What laptop to buy??

mikeymo

New Member
Hello,

I am looking at buying a laptop to do by design work, I use the cs3 design premium package mainly for design for print and the odd 3-d animation....Anybody have any laptops they recommend apart from macbook as they are out of my price range at £700. My price range is up to £550 ish mark. Is there any articles of whats the best laptops out there for a graphic designer? I had my eye on dell inspiration with core i5 processor, 3g ram, 500g hard drive and intel hd graphics, windows 7 for £489.99, i want to look at few more laptops though before i decide buying so if anybody out there know of any good machines please let me know, thanks :)
 
I couldn't recommend anything but a mac to be honest... scour ebay for a good deal or take a look at the refrerb bit on apples site... or if your a student you get discount too...
 
Ignore the mac people, you'll be fine with a windows machine, atleast they've updated to the newer cpu's :p

Take a look at the business laptops from hp and dell as they often work out better value than their consumer options :)
 
Levi i am using maya for 3d work, what mac's are you guys using at the moment??, i want laptop because i will be moving about a lot in u.k so started looking at buying one, if i go with getting a mac i dont want a low end macbook and the high end books are about 900 - 1200 thats just way out of what i can afford, so a powerful core i5 laptop is what i may purchase....i may still swing to the mac side though and be poor for a good while
 
I have got a 13" mac book and I run photoshop, illy and indesign and works perfect for me... and I have a nice 19" monitor at home which I just plug in.. like you I go on the road a lot so needed a laptop I would say go for the 15" though...
 
mikeymo said:
Levi i am using maya for 3d work, what mac's are you guys using at the moment??, i want laptop because i will be moving about a lot in u.k so started looking at buying one, if i go with getting a mac i dont want a low end macbook and the high end books are about 900 - 1200 thats just way out of what i can afford, so a powerful core i5 laptop is what i may purchase....i may still swing to the mac side though and be poor for a good while

Graphics are probably more important then so don't get the low end gpu's such as intel's own stuff.

Bring up some links of the ones you're interested in and I'll give an honest non mac biased opinion ;)
 
hey Levi spend the day looking for laptops got a load of links though so if your not busy it be awesome if you could have a look and advise me on a good 1. im that good on the technical stuff on computers, i just know how to use them for graphic haha. are you use windows based machine? what machine you using? anyway glad you can help me heres the links:

Dell inpiration laptop:
The Dell Online Store: Build Your System

acer laptop:
Buy ACER AS5738PG | 15.6" widescreen laptop - Specification | Comet

Acer Aspire 5739G laptop
Acer Aspire 5739G review | Laptops | Reviews | PC Pro

another acer laptop:
Acer Aspire 5740G Intel Core i5 430M 2.26GHz / 4GB / 500GB / LED15.6 / DVDRW / Win 7 Home Premium Product Information - PriceRunner United Kingdom

and another acer laptop:
ACER 5740 at cheap prices | PC World

lastly a Samsung R522 laptop:
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/12041543/Samsung-R522-Core-2-Duo-T6500-2-16GHz-4GB-500GB-DVD-SM-15-6-Windows-7-Home-Premium-Laptop-Notebook/Product.html?&P36=L9MC7V&affid=pcchecker&awc=buyat&_$ja=tsid:11516%7Cprd:pcchecker

sorry for the many links levi....got my eye on the dell and one of the acers i forgot which one now theres loads
 
to be perfectly honest I only clicked on one link as I wouldn't touch acer with a bargepole and the samsung is using a core2duo cpu rather than a core i

Your dell has the rubbish intel gpu in it.

If you like that one you need to get the one below as its got a dedicated graphics card and will run maya better but it also costs more
Inspiron 1564 - N0056411 | Dell UK
 
Don't forget your Windows Anti Virus protection...you'll need it.

Good luck...you'll need that as well.

See you in your local Mac Store in a year or so.
 
what sort of gpu should i be looking for, how come you dislike acer? i taken out hp from my search as iv got hp pavilion desktop as had problems with it from 1st day i fot it and hp have the worst customer help ever grrrrrr

so do macs not get viruses? iv had virus on my pc its bloody annoying. yeh il be in the mac store in the future but not now i dont think, unless someone can give me a grand for a macbook pro
 
I've never had a virus on a Mac in over 15 years.

I thinks you need to to a little more research before parting with your cash bud.
 
You don't get virus's on windows with a simple bit of protection (MS security essentials on windows 7 x64 - it's literally 5 minutes work and then it's leave it alone in the background) and some common sense.

I haven't had a virus on windows since I was at uni (about 7 years) and that was down to my own fault as I wanted to install something I'd 'found', it never got past the antivirus software though so all it did was waste my time downloading it.

I've never even been alerted (yes it's working) on x64 windows as most virus's are meant for the 32bit version of windows. If you want to ensure no virus's on your system just don't install all the crapware (ie internet explorer toolbars) or warez that's floating on the net it's that simple, just stick with trusted sources.

Acer - they rubbish, simple as that really.

I suggested the HP business laptops not the consumer, there's a difference :)

GPU's the best you can afford really - the higher the number the better with preference towards ati hd5xxx series and geforce 3xx series (although iirc thats just another re-badging of the 9series)
Although personally I'd be looking at quadro's if I wanted a laptop for all my work but I don't intend to use a laptop for my cad work.
 
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