cheap.
Oh and by the way mac's aren't supported