Recommended Laptop Specs

[This]

Looking at some great results from users here, I am considering buying this setup,
But I want to keep it as portable as possible and use a laptop for the initial scanning work, and was hoping someone could recommend a laptop between $300 and $700 max.
I don't want to do post processing work on the scan STL's, that will be done with a powerful iMac.

I just need to able to run the software and not have problems rotating or adjusting settings, and having to wait for the system to catch up
I know the specs are mentioned, but I don't really have the know how for graphics cards and the processor speeds.

some help will be greatly appreciated

[Geoff]

Even if it's just for the printing side of things, you really should get a decent spec PC.

The printing, viewing, rotating models - not so power hungry, most laptops have sufficient graphics onboard to handle these tasks,
but it's the slicing of the models that takes the CPU power. For you, an I5 laptop, or I3 even, 2gb of RAM and at least 512mb onboard video absolute bare minimum.

On one PC, I have a model that is 81mb and it takes 16 minutes to prepare/slice for printing, it is an 8 core CPU...

The same model on another PC, a standard I5 it can take nearly 25-30 minutes to slice. It all depends on the detail of the model. If you plan on printing simple objects, then don't worry about it - but if you are printing items that require alot of detail, this can take longer to slice for printing and require more processing power.

[This]

I will primarily use the laptop for just the scanning work, the rest of the work, and even slicing for printing will be done on my iMac,
and the slicing for me takes seconds, Cura is good and fast
I have used scanned data (180mb) and sliced within a minute or two.

While doing research I found that one of the important things is to be able to extend the screen to the scanner itself,
most will do that, but somewhere there was mentioned you need a dedicated graphics card where the scanner should be plugged in ?

I am a Mac man, but for the sake of ease of use it's probably better to use a Win dedicated laptop, even if a Mac with Parallels seems to work.

[This]

I did some experimenting with a 2011 I5 Macbook,
although the software runs well in Parallels, it has too much trouble with the most detailed scans, and repeat scans,
in Medium or simple mode it runs ok, but not great

When I bought the scanner yesterday I saw in the shop they had a Asus laptop running with it, they said it runs smoothly,
guess I will buy that one.
Acer Aspire E5-573G-58FR
aspire-e5-573g-58fr_2142358-Besturingssysteem-Windows+10.jpg
I will share my experience with this laptop

[3dprintau]

That laptop will process the files very easily

[This]

I have been scanning with the Acer laptop, while it is the most ugly laptop I ever owned , it does the job.
I did remove a lot of bloatware and uninstalled/disabled a lot of system hoggers, so I can use as much as processing power as I can.

I did a few free scans in the highest res settings, and only after completing the total scan did the final meshing take about 10 min to proces.
and also got a warning during the end of some scan set (+15 alignments) that the I am running out of recources
I just hit No, and keep scanning, but I don't know what would happen if it really crashes, but I was able to keep scanning for 4/5 times to finish the total scan.



I can remotely see and control the laptop with my iPad and Splashtop, and during the final meshing I can just view downstairs, and save the file to my dropbox.

[jesser]

Well, I'd highly recommend Lenovo Y50

[jesser]

Lenovo Y50
Processor - 4th Generation Intel Core i7-4720HQ (2.60GHz 1600MHz 6MB)
Operating System - Windows 10 Home 64
Memory - 8.0GB PC3L-12800 DDR3L SDRAM 1600 MHz
Graphics Card - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 2GB
Hard Drive - Hybrid 1TB 5400 RPM+8GB SSHD

Moderator note: removed hyperlink

[scobo]

On one PC, I have a model that is 81mb and it takes 16 minutes to prepare/slice for printing, it is an 8 core CPU...

Woh, 16 minutes ??
What slicer are you using ?
Simplify3d will do a file that size in under a minute with an I5.