Hi,
I need to get a laptop for graphic design. I'm going to be installing CS4 on it. My budget is $1100-1500. I guess I would like to have at least 250 GB HD preferably more though, probably a dedicated graphics card, ummm, a large screen, like 15+ inches. Windows 7.
Really anything will be better than the five-year-old laptop I'm using now. I don't really mind heavier laptops, I'm a man, I can take it.
Please DO NOT recommend ANYthing by Apple. I love them too, but they are waaaay out of my price range even with the student discount, so DO NOT tell me to buy a MacBook Pro.
Thanks!
I just bought the Sony VAIO VPCF115FM. It retails at Best Buy for $1349.99. If you're a rewards member (free to be), you get about $25 of that back in 31 days. If you wait until they're in-stock online again (2-3 weeks from now, tops I'm told) you can get 7% cash back through Bing Cashback (a Microsoft company) by ordering it from BestBuy.com.
The Sony VAIO VPCF115FM specs can be seen
here, but are summarized below:
- Intel® Core™ i7-720QM processor (1.6Ghz, 2.8Ghz with TurboBoost)
- 6GB DDR3 (DDR3-1333/PC3-10700/1333Mhz) RAM
- 16.4" 1920x1080 Display (1080P, perfect for photo/video editing)
- Bluray enabled optical drive
- 500GB SATA HDD (5400RPM, but not a slow-poke at all. Around $80 to upgrade it to a 7200RPM if you'd prefer)
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M GPU w/ 1GB Dedicated GDDR3 (Class 2 GPU, plays Left 4 Dead 2 at max settings without lag. Plays Crysis at medium/high without lag according to notebookreview)
- MultiCard Reader (Memory Stick PRO Duo w/ MagicGate & SD/SDHC - Two separate slots)
- i.LINK (IEEE 1394) Port
- 2 Standard USB Ports
- 1 eSATA / USB Combo Port
- Bluetooth (includes A2DP 2.1 +EDR/Enhanced Data Rate)
- Gigabit LAN (10/100/1000 Base-T)
- WiFi 802.11b/g/n
- 3 Hours of Battery Life (and it actually gets it on "Balanced". On "High Performance" it gets closer to 2.25-2.5 hours for me)
- Windows 7 Home Premium x64
I have Photoshop CS4 installed and it eats through RAM pretty well. I've seen my RAM usage spike above 3GB while using Photoshop CS4 to edit and optimize a 2048x2048 image (don't ask), 1.5GB or so being used for system processes alone.
I know Flash will use even more resources, but between the speed of the RAM, the amount of RAM inlucded and the Core i7 @ up to 2.8Ghz, I doubt Flash will even phase this thing
Good luck on your hunt for a new notebook! If you decide you want to check this notebook out in person, Best Buy stocks them in most of their stores.
-Michael
I was considering that model when I bought my new laptop the other day. The gpu is pretty timid with only 512MB dedicated GDDR3, but it's not a horrible gpu.
Aside from that, it lacks bluray (in that price-range, I'd expect bluray), has a fairly low resolution screen (1366x768) and has only 4GB of 1066Mhz DDR3.
Those were the downfalls that pushed me to the Sony VAIO VPCF115FM.
