New laptop ideas

[recstar24]

Warning: complete laptop newb, heads-up.

Looking at getting my wife a new laptop, christmas/MBA graduation gift. Budget is $600 max. Biggest application will probably be the new adobe photoshop 8 that I bought her as well, she loves taking pics and the new laptop should be powerful enough to load full resolution pics pretty fast and for her to edit and adjust with ease. We are windows PC people, sorry mac users, and for her, ease of use as well as her picture stuff are her priorities. Thanks.

[grawk]

good luck

[jinp6301]

Check out the lenovo outlet. The t500 there could be under $600

[jinp6301]

Oh yea, definitely. Get the LED screen

[Dusty Chalk]

Photoshop is a resource pig; whatever you do, beforehand or after, max out on RAM (I.E. make sure it goes beyond 4Gb, and get a 64-bit operating system). Let me email a friend of mine who basically lives in photoshop, and see if multiple cores help (IIRC, I think not), in which case I'd also recommend getting the fastest CPU you can in there. You may even want to get something that has a SSD.

[n_maher]

$600 is going to be very hard to get anything worth buying not to mention anything that will run Photoshop. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Dan was too cryptic in saying the same thing.

[penger]

What about something with the Nvidia Ion? Would that help with running Photoshop?

Edit: Did a quick search and found this: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3509&p=4

[strid3r]

Dell Vostro 1520 Laptop Product Details | Dell

The Vostro 1520 is on sale right now. Pick the model for $559 and then "Customize It" and upgrade the display to WXGA+.

Quick specs:

• Intel

[Cankin]

Does it really have to be a laptop?

For $600, you can get a faster desktop with more ram and larger screen. It is difficult to use Photoshop with screen smaller than 20 inch.

[recstar24]

Does it really have to be a laptop?

For $600, you can get a faster desktop with more ram and larger screen. It is difficult to use Photoshop with screen smaller than 20 inch.

Not necessarily, but if the honey wants it, I can at least explore the feasibility of it. $600 is not rock solid and if needed can go over but its good to start somewhere. Thanks Dusty for being willing to follow up on that, research continues.

[strid3r]

Photoshop is a resource pig; whatever you do, beforehand or after, max out on RAM (I.E. make sure it goes beyond 4Gb, and get a 64-bit operating system). Let me email a friend of mine who basically lives in photoshop, and see if multiple cores help (IIRC, I think not), in which case I'd also recommend getting the fastest CPU you can in there. You may even want to get something that has a SSD.

Multiple cores do help, but can get bottlenecked by other system components past 2 cores. Here's an old link, but you get the idea:

Photoshop and Multicore Processors: - Canon Digital Photography Forums

[recstar24]

Dell Vostro 1520 Laptop Product Details | Dell

The Vostro 1520 is on sale right now. Pick the model for $559 and then "Customize It" and upgrade the display to WXGA+.

Quick specs:

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, just googling, it looks like multiple cores can help.

Also, make sure you get an OpenGL compatible card (yes, laptops now come with graphics cards -- you can always add a monitor later), because it looks like Photoshop is one of the earliest applications (makes sense when you think about it) to utilize GPU acceleration techniques.

EDIT: Yes, definitely upgrade the graphics card -- Nvidia are one of the leading manufacturers in the GPU acceleration business.

[recstar24]

Yeah, just googling, it looks like multiple cores can help.

Also, make sure you get an OpenGL compatible card (yes, laptops now come with graphics cards -- you can always add a monitor later), because it looks like Photoshop is one of the earliest applications (makes sense when you think about it) to utilize GPU acceleration techniques.

EDIT: Yes, definitely upgrade the graphics card -- Nvidia are one of the leading manufacturers in the GPU acceleration business.

Thanks Dusty - that dell with the upgraded WXGA+ display and the nvidia card puts it around $738, which is fine for me considering my wife has been slaving for 2.5 years on her MBA, the holiday season, and because she never asks for anything and it will be nice to spoil her for once in her life. My proposed $600 budget simply stems from her telling me to keep it there, as she is the type of person who actually would get very upset if I spent too much on a gift for her, even more motivation to try to get her something somewhat nice.

[Dave1]

Photoshop runs great on modern dual-cores, quad is better when using a lot of Photoshop filters. If she is dealing with digital camera files (20 - 50 megs) photoshop will be fine on a laptop. The biggest issue with Photoshop is really large files (1gb+) or keeping multiple large programs running simultaneously (Photoshop+illustrator+fireworks+inDesign). She will then experience problems with the program paging off pieces to cashe. Get as much ram as you can.

We have bought several $750 HP laptops which are zippy. Get the largest monitor you can, there is never enough real estate for all the menus. You can plan on a second monitor as well.

Photoshop does not stress graphics chips. OpenGL is not needed now, but not a bad idea for futureproofing.

[tkam]

If you wanted to really stretch your budget, like double it I still have my Sager NP5793 for sale .

[recstar24]

Thanks Dave - sorry Tkam:p

EDIT: In response to Dave's comments, yes my wife is primarily dealing with digital camera pictures and editing, nothing overly professional or huge by any means.

And to throw another wrinkle in the mix, whereas before my wife was pretty pro PC anti mac for unknown reasons to me (though my opinion really doesn't count in this matter as I am really just a wallet for this situation), she has thrown out there that she wouldn't be directly opposed to a Mac, which I guess now opens up Macbook options which I believe are supposed to be a little better for multiple window processing and maybe photoshop.

Edited November 18, 2009 by recstar24

[Voltron]

$999 is still the lowest for a Macbook.

[tkam]

$999 is still the lowest for a Macbook.

Yep and if she wants a 15" screen i think shes looking at min. of $1700 for macbook pro.

which I guess now opens up Macbook options which I believe are supposed to be a little better for multiple window processing and maybe photoshop.

Yeah I wouldn't buy into that mac is faster for photo stuff crap.

[penger]

Edit: Oops. Tkam addressed what I just wrote.

[Dusty Chalk]

Thanks Dave ... In response to Dave's comments, yes my wife is primarily dealing with digital camera pictures and editing, nothing overly professional or huge by any means.

Yeah, sorry, forgot that my friend (Dave) deals with poster and larger -sized prints, professional quality. So his requirements are going to be different than others'.

So just to clarify -- dave1 was the friend to whom I was referring earlier. I asked him to just post in here -- thanks Dave!

[Dave1]

Adobe writes Photoshop native in windows, but since mac moved to Intel, the program functions identically. I just went through a pc/mac comparison for a new box and discovered the identical configuration in a high-end box, the mac was more than 3 times the cost of the pc. That was for an identically configured box, other than os. I think it is a lifestyle choice. It is absolutely not faster, or smoother.

[recstar24]

Thanks Dave - right now it seems the Dell is a good option for my budget and my wife's use. Thanks everyone for your input.

[recstar24]

Last question...is there a real quality difference between the WXGA+ anti glare display and the WXGA+ True Life display? They were both the same price, and the True Life is no longer offered even though it was there a couple of days ago.

[strid3r]

Last question...is there a real quality difference between the WXGA+ anti glare display and the WXGA+ True Life display? They were both the same price, and the True Life is no longer offered even though it was there a couple of days ago.

True Life is glossy and makes the screen seem more vibrant. Personally I like it on my laptops as it does seem to have more contrast than your usual screen, but it can be annoying if you work in direct light.