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On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Lee, Ting Wai <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > May I ask a very general question? I am going to buy a laptop. I am going to > do a lot of structural biology work on it using programs such as CCP4, > Phenix, Coot and Pymol. Mac or PC, which is better? See this morning's thread. Short answer: either works, just avoid Windows. > I have never installed > this kind of programs and done structural biology work on laptops except > using Pymol. Will these programs cause any problems when they are run on > laptops? I mean, will they slow down very much or even freeze the laptops? > Can the programs finish the jobs at an OK speed? I mean, maybe not as fast > as desktops, but not taking too long like days or weeks. It depends on how big the structures you work with are, and what you're trying to run. I have a MacBook Air and it is quite adequate for crystallography, but I've only worked with small and/or low-resolution structures where there's no danger of exceeding the 4GB memory limit. (Of course, one can buy far more powerful laptops, but the price goes up steeply.) The important thing is *not* to buy the cheapest PC laptop you can find, because the really low-end hardware probably won't work very well. -Nat