Laptops AHOY!

AlyceInWonderland · November 2006

So, I'm going to college in less than a year, and I'm going to need a laptop.

I'll (hopefully) be going to The School of Visual Arts for Illustration, and I'm going to need a laptop (Preferably a Mac) that can handle art related things. I just don't' know what to get.

Some recommendations would be swank! THX GUYEZ!

SpaceGhost · November 2006

Macbook Pro if you can afford it, if not get a regular Macbook with more ram (at least a gig, get 2 if you wanna run Photoshop etc.)

robaal · November 2006

How about a tablet PC? They seem neat and I think most of them have a normal keyboard and just move the screen so that it covers it when you want to scribble on the screen.

They seem to have smaller screens than normal laptops though.

Trillian · November 2006

Mac has a student discount on their computers, so that could be very very helpful. I'm doubtful of the screen quality of tablet PCs, so a peripheral tablet and a decent computer may be your best bet. Mac is generaly the best for such things, so have at it!

urchin · November 2006

MacBooks are a good deal with a student discount, but I don't know if the screen will be big enough for photoshop and stuff like that. Maybe get an external monitor? When I'm using GIMP I like to keep all my tools and toolbars on my secondary monitor. Then again, I bet most people that spend lots of time doing image editing know all the keyboard shortcuts by heart so it isn't an issue.

Migliori · November 2006

Are you buying this now to use from now through school? Because there should have been two major revisions to macbook pros, and I assume macbooks too by around this time next year. One in spring when the santa rosa platform comes out and one later in the year when new chips arrive.

Shazkar Shadowstorm · November 2006

Macbook/Macbook Pro with external monitor seems a good idea. I have MacBook but didn't feel like bringing my 20.1" monitor all the way here due to transportation and space, but even the MacBook can do dual screen with a big ol' monitor like that.

You're going to school close to me, but by close I mean 100 blocks away. Har.

Brodo Faggins · November 2006

What's your budget like? 1500 or below = MacBook, with student discount, and enough left over for a decent 1280 x 1024 monitor. 1700 and up = MacBook Pro, again with discount.

AlyceInWonderland · November 2006

Shazkar Shadowstorm wrote:

You're going to school close to me, but by close I mean 100 blocks away. Har.

Cool beans, cool beans! What school do you go to?

I also plan on getting it later in the year, because I figured that there would be better models coming out. but I just wanted an idea of what to look for.
No doubt I'll be doing a lot of photoshop work (for non school work also), and they generally have big files, so I'm going to need a Mac that can handle something like that. I'm not sure of my buget just yet. But probably 1500 below, as other college things are going to totally empty the bank.

Thanks guys, I'll look into the macs suggested.

Keep it comin' still!

vonPoonBurGer · November 2006

AlyceInWonderland wrote:

I'm not sure of my buget just yet. But probably 1500 below, as other college things are going to totally empty the bank.

The base model MacBook would work alright, and would be in your price range with a fair bit left over, especially after you factor in student discount. You could use the leftover monies for strategic upgrades. The biggest things you're going to need for design work are RAM, storage and a larger monitor if you don't already have one. In terms of RAM, the more you have the better, so go for the full 2GB if possible. Rather than upgrading the internal storage, you might want to consider getting an external drive for storing your work files. It'll cost you far less per GB that way, and the performance hit shouldn't be too bad if all your using it for is to save and load your work from (any application scratch files should probably remain on the internal HD though). And a 19" flat panel monitor would probably be a lot nicer for working on than (just) the 13" built-in screen. If you can't afford to do all those upgrades at once, you could always leave out the external HD or monitor until later down the line. If I were making the choice, I'd probably wait on the external storage if I had to wait on something, that way you can pick it up when you're starting to run low on space, rather than buying it up-front.

AlyceInWonderland · November 2006

I'll be taking my PC to college too (mainly for recreation), would it be possible to hook up the laptop to my PCs monitor?

vonPoonBurGer · December 2006

AlyceInWonderland wrote:

I'll be taking my PC to college too (mainly for recreation), would it be possible to hook up the laptop to my PCs monitor?

Completely! Actually, if you have a PC with keyboard, mouse and monitor, that gives me another idea. I'd actually recommend you look at getting a KVM (Keyboard-Video-Mouse) switch. A friend of mine does design consulting for a living, he has a PC for gaming and a couple different Macs all hooked up to a KVM. He's also got spare hookups for his laptop off to the side, so he can connect it whenever he's got it at his desk. Let's him flip back and forth between the PC and various Macs without having to switch keyboard, mouse or monitor. Even the more expensive KVMs will probably cost less than a second monitor, and it'll save you a ton of desk space (probably handy for student living). You'll need to make sure that the notebook and PC are using the same interfaces for keyboard, video and mouse, and that any KVM you buy supports those. For video, that means VGA or DVI, and for keyboard & mouse it's between USB and PS2. I imagine you'd want a USB KVM, with DVI if your PC has a flat panel monitor, VGA if it's got a CRT monitor.

Virum · December 2006

Make sure you get a quality KVM if you do though; if you get a cheap one you may notice some lagging in screen updating.

Penny Arcade

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