Notebook for a design student.

[Fardor]

I THINK I FOUND A GOOD ONE: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16834220256
Like $1000 cheaper than a MacBook pro that isn't as powerful. 6.8 lbs though. But I guess getting a good heavy one is better than an OK light one.

Looking for advice on the best notebook for my friend.

He isn't sure how good a GPU he needs for programs like, say, Photoshop CS3 (and other graphic design programs). Not a big gamer.

Screen size, he thinks 17in would be good. But a little bit less wouldn't be a huge problem.

Wants to have good battery life, if possible. 3 hours or more would be great, but he understands that he might need to sacrifice some battery life for necessary power.

He's going to be carrying this notebook around, but said he doesn't care too much about the weight as long as it isn't 10 pounds. Still, the lighter the better.

I think a Core2Duo would be good. 2GB RAM would also be good (prob. need it for Vista anyways).

As for budget, less than or not too much over $1500.

 

[Throckmorton]

The most important things are a dedicated GPU and a good LCD. A lot of laptops have terrible screens.

He also needs to be able to run his programs obviously. Are they all available for PC?

 

[Fardor]

Yeah, he can get all the programs for the PC.

Would an 8400 GS be good enough?

 

[TanisHalfElven]

is he sure about a 17"
those things are huge and NOT meant to be portable.
make sure he knows what a 17"er feels like in a back pack and while travelling. hell i find a 15" screen PITA. can't even imagine 17" all day. *shivers*

 

[TheStu]

If he is doing 2D work, then a serious CPU and lots of RAM is what he needs. Until he steps into the realm of 3D, he won't need a beefy GPU, heck even the 8400 is over the top for PhotoShop.

Apple is not the only answer, it is simply the expected/default answer

 

[Fardor]

Well, I have a 17'' laptop and it's 6.5 lbs. Doesn't really seem too bad. I suppose it is kind of heavy though.
I'll tell him about that.

He probably will be doing 3D stuff (Rhino, I think the program is called) later. What GPU would be good enough for that?

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: Fardor
Well, I have a 17'' laptop and it's 6.5 lbs. Doesn't really seem too bad. I suppose it is kind of heavy though.
I'll tell him about that.

He probably will be doing 3D stuff (Rhino, I think the program is called) later. What GPU would be good enough for that?

the poundage isn't that bad. but i'm assuming he's a college student. walking around campus all day with a 17" in the back pack is gonna kill him. much better to RD into his desktop and work using that. but you'll/he'll probably understand his own particular situation more than me. after all maybe a 17" is exactly what he needs !

 

[Fardor]

Is there something more than the weight to take into consideration? Don't really understand... poundage isn't that bad but it's gonna kill him?

I think 15.4in would be good though.

 

[heymrdj]

I use this near 12lb HP 9500t 17" laptop as a college student. Biggest core2 they would stick in it at the time, 2GB of RAM, and now featuring dual hard drives. A Hitachi Travelstar 160GB and 250GB. It's not a problem at all to carry around all day. Mind you i normally only have to actually hold it 15 minutes between classes..but 12 lbs for 15 minutes in one arm isn't very hard. And the 17" screen is more than worth in IMHO.

And tani...you say RD...are you even used to schools? I'm not biting here but one, I would say 70% of people do not have a connection at home big enough to RD. Under full res, I VNC to my desktop at 18mbs when something is changing. And two, most schools only have four ports open, like port 80 for internet (duh), port 110 for pop, port something, and port 430. Unless you have a router at home to forward RD port to port 80 outside, then either a free domain like DYNDNS, or a static IP which most of us don't have.

Fardor, look for a 17" with high resolutions and a good quality panel, notebookreviews.com should help you with that. The size helps LOTS when you're staring at the screen scrutinizing details for hours on end. This is coming from a Web designer/photo editor. I do know that the HP6500 series do not have great displays, the 9500 series have excellent displays, the HDX series have orgasmic displays. You might look at the Dell M2010? 21" screen and 15lb's lol. But honestly the HDX is way better because you can actually put workhorse parts in it. The Dell 2010 can't even be built as strong as this 9500.

 

[Throckmorton]

That Asus G1S is a big laptop. The width is normal, but I think the depth of it is much greater than other 15" laptops because for some reason it has a lot of empty plastic above the LCD. It's also ugly.

 

[Fardor]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton
That Asus G1S is a big laptop. The width is normal, but I think the depth of it is much greater than other 15" laptops because for some reason it has a lot of empty plastic above the LCD. It's also ugly.

Yeah, but size and weight aren't that important to him.
And, it's not really up to you to decide what's ugly to other people. I think the Sony "Vaio" logo is ugly enough to be a reason not to buy one, but I'm sure others might think it's cool.

 

[Throckmorton]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I think most people would agree about the G1. I didn't think it was ugly until I saw one in person at Best Buy- it has a cheap "gamer" look, complete with green LEDs on the sides that glow when you're playing games. I didn't like the screen either (it was the 1680x1050 version).