[ingridients]

Hi all!
I'm a graphic artist in search for my first ever laptop
I'm pasting this sort of questionnaire from another forum I posted this to, unfortunately no one's answering me yet and I'm posting this to as many as possible. Thanks for anyone and everyone who could help me with this

Budget: around $1,000 (could go over just a little bit, but preferably lower than 1,000)
Buying:
by Feb-first week of March this year, from New York
I'm from the Philippines and someone from NY will go here so I need this quick

I’m not that aware of what the best brands are but I’m looking at:
* Dell Studio / Studio XPS
* Toshiba Satellite
* Acer Aspire
*Alienware??
* And then maybe customize them to my needs
* Also might consider a MacBook Pro (but not too familiar with a Mac and might be difficult and expensive to maintain here?)
-- I've read good and bad things about the brands so I'm confused, please tell me what the best ones are, or if you could, please suggest other brands

should be able to handle: Graphic design software: Adobe Suite (illustrator, photoshop, indesign, flash, dreamweaver), office applications
the biggest game i'd install would probably be Sims 3

Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both? Both

3 or more hours of battery life

OS: 7, XP, Mac

screen: I’d say matte, but people say glossy is good for graphics (But I hate having to cover the screen when I’m under bright lighting) So now, I’m really unsure about this.


How much hard drive space do you need? Do you want a SSD drive?
I own an external hard drive so I don’t know how much I need the laptop to have, since I’ll be saving my files on the external…I’d say 250 or more?
SSD drive? - no idea if I need this

Drive:
DVD burner would be great

I’m a Novice Laptop buyer who knows that I need a dedicated graphics card and the highest RAM that I could afford, that’s about it. Thanks for the help!

[leroys1000]

This pretty much covers the general hardware setup.
http://aaronparecki.com/Choosing_a_L...aphic_Designer
The extra expense of an SSD drive is really not necessary.
Only real benifit is it wont crash the heads into the platters
if it gets banged around.
You would need a decent amount of space on the drive to process
the graphics,but most laptop drives now have plenty of space for that.
You could always go with the glossy screen,and if it causes problems,
use a film filter that costs about $20.
It's like a screen protector that is kept in place by static cling,
so it can be removed.

[JohnWill]

If you're going to be doing intensive graphic processing, I'd be looking for a machine that does not use shared memory for the graphic adapter as many laptops do.

[ingridients]

hi thanks both for the advice
the link was very useful too
i was told to look at asus and toshiba, which do you think is better?
im also looking at these models:
http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebooks/laptop-studio-xps-16/pd.aspx?refid=laptop-studio-xps-16&s=dhs&cs=19&~oid=us~en~29~laptop_studio_xps16_anav_1~~

http://laptops.toshiba.com/laptops/s...500/P505-S8971

and then these were also suggested to me:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220696
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834146613
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+...&skuId=9705203

[hewee]

Don't forget to look at the Business Laptops.
http://www.dell.com/business/laptops?~ck=mn

[w3bmaster]

I highly recommand HP or Toshiba ... sadly Sony Vaio is to expensive for your budget ...

[halcy0n]

although i am not a huge fan of cyperpower pc considering your budget, if your interested in alot of bang per buck they are the place to go. http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ . They will offer you a wide assortment of possible choices for your price range, all of which are worth the price tag, however their consumer service is something that should be watched out for. I have had friends who have had great experiences with their PCs, but I have also heard horror stories online of what can possibly happen when dealing with this corporation. So watch out, but at the end of the day with your budget this is the place i'd go to find my PC.
Something along this model:
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/X...7900_Notebook/

Sincerely,



-Halcy0n


Added on:
Note that you can choice any model and change what is present within the PC. Sometimes taking the cheapest model and then just upgrading it works well, although with laptops you need to watch out. They get quite expensive with small screens and extremely high performance, so just look around.