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Choosing the right laptop for University
Locklock
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi folks! I'm going off to university in a few months, and I'm looking for a laptop to use while I'm up there. What I really need is a laptop that can do some intensive image and audio editing. I'm an art major, so I want something that can run photoshop well, even when working with large images. I don't plan on doing a lot of serious gaming, although if it can run some older games like galciv2 that'd be a plus. I've been browsing around newegg, but I'm kinda lost on what to look for. I want it to be portable, so I'm looking for a laptop 15 inches or under. Also I'm trying to keep costs down as much as I can.
Should I avoid integrated graphics?
As far as processors go, faster = better, right?
What should I keep in mind as I look for a laptop, and do you have any specific recommendations?
Should I avoid integrated graphics?
As far as processors go, faster = better, right?
What should I keep in mind as I look for a laptop, and do you have any specific recommendations?
Locklock on
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Have you used macs before? Because of the photoshop mentioned the minimum amount of memory you should be going for is 2GB.
For gaming you could use a bootcamp partition.
How do these prices suit you?
If I were you i'd go with the lowest spec but get 2 or 4 gig of ram. The processor speed is more than enough for photoshop on the lowest spec Macbook.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
I have to agree, unless you have good reason for not wanting a Mac. Knock $100 off of those prices for academic discount, and don't bother buying RAM from Apple. It's outrageously expensive. 3rd party RAM is significantly cheaper and can be installed in <5min.
If you really don't care about battery life.
I saw someone else bring up this laptop recently: http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3273
Seems like a decent price / performance ratio if you don't want an apple laptop.
My other recommendation would be a tablet, but they're hard to find with decent video. One of my friends has one, and he says that he finds it more intuitive to use in a classroom setting. I didn't do much research on it but here's one just so you can see the concept: http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=63596
You're not going to get a laptop that will be nice to do serious image editing on for really cheap. Spending a good amount and getting a nice laptop will make life ever so much more enjoyable. I once had to edit ~600 photos from a shoot on a vanilla Macbook with a gig of RAM, and my voice was hoarse from screaming curses at the machine and its creators by the time I was done.
I've got to say ditto on this. I have to say I'm very impressed by the design and as long as you've got an ok sized shoulder bag, it's not that heavy. The only sort of disappointing feature to me is the screen, but mainly as I'm used to a PVA panel at home. The colours are very bright and vibrant but I assume it's a TN+film display as the colour shifting is pretty bad. I haven't seen the LED panels yet so I can't comment on them but it's probably worth checking them out.
Recommendations I would make would be to get one with a penryn processor (45nm fab process means it uses less power and takes up less heat). I think the T8300 (2.4ghz) is probably the best £/performance, although I ended up with the T8100.
I'd probably try and get a 7,200rpm hard drive in there, even if it means going for a smaller drive. Currently I have a 250gb 5,400rpm drive but I think there's an option to straight swap it to a 160gb 7,200rpm drive which is probably big enough as long as you don't insist on carrying your entire media library with you.
Screen size I'd definitely recommend 1440x900 on a 15" panel, 1280x800 is too small, although you might want a higher pixel density if you're doing artsy things so have a look at a 1650x1050 display (gives me eyestrain though, but I'm mainly reading/typing on mine).
RAM wise for a laptop, I have 2gb but feel that it's probably a little bit lacking, and I'll probably upgrade to 3-4gb at some point. Laptops have to do so much more than desktops (but are so much nicer to use).
Warrenty on a laptop is generally recommended, all laptops have pretty scary 3 year failure rates in the 20-30% range.
I picked up mine for £740 with a 4 year warrenty, so shop around for coupons and other special deals as you may be able to save a lot of money. It's pretty much identicle to a macbook pro, except it was about half the price. But I'm a Vista/MS person, I like it a lot so the premium for an apple wasn't worth it to me, but it might be for you.
Integrated meaning integrated onto the northbridge. Obviously it's going to be integrated onto the motherboard.
And anything discrete is going to kill battery life and generate a bunch of heat. Intel's graphics chips might suck at performance but they're consistently the best choice for battery life. But if you need the hardware, you need the hardware.
Have you considered getting a nice desktop to do your photoshop work on and a cheap, low-power laptop to bring around for note-taking and such?
I think the colors on the screen are great. I got the upgraded 1400x900 option on mine just because since its only a 15" screen I did not want everything to be super tiny. Like I said I do a lot of graphics work on it and I have never noticed my colors being that far off from the 2408wfp sitting next to it on my desktop or much different than my prints. I was really surprised by the quality of the screen.