What's the best laptop for graphic design these days?

[mlah384]

What's the best laptop for graphic design these days? Seems like it is hard to find a i7 laptop with a ton of ram...

 

[elconejito]

There's no such thing as "best". Most of these laptops don't come maxxed out with RAM, so you can just find one you like, make sure it has expandable RAM and buy extra from newegg or something. Or order it maxxed out from a dealer with customizable orders like Dell or HP.

 

[kalrith]

You'll definitely come out ahead by ordering it with the cheapest RAM choice and then buying it from Newegg. If you have to replace the sticks of RAM that came with it, then just put the originals on the FS/FT forum to recoup some of the cost.

 

[corkyg]

I would buy it and customize it exactly as I wanted it directly from the OEM. FGor hraphic design, I would certainly l;ook at a 17-in MacBook Pro.

 

[taltamir]

buying replacement ram off of newegg costs significantly less then maxing out the ram. You would expect that upgrading from ram that MSRP for 30$ to one that MSRP for 60$ will cost you 30$ (the difference), but it is always more then the cost of the more expensive ram... at the low end you will be paying 60-70$... then it quickly balloons with 400$ ram kits costing an extra 2500$ from some manufacturers (ex: apple).

Also laptops have sub par monitors which, if I understand correctly, is a big deal for graphic designers since they need their colors to be "correct".

 

[mlah384]

Didn't Asus make a laptop that was expandable to 24bg ram? Dell seems to only max out at 8gb...

I cant find a laptop that has i7, more than 8gb ram and a esata port... does it exist?

 

[hennessy1]

The HP envy has up to 16gb of ram and a esata port.

 

[corkyg]

As soon as USB3 becomes standard in new machines, eSATA will begin to die out.

 

[Emulex]

HP 8740W or 8540W with dreamcolor display - decent gamut goes a long way (especially with some calibration tool)

 

[elconejito]

Didn't Asus make a laptop that was expandable to 24bg ram? Dell seems to only max out at 8gb...

I cant find a laptop that has i7, more than 8gb ram and a esata port... does it exist?

You're going to have to compromise somewhere if you want a design laptop. Otherwise, just build a desktop and put wheels on the bottom for portability.