I’m thinking about a new laptop for tournament preparation. Assume ChessBase, Houdini etc.
Recommendations for the value buyer? For peak performance?
Chessbase 12’s minimum system specs are still pretty spartan (by today’s standards):
It doesn’t state a recommended.
With engines, though, the specs get upped. Here are Houdini 3’s from Chessbase’s news:
The thing is, with engines, better processor and RAM translate to more nodes per second evaluated.
I’m still running off a modest G430 Lenovo laptop that is getting older (CB Light 2009 and Fritz 12 IIRC,) and have no trouble. I’m not sure about Lenovo’s reliability this year (not saying no - just read some reports…) Anyway, if I could afford $850 and wanted a 14 inch, I’d think the T430 with i5 Core series Thinkpad would be what I’d get shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/th … ries/t430/
The big question for me would be would I want a touch screen? (Even though I’d downgrade to Windows 7 and am still avoiding Windows 8.) I think using Chessbase with a touchscreen wouuld be cool.
The other thing i, I loathe Ribbon software. I don’t like Fritz’ ribbon (much worse than Office IMVHO.) I’m giving serious consideration to switching to Chess Assistant with my next computer purchase.
But it seems like most systems just up from a Netbook would probably do the job, and maybe as good as a premium system.
For an amateur player, you almost can’t buy a new laptop that would not work fine for chess preparation. The more CPU and RAM you have, the stronger the engine will be—but Houdini is plenty strong at any speed.
My only laptop is a ThinkPad T60, vintage 2006. Intel Core Duo 2 GHz CPU and 3 GB of DDR-2 RAM. Strictly 32-bit. It came with XP but I put Win 7 on it.
For chess, I have SCID, Chessbase 9, Fritz 11 and the latest free versions of Houdini, Rybka and Critter. More than enough to suit my needs. If chess is the ‘only’ reason to buy a laptop, the best value might be a gently used TP or similar—not as old as mine, probably, but the advances in PC tech the past few years have not really been to the horsepower that might help boost chess study.
P.S. The interface for Fritz 12/13 is awful, IMO. Since I use Fritz mainly as the place to launch other engines, I doubt I will upgrade from Fritz 11.
Belated thanks! I was on my laptop yesterday for the first time in awhile, and realized my frustration is mostly with ChessBase 10, which crashes ALL THE TIME.
I understand I am not alone in this, but my ChessBase crashes actually take the machine down so that I have to power on (not even the courtesy of yesteryear’s BSOD). Win7, 4 GB RAM, fast enough chip. So I’m wondering whether there’s a problem with laptop itself (memory leak, alternator, master cylinder 
). Unlikely to be able to fix myself if that’s the case, so “endure” and “replace” are my options.
I should add that power-off crashes occasionally happen outside ChessBase as well. Houdini 3 with the Fritz interface behaves well on the same machine.
A GM friend told me to save my $$ on CB 12, “It still crashes.”
I recommend that whichever laptop you buy, make sure it has a touch screen. Else you are buying hardware that is obsolete before you get it home.
In Windows 8, the initial “metro” or “modern” display of application-launch tiles (replacement of the Start button) is a minor thing, because I always touch the DeskTop tile first.
But…
Once in DeskTop mode, all the applications are touch aware. Scrolling by screen touch is great. Touching buttons is often easier than moving the mouse then clicking. Less Carpal-Tunnel too.
Msft Office 2013 applications (Word, Excel) offer a slightly expanded ribbon so that the relatively fat human finger can use the ribbon without errors.
Several Windows 8 laptops lack touch screen, so beware.
Several Windows 8 laptops that do have touch screen also have mechanical designs that enable them to fold to the smaller size of a plain pad/tablet, where the only keyboard is the one you can call up on-screen.
This laptop-fold-to-pad feature is a nice dual-use form factor. But it comes with a drawback: no keys for Home, End, AppsKey (the right-click of focus key).
Instead, a separate Function key must be held with the left hand to enable overloaded keys accessible by the right hand. I hate this drawback because I use Home constantly when coding, and even when writing text.
Laptops that meet these goals include…
*** Microsoft Surface Pro (not Surface RT) — But get the moving-keys keyboard, not the $10 cheaper touch keyboard.
*** Dell XPS 12 (or 13 or 14) — But mine and my co-worker’s Dell XPS 12 laptops both suffer from awful gravity sensor behavior (screen flips upside-down or sideways for no reason, often locks in wrong orientation requiring reboot, buttons and checkboxes intended to subdue reorientation totally fail on one).
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