Looking for laptop to do industrial design for ~$1500...

Hi,

I've been a long time Powerbook user. I've recently owned a TiBook, a 12" AlBook, and a 17" AlBook. Writing code all day for my job sorta burned me out on computing, and I realized that I hardly used my home computer so I sold it.

Well I want to get back into doing industrial design work, and I had planned on buying a new Powerbook and picking up Ashlar Cobalt. While generally this is a good combo there are a few tools I want to use that are currently not available for OS X, namely Pro/E and Alias StudioTools. I had hoped to not have to get a PC laptop simply because the other apps I use (Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator) just have never felt "right" to me under Windows... a personal issue I know. Well I sort of recognized that as much as I'd like to have an OS X machine for that kind of work, I am better off with a PC for my primary focus... industrial design. Now if Pro/E or StudioTools were available for OS X I would have bought a 15" AlBook already, but they're not so here I am...

As such I've been on a hunt for the most Powerbook-like PC notebooks. I really like the clean lines and metallic casings on the Powerbooks, and it's something I've yet to find in my search for a PC notebook, I've just decided that I'm going to have to settle for "close", which is generally fine.

I would prefer wide-screen notebook, but it's not necessary. I won't however settle for 1024x768 resolution, it's just too cramped, I couldn't stand it on the 12" AlBook, and I don't think I'd like it any better on a PC. I would like at least a Radeon Mobility 9000 just because this machine will be doing 3D work, just not gaming, though I guess I wouldn't be opposed to some gaming it doesn't occur to me very often to do so. I'd like the machine to be as minimalist and clean looking as possible, ala the Powerbooks, and batterylife isn't that big a concern, but it would be nice to be able to get more than a couple hours out of it.

So far I've been looking at the following:
eMachines 6805/6809
iBuyPower.com Battalion E-series
Internetishop.com 556
Something based on the Arima m620 if I could find one.

Is there anything else I should be considering? Any comments on what I'm already looking at? I've considered an IBM T41, but they're just too much money, and the further under $1500 I can get the better. If I can save enough money I'd like to be able to pick up one of the new eMac's to maintain my media, etc. and just use the PC laptop for design work.

Thanks a bunch,
-Nathan

Well because I have pretty much no faith in the ability of VirtualPC to run Pro/E or StudioTools at anything approaching acceptable speed. For one because floating point emulation performance of VPC is terrible, and on top of that there'd be virtually no graphics acceleration to speak of

Cheers!
-Nathan

Yep sure did. Not a bad round up. The 15" at $1999 is quite a machine. Like I said... if Pro/E or StudioTools ran on OS X I'd already have another Powerbook

Cheers!
-Nathan

Well I went up to Best Buy last night and checked out the eMachine's M6809. It seems like a very capable high performance computer, and it's an incredible price. It has one major short coming... it is hideous. Other than that the lower half of the notebook seems pretty solid, but the screen half is a little flimsy. It was ~$1350 or something like that after rebates, not too bad.

I have to wonder what the performance of that notebook would be like compared to the Centrino notebooks I mentioned that I'm looking at.

-Nathan