Help finding a notebook for Adobe CS5

S

skchan

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 13, 2004
Messages
69
Thanks in advanced for our input. I'm looking for a nice laptop mainly for Adobe CS5 (Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamweaver mostly). I was thinking about the Envy 15, but they seem to have removed it from the HP site. I heard rumblings about a gen 3 coming out, but all speculations. What other laptop out ther is similar in spec and size other than crapple products?

1. What is your budget?
No more that $1500

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15" or so. Not to big as i dont need a desktop replacement

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1080p if possible and must be dedicated graphics

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable. Going to be carrying this around a lot.

5. How much battery life do you need?
3+ hours i think is average.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Maybe a little SC2 in high setting.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver mostly.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500GB is a good starting point. Anything more is gravy.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Newegg, best buy or direct from site

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
At least 2-3 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
External is fine since i rarely use it.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I like Asus, MSI, HP and Dell. Dislike Apple for making it fairly hard to upgrade yourself and making everything proprietary.

13. What country do you live in?
US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I love the Envy design, thin, light and powerful. Havent seen many other laptops that are similar.
 
FreakyT said:
So I take it the Envy 14 is out of the question?
Click to expand...

i thought about it, but i fell like its a little too small...i think that would be something i would get if i cant find any other alternatives.
 
I would be very interested to hear some recommendations as well. I am going back to school in the spring to study web design (CS5), and the specs and budget you have listed are word-for-word identical to what I've been looking for.

So far, I've found a lot of people who recommend Asus, but there are some disturbing reports of flaky quality and terrible customer support. I bought an Asus motherboard a few years back, and the documentation and software were full of grammatical mistakes and poor design. It's just hard to trust their hardware quality if they can't even do something as simple as good documentation and driver software.

You definitely won't find an Apple computer with those specs for under $1500.

Lenovo computers consistently have the best prices on top-end hardware, but everyone says their screens are terrible. If you're doing visual/creative work in CS5, that alone would probably rule them out. It's somewhat disappointing - their build quality is really solid and their prices are low.

Dell has a new line of XPS Laptops that look pretty good on paper, but I haven't heard enough to convince me they are a good deal. Maybe someone else could provide some input on this?

Sager is a pretty popular choice for a lot of folks. They seem to have good quality screens and decent specs, but even the slightest hint of customization will end up costing you an arm and a leg. Let me know if you are able to find a Sager that fits the requirements you listed without having to play the upgrade game and get ripped off with mark-ups. Right now, I'm just holding out on the hope that their prices will go down on Black Friday.
 
I dont have an exact model for you to look at. But you should probably look at buisness level machines, ie the Dell Latitudes, the HP Elite Books, and Lenovo. All of them will have better build quality with the higher end components (build quality would be nice to have since you will be moving it aruond alot, dont want it breaking on you ;) ), i made the choice for the HP Elitebook 2740p over the TM2 specifically for that reason....

Just my thoughts on this, would throw some models out but i only looked into 12" tablets, so not as much info on 15" notebooks from me
 
i ended up getting a giant notebook...the Envy 17 from newegg...it was $1500 shipped...this laptop is a beast...loving it...
 
The Lenovo W510 FHD w/ 95% High Gamut LCD would be good.

I'd prefer the EliteBook 8540W w/ DreamColor 2, but you won't be finding it in your budget.
 
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