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Salka

Need to buy a laptop. Advice plx! Tnx.

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Hello all!

I need to buy a laptop, primarily for uni (doing art-related things). I use photoshop and illustrator lots, but also want to start dabbling in 3D eventually.

It would also be nice to play some games on it.

I would like it to have a reasonably big monitor as I'll be taking it into uni and using it in class. I am not so fussy about it being heavy. I don't care about that.

What should I be doing, or getting, and from where, and how? And how much will it cost? All these things are things I need to know.

TNX :)

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I use Newegg.com for everything but I don't know if that's convenient for people that live in Europe or if you need completely different power supplies.

I'd guess you'd need at least a dual/duo core processor, 4 GB of Ram, and some kind of non on-board video card that maybe has one gig or half of RAM itself. I think any laptop that is bulked up with that stuff will have a larger screen by default just because the small ones can't fit much power.

Maybe avoid Dell, Compaq, HP, or any other huge name since they come with a lot of preloaded software and junk you don't need constantly running or hard to remove (in my experience).

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I got an Asus N51 (Maybe N57? I don't remember) in late 2009 and it's my primary gaming system. It's really damn good, and I couldn't be happier with it. It's only a 32-bit system, with a dual-core 2.8GHz processor, but the fact that the max resolution is 1366x768 means that it can pump out really pretty pictures at native rez. Unfortunately the sticker with all the exact specs of my system has worn off, as it is right under where my palm goes when I'm typing, but I can certainly recommend Asus laptops in general as nice gaming machines for the price.

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I had an Asus motherboard on my old desktop that worked very nicely if that helps the Asus recommendation. I've heard good things about their laptops.

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I have an older Asus laptop. The build quality of the external case bits is not so hot (the lid hinge is all messed up so I can't really close the lid anymore), but never had a problem with any of the internals. The lid thing didn't crop up until ~year 2.5 for what that's worth.

Personally, I'd give some thought to going with something smaller/lighter if you're going to be lugging it to class every day and just plug into a bigger monitor when you're at home. Maybe that's not realistic for your budget though.

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Photoshop and 3d rendering are considerably multi-threaded. I would therefore suggest to look out for a quad-core cpu (maybe even an Intel i7 with hyper-threading). They furthermore benefit from lots of RAM. 8 gigs are recommended.

Display-wise I suggest a non-glossy surface to avoid nasty reflections, which would render the display pretty much useless for any serious image editing. You may also consider, that laptop display panels are TN-based, which are not the ideal solution for color-critical work.

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But that will all cost way more and isn't exactly necessary, specifically for Photoshop and beginner 3D, coming from someone who recommended about half your specs and uses it for the same regularly (except I do have a quad core, but did have a duo core iMac for a while with even worse specs that did get the job done at least in Adobe programs without too much lag).

But looking through the original post, she didn't seem to say cost is an issue, so you're probably right.

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I don't know if it's still the case, but a few years back an ASUS would generally be a higher spec than similarly priced machines. The sacrifice was build quality though; my friend Max went through a few of them and they both eventually fell to bits.

by an Apple, so you can be smug like the others

Whatever you buy Yufster, make sure to slag off everyone who has the other one. Definitely a worthwhile use of time.

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MacBook Pro. If you can swallow the cost, you won't regret it.

as should be news to nobody, there will be significantly less gaming to be had on a MBP unless you dual boot (or virtualization, I guess, how good is that for gaming nowadays though?).

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I would second (fourth?) the MacBook Pro recommendation. I have been a Windows user forever, but I got a MacBook Pro from my previous employer last summer and I wouldn't want a PC laptop ever again (although I'm also using a DELL now, which I got from my current employer). I can't believe how many annoying little things there are about PC laptops that the Mac handles much better.

Also, recently there are more and more games released for the Mac. Many indie games, Valve games, TellTale games, DeathSpank, Ass Creed II, Civ IV etc. I haven't done this myself but you can also install Windows on Mac with dual boot AFAIK.

That said, the Macs are expensive, especially the ones with larger screens, and I probably wouldn't have bought one for myself if I had had to pay the full price myself. Well, I am paying for it now, but I got a sweet deal where I do a bit of work for my previous employer and get to keep the Mac in return.

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I can't believe how many annoying little things there are about PC laptops that the Mac handles much better.

I think you mean MS Windows, not PC. Unlike Apple tries to make people believe, their whole Mac range are also PCs.

Macbook Pros are good hardware, for a hefty price tag (in general a bit more expensive than equivalent Toshiba or Dell laptops). The non-Pro's are crap, mediocre hardware for a high price. Macbook Pros would be one of the better choices in general if there was proper support for other operating systems (i.e. drivers). But because there isn't, you should also weigh in the impact of switching to OSX.

For a laptop I would go for a Dell or Toshiba. Dell is one of the few manufacturers that has proper resolutions on their laptop. Toshiba has quite a good track record for delivering reliable laptops. Also the service of both Dell and Toshiba are the best there is (unlike Apple which has one of the worst).

The only thing that really sucks these days is that pretty much all manufacturers (except Apple) made a clear cut between performance and usage (battery time, weight, etc.). Laptops with proper graphical performance are usually beasts that bare last a few hours on a single charge in idle mode. Finding a small (<17") laptop with a powerful GPU (i.e. non Intel IGP) is difficult.

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What a coincidence! I was going to post this:

Okay, I checked the Apple page for those ominous MacBook Pro's and all I found was a ordinary laptop made of common hardware.

The only differences I found were the aluminium casing, Mac OS X and the mentioned overblown price.

Wouldn't it be way cheaper to just buy a ordinary laptop plus Mac OS X?

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Macbook Pros would be one of the better choices in general if there was proper support for other operating systems (i.e. drivers). But because there isn't, you should also weigh in the impact of switching to OSX.

I run Windows XP on my Macbook Pro and haven't really encountered any driver issues, especially now that you can install Nvidia drivers downloaded directly from their webpage without any hassle. I have only run Ubuntu on VirtualBox, though. Are there some specific driver issues related to Macbooks I should know about?

Also, I have don't have any complaints about the Apple's service.

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Yeah, it's pretty trivial to have Win7 installed on Apple hardware. (besides swallowing the cost of the license)

If you're in Brighton, MA I can see you my previous laptop on the cheap... I finished Fallout 3 on it, so you can have an idea of the hardware.

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I think you mean MS Windows, not PC. Unlike Apple tries to make people believe, their whole Mac range are also PCs.

Bah, pcs schmcs. I meant non-Apple PCs, whether Windows or Linux. Ubuntu might be more usable than Windows as a laptop OS(?), though I haven't used it much recently. BTW I still prefer windows on a desktop PC.

I'm generally ok with the Dell I have but it has some things that annoy me:

1) built-in sound much worse than my mac

2) pressing keyboard volume buttons take you out of a game

3) trackpad is ridiculous compared to mac's, to scroll you have to hit the edge of it

4) in/out of power saving mode takes quite long compared to mac

5) changing the viewing angle even slightly can drastically change how colors appear

6) etc.

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Finding a small (<17") laptop with a powerful GPU (i.e. non Intel IGP) is difficult.

That's overstating the case a bit. For example, there are plenty of 15" laptops with something other than Intel IGP, but just being better than Intel IGP is not necessarily "powerful" IMO.

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Well, there are small and powerful laptops, my Vaio Z is probably the best example... but there's a price to be paid.

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If you're going to bootcamp to win7, i second the recommendation of macbook pro (or macbook air - neat little thing), but bear in mind it takes a bit of effort to use macbooks in public without looking like a douche. Asus is all around a sensible choice in my opinion.

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