Laptop Opinion/suggestions please

**jmw_man** · 02-18-12, 06:08 AM

Using photoshop and gaming on a laptop are two completely separate things. My wife is still using her old Dell XPS M1330 I got her 3.5 years ago and has been using photoshop on it for the last two years quite often, it runs great. I don't think photoshop and possibly web design software will be that demanding.

I investigated the idea of getting a gaming laptop about a year ago and weighed the pros and cons (at the request of my wife, she hates my tower, thinks it's too big). I convinced my wife that gaming and laptops aren't a very good combination when it comes to cooling. To appease her I plan to make another desktop that's a little more "compact". Anyhow, they are pricey for what you get and you are limited on upgrade ability, but that doesn't mean there isn't a suitable option out there if you are willing to spend the money. I'm sorry I don't have any suggestion on any particular laptop.

**kibner** · 02-18-12, 07:45 AM

So it looks like you are going to be tethered to a power outlet at all time (home and work)? If so, you may want to consider getting a docking station for the laptop. That way, you just plug it in and instantly have access to nore/bigger monitors and more comfortable mouse and keyboard with minimal hassle. It would also allow you to get a smaller and lighter laptop that is easier to carry back and forth.

Since you are going to be gaming on this, a video card is pretty neccessary. I don't know of a good resource to compare mobile video cards, but you could always google the model names of the ones available to you and try to make your choice with the results from that.

I agree with whoever mentioned getting an i5 CPU. It won't be the bottleneck on the laptop.

Harddrive(s) may be an interesting choice. SSD drives are awesome, but downloading games to them and doing lots of work in PS that require writing large amounts of data to the hdd frequrntly is not an ideal scenario. If you can, I would suggest getting both an SSD and a mechanical hdd. Install your programs and utilities on the hdd (and maybe your favorite games) but save your work and other large pieces of data that change multiple times a day on the mechanical.

And the one piece of advice I have to give no matter what choices someone makes on a laptop: get the absolute longest warranty you can afford. Laptops are hard to DIY repair and opening them up can also void some warranties. Better to just send it in and get it back a couple/few days later than to try yourself and then have to buy a new laptop due to a mistake.

My favorite brand for solid, reliable laptops is the Lenovo Thinkpad line. They typically don't have video cards meant for gaming, so I don't think they would be the best choice for your needs. I like the MacBook Pros, too, but the same caveat remains.

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