Looking into Laptops!
 

Okay, I have some money rolling in (student loans...)

Even though I'm near the end of my student career (for now)

I'd like to get a laptop.

I'm leaning towards something smaller, portable, good battery life. More for doing work at school/outnabout....


But, there's a bit of a catch.

I do a fair bit of photoshop/painter/illustrator work. I take lots of photos (do smaller laptops usually come equipped with sd card readers?) and work with a Tablet for drawing.

Hard drive is good of course, but these programs generally require alot of ram.


Essentially, the features i'm looking for in the laptop:

portability/simplicity for writing/internet
ability to not die under strenuous 'shops and digital painting.


tfp, use your collective brains and tell me what i want!

GO

Yes, even smaller laptops (like my boyfriend's 13.1" HP) typically have universal card readers. Both of us have laptops from HP, and we like them a lot. Mine's a little on the big side (15.4"), but I still take it places with me, like to the coffeeshop or the library. His is even easier to take around.

My advice would be to go to hp.com and configure your ideal laptop. Then do the same with Dell. See who gives you the better deal. HP occasionally has really good coupons floating around.

Get a Vostro model if you go with dell (small business line) with an upgraded battery (or a dual battery). 15in if you want portable, 17in if you mess with big pics.

I was not a dell fan until recently. They went through a shitty phase which seems to have gone away with their acquisition of alienware a few years ago. Last I checked, the vostro line was the best model to get for a budget. It has the hardware quality of XPS laptops with the simple looks of a business laptop (and a price to match).

I own a vostro 17in model, and have for a little over a year. It has 2GB of ram (you'll want 4) and plenty of drive space. The card is top of the line for when I bought it (8600M GT) and the CPU is no slouch (T7300). The machine plays crysis fairly well, and even better if you overclock the card a little.

On the ram, if you buy 2GB (which is probably standard) then you might find matching ram at a better price at Dell Computer Memory, IBM, Lenovo - identify RAM DDR DDR2 DDR3 . They will match your model via drop-down menu and get you ram that works. I have years of experience with them, and especially for OEM machines where timings aren't configurable, the ram they offer is a perfect match. After you get a 4GB kit, you can sell the old ram and make some money back, too ;). Otherwise, get the 4GB from dell when/if you buy it.

Mine comes with a card reader built in. I imagine the 15in models do too.

Another +1 for the Dell Vostro here. I ordered my mom and a coworker one and it is laughable high quality for such a low price. The laptops I ordered for my mom and coworker were $400, 15" (maybe 17", can't remember) screen, 2 GB of ram, dual core CPU. They're just great for the price.

I'm not sure if you wanted it smaller than 15" but you should definitely look into the Vostro series.

For mobility (and batterylife) look at smaller screen laptops.
But the mainstream is 15.4" so you can expect to get the best deals there.
Most laptops today have SD card readers but simple usb cardreaders (adapters) are available. For heavy graphical work an external monitor might be the soulution.
As for HD don't over do it on the internal disk. Bigger disks (in GB) often generate more heat than smaller and heat is bad. Many laptops come with ExpressCard and/or eSATA connectors. With these expansion options you can add external HD's that will be close to the internal disk in performance.

Hope this helps
yours
ZB.

That is completely false. The platters are the same regardless of allocated storage space from the factory. 1 vs 2 vs 3 platters does not increase heat ouput, either. Most heat from a drive is generated by the 5400 to 15000 RPM motor, plus the motor control chip, memory chip and a few other components for power regulation, etc.

Heat is bad, though. You are correct there. However one of your sources of heat is incorrect.

Regarding photoshop for picture editing... is this for personal consumption or professional work? if it's the latter, be VERY careful about the LCD on the laptop you order. Most LCDs (laptop or otherwise) do some funky things with colors which are not conducive to photo editing.

I have little advice in the way of smaller... but for a more fully rounded laptop, i love my brand new HP HDX 16... 16" is perfect, not too big (17), not too small (15)... <3

sweet. this was what i was looking for.

i'd def keep my desktop/monitor etc for more graphic stuff, but i'd just like to bust out my tablet at a coffeeshop and impress the ladies with my l33t painter skills.

Well, if you are looking for a tablet PC, the IBM X-series is pretty amazing. Not very cheap though. It's the only tablet PC I can recommend from experience though.

i'm not aware of their performance. i'd prefer to stick to intuos.

Intuos? I think I misunderstood you then. Intuos just makes tablets (like Wacom), right? The X-Series is a tablet PC. The screen itself is ALSO a tablet that you can draw on directly. In fact, I think they licensed the technology from Wacom. (link)

haha yea, i'm looking at getting a laptop.

i want to be able to use my tablet (intuos... which i use with my computer) with said laptop

haha, sorry about the communication breakdown!

I have a middle grade Dell that works fine. We have a few Vostros at work, they are not feature packed by any means. One had to go into the shop.

One thing about Dell, should any drive fail, it is almost impossible to get a new part after a year. The CD recorder on my CD/DVD-r/rw drive failed, and the best Dell could offer was a CD only drive because, as they said, my 18 month old laptop was "obsolete".

So I got an external for $50. It's cool, and it stays almost frigid.

That's weird. Dell hasn't changed the CD/DVD drives on many of their laptop models in years and years. The 5-year old laptops we have here use the same DVD drive as the brand new ones bought this year. You must have talked to a bad worker that day!

Meh I go to ebay for failed drives. You can search model + drive type and find hundreds of matching items, new. If I'm being frugal I just take an old drive from another laptop and swap the faceplates and mounting hardware. All the drives are the same standard, just like desktop CD/DVD and hard drives, so it's just a matter of taking the OEM equipment off and adding it to the new drive. I've even swapped LCD panels among different brands and came out ahead. Had a sony with a fried motherboard and a good dell with a bad panel, so I just swapped the sony screen into the dell casing and it worked like a charm :). Not all of them can do that, but the data plugs matched this time around so I was good to go.

Yes, very much so. Dell support = the suck.

At least they speak engrish.

I'll deviate from the norm and recommend a Sager. (sagernotebook.com) Damned good laptops.

Good call. For the budget I used for my vostro (1400-1500), you can have this:
custom gaming laptops - Welcome to Sager Notebooks

hmm, i guess the tablet w/ laptop is just too much to ask.

i can still paint and stuff using a mouse (i've gotten good at it, even without pressure sensitivity)

So, i should probably go for maximizing ram, then?

So long as your mobo and OS can handle it, more RAM is never going to hurt you, that's for sure. I wouldn't drop a bunch of cash on it, but if you have a little extra that's not enough to upgrade a major component, I'd say RAM is a good place to be putting it.

My dream laptop is a Thinkpad W700. It's a 17" laptop but has a digitizer tablet integrated into the palm rest. You can check it out on Lenovo's web site, but it ain't cheap. Starting price is in the $2000s and maxed out goes up to $5500.

Realistically, I would've pointed you towards a Dell Vostro or XPS. Since you mentioned you're a student you can probably get a nice educational discount through Dell. We buy Lenovo Thinkpads for faculty at the university I work at, currently the x300 and t61, but I think they're pretty expensive even with an edu discount.

rune,

Why couldn't you use the tablet with your laptop? There's no reason it wouldn't work.