Laptop buying advice forum: New laptop for graphic design

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I'm going with unreliable.

by R. Proffitt - 5/8/10 9:11 PM

In Reply to: New laptop for graphic design by scatteredshadows

Your specs are pushing the envelope of laptop design. Not matter who makes the final unit, being this far out on the curve means you are likely to see failures after 2 years.

Need more proof? What warranty are they offering?

If you can accept the short life span that happens from cramming all that into this small space, the Sony WINS hands down because of the BLU RAY. Need proof? Look at the AVATAR fiasco.

Bob

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New laptop for graphic design

by scatteredshadows - 5/9/10 2:24 PM

In Reply to: I'm going with unreliable. by R. Proffitt

Thanks for the reply, Bob.

Do you think that a 17" form factor would be more likely to hold up than a 15" configuration, or are current higher end laptop components likely to be less durable no matter what kind of enclosure they are placed into? Core 2 Duo processors were pretty new when I bought my current machine, but I haven't really had any reliability problems after 3.5 years. Of course, when it was new, my current laptop was more middle of the road than what I'm looking for now.

As for the Blu-Ray, it's definitely not a necessity. With bigger external flash drives and more bandwidth for transferring giant files, I'm not sure how often I'd use BR data discs and I rarely watch movies on my current machine. I'm mainly thinking about getting one as a futureproofing move.

No matter what I get and from whom, I'm going with the 3 year warranty to protect my investment. Clearly it's better to not have to exercise the warranty, but since I back up religiously, hardware failures wouldn't be too disastrous.

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We did get an i7 laptop.

by R. Proffitt - 5/10/10 5:18 AM

In Reply to: New laptop for graphic design by scatteredshadows

And it is as expected. The heat pours out (not just this model but all do that.) These are not "laptops." I can only repeat it so many times that these will make fine desktop replacements where you can set it up to not block vents and can put up with the fan. It is not as quiet as the middle of the road machines (i3, most i5's).

But yes it is fast and what a savings of space in the office. Since we have the environmental under control and don't use it as a laptop I expect the life span to be closer to the norm.

I am actively inquiring and chatting with all that picked up an i7 laptop and the stories are pretty much the same. This is not a laptop.

Hope that helps.
Bob

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I would look at the

by orlbuckeye - 5/9/10 5:55 PM

In Reply to: New laptop for graphic design by scatteredshadows

Asus and Toshiba laptops. Laptops with the SSD nowadays use the SSD for the OS to boot faster.

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by edu_mkt - 9/2/11 4:42 PM

In Reply to: New laptop for graphic design by scatteredshadows

Those look like good specs for running Lightroom. You'll probably want a bigger hard drive or 2 hard drives now (a year after the original post).

My experience with LR 3+ is that it takes 2 GB ram to run sluggishly, 4 GB to run acceptably, and 8 GB to run nicely. That's assuming the files are on an internal hard drive (An external using USB 2.0 is way too slow to go fast).

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