What laptop should I buy?

J

Jazmyn

New Member
I am looking for a very efficient laptop to buy this summer. I am starting grad school in the Fall so I need one fore that. I also am working on my own business, so I would like one that helps me create graphics and what not. Also a good battery life would be helpful.
 
daisymtc said:
budget?
Good graphic always contradict battery life...
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Not necessarily. While there is certainly a trade-off, the nVidia Ion chipset (9400m) is much more power efficient during 3D acceleration and performs significantly better than the Intel IGP offerings.

Jasmyn, $1500 will get you quite a bit of laptop. What kind of graphics production will you be working with? 2D primarily or 3D? What size screen are you looking for?

If screen size isn't much of a concern, you should look into something like the new Apple 13" MacBooks for a good mix of CPU horsepower, graphics power, and battery life. If you are looking for a large format screen, then Apple would be easily out of your budget. But, you will be hard pressed to find anything with a 16" or larger screen that gets much over 4 hours (if even over 2.5hrs.) of battery life. If that length of battery life is adequate, then check out HP's current "dv6t" and "dv7t" offerings or their "Envy 15" series.
 
Hi there,

What will you be using your laptop for besides schoolwork? Would you like it to have multi-media capabilities as well? There are many laptop options in your price range. One laptop I suggest checking out is the Dell Studio 15. It is a fast, multi-tasking laptop with a 15.6 inch screen, which means it will be great for schoolwork and watching DVDs or playing some games.

There are plenty of other laptops that I think you might like. Do you have any other specs that you want/need? I would be happy to help!

Isabella
MSFT Windows Outreach Team
 
If I were you. I would go with a Macbook Pro. If you can stretch your budget another $100 you can get the 15" model with Core i5 and Nvidia GT330 with the education discount. For design, the Macbook Pro is almost always the way to go. It will last you far longer than any Windows laptop just because Mac OS X does a far better job of managing resources than Windows. Also the selection of design and graphics software is great.

In essence that's about the only laptop with powerful graphics and CPU with good battery life. 8-9 hours battery is amazing. Even doing intensive work you will still get 6 hours at least.
 
Gjallarhorn said:
I'd buy a Dell if I were you. They're great for business, and have great virus protection.
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:confused: What does a manufacturer have to do with virus protection? That highly depends on the software you have, not the OEM.

Dells, are decent, though they seem to be slipping a bit lately.


Good suggestion EthanPi! The extra $100 or so for the 15" is a no-brainer if you can.
 
Ethan3.14159 said:
If I were you. I would go with a Macbook Pro. If you can stretch your budget another $100 you can get the 15" model with Core i5 and Nvidia GT330 with the education discount. For design, the Macbook Pro is almost always the way to go. It will last you far longer than any Windows laptop just because Mac OS X does a far better job of managing resources than Windows. Also the selection of design and graphics software is great.

In essence that's about the only laptop with powerful graphics and CPU with good battery life. 8-9 hours battery is amazing. Even doing intensive work you will still get 6 hours at least.
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damn! that sounds good, is the i5 a dual or quad core? and does it really last up to 9 hours?!?! with a gt330>?
 
Dillan500 said:
damn! that sounds good, is the i5 a dual or quad core? and does it really last up to 9 hours?!?! with a gt330>?
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The i5 is dual core. Yeah, it can, but it depends what you're doing. No matter what you're doing you can get at least 6-7 hours out of it. The way they do it is switching between integrated and the GT330 based on how hard the machine is working. If you're just surfing the web and on a messenger, it will turn off the GT 330 and use the onboard video. If you open Photoshop and start working it turns off the integrated video and uses the GT 330. It's also down to Apple's specially designed 8 cell battery.

Have a read here for more info: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/battery/
 
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Ethan3.14159 said:
The i5 is dual core. Yeah, it can, but it depends what you're doing. No matter what you're doing you can get at least 6-7 hours out of it. The way they do it is switching between integrated and the GT330 based on how hard the machine is working. If you're just surfing the web and on a messenger, it will turn off the GT 330 and use the onboard video. If you open Photoshop and start working it turns off the integrated video and uses the GT 330. It's also down to Apple's specially designed 8 cell battery.

Have a read here for more info: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/battery/
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I scond this one then, i have a 16" i7 with 230m graphics and i only get 45min-1:15 :(
and i like that macs are made of metal, not plastic like my hp
 
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