Need new laptop for college

[byteman99]

I am a college student and I'm looking for some laptop advice. I will be using this laptop for programs like adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Maya, Flash, Unreal Engine, and other 3d animation programs. I would like a laptop that is light, has a quad core, at least 8gb of ram (don't know if I need high speed ram), a long battery life, a decent gpu (good enough to run those programs smoothly), and one that is durable. I don't have a set budget yet but i can set it at $800-$1300 for now. I prefer non glossy laptops but glossiness is no deal breaker. Resolution is not that big of a deal to me but would prefer a higher resolution. Also anybody knows how long till they use OLED screens?

 

[nature1ders]

I don't know if you need a new laptop for college, they used to go without a laptop you know back in the old days

Draw the stuff?

Joking........

For the laptop you get I'd suggest going with an FM2 AMD APU, it will be best bang for buck IMO.

This is the one I'd suggest you buy, I can't see how it would be anything but great for you.

HP ENVY dv7-7230us

If you need something with more power, HP really lets you configure your latops pretty well, much better than Dell and just seems to offer a better selection. I can't suggest anything Intel because they just are to far behind the APU's onboard graphics abilities.

You can get the 2 year extended warrenty on Newegg for 99 bucks, that makes your final cost like $780 with the rebate they offer now.

Alright take care!

 

[byteman99]

You know what I meant.

Anyways thanks for your suggestions. I would like one a little bit more powerful but that one seems like a good place to start.

 

[nature1ders]

How about this one then?

MSI GE Series GE70 0ND-213US

That appears a greatly enhanced laptop compared to the one I listed, it would kill it.

 

[crab0]

I would recommend the Sony Vaio S 15 inch, it fits all of your requirements (especially the light part at only 4.42 lbs) though you would probably want to pick up the slice battery and while its probably glossy the screen is IPS

 

[MD90]

If you really like matte screens, look at the business-end laptops - Lenovo Thinkpads, Dell Latitudes and Precisions, and HP Elitebooks. They're generally more expensive than consumer-end laptops, but the build-quality, repairability, and support are much better.

 

[Torn Mind]

I don't know if you need a new laptop for college, they used to go without a laptop you know back in the old days

Draw the stuff?

Joking........

For the laptop you get I'd suggest going with an FM2 AMD APU, it will be best bang for buck IMO.

This is the one I'd suggest you buy, I can't see how it would be anything but great for you.

HP ENVY dv7-7230us

If you need something with more power, HP really lets you configure your latops pretty well, much better than Dell and just seems to offer a better selection. I can't suggest anything Intel because they just are to far behind the APU's onboard graphics abilities.

You can get the 2 year extended warrenty on Newegg for 99 bucks, that makes your final cost like $780 with the rebate they offer now.

Alright take care!

FM2 refers to the desktop board socket. BGA827 (FP2) or Socket FS1 (FS1r2) is used on mobile Trinity chips

Here, Piledriver relatively poor IPC makes it a bad option for the specific applications he will be using. Nothing worse than for a time-strapped college student to be stuck waiting on his projects to finish.

 

[Torn Mind]

Byteman, something like the following is probably good for you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834216022

A whole list to peruse
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...nd&Pagesize=50

 

[nature1ders]

Byteman, something like the following is probably good for you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834216022

I like this alot :S good suggestion

 

[byteman99]

I would recommend the Sony Vaio S 15 inch, it fits all of your requirements (especially the light part at only 4.42 lbs) though you would probably want to pick up the slice battery and while its probably glossy the screen is IPS

Just checked out the Sony website and messed around with the configurations a little bit. While it looks pretty nice all around, I don't know if that gpu will be good enough to run those programs smoothly. Aside from that, this is the kind of laptop i was looking for.

If you really like matte screens, look at the business-end laptops - Lenovo Thinkpads, Dell Latitudes and Precisions, and HP Elitebooks. They're generally more expensive than consumer-end laptops, but the build-quality, repairability, and support are much better.

Yeah i'm finding out that with the matte screens are really adding a hefty premium to the configurations i'm looking for. But that extra money seems to be getting put to good use. The build quality for these business end laptops are better than those for consumer end.

Byteman, something like the following is probably good for you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834216022

A whole list to peruse
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...nd&Pagesize=50

This is something that i had very close in mind. The specs are all there. Price is right. Seems a little bit bigger and heavier than what i wanted but I guess it's a tradeoff I have to make. Thank you people for helping me out. I still wont have a solid set budget till Tuesday but These are all really good suggestions .

 

[Schadenfreude]

Right, my two cents:

- You want your laptop to be sleek
- You want your laptop to be powerful
- You want your laptop to within a certain budget

Pick two out of the three, and you should be happy with the solution. If you want your laptop of be sleek and powerful, you can go with the Razor laptop ($2300 I believe). If you want your laptop to be sleek and within your budget go with an ultrabook. If you want your laptop to be powerful and within your budget the options are given to you. You may have a hard time finding something that fits all three.

Why do you need a laptop for college? You may have a valid reason, I really don't know. If you don't need but want one, I would suggest getting a desktop and a tablet instead - it'll fall within your budget and you'll get a lot more performance for your $$$!

 

[byteman99]

Right, my two cents:

- You want your laptop to be sleek
- You want your laptop to be powerful
- You want your laptop to within a certain budget

Pick two out of the three, and you should be happy with the solution. If you want your laptop of be sleek and powerful, you can go with the Razor laptop ($2300 I believe). If you want your laptop to be sleek and within your budget go with an ultrabook. If you want your laptop to be powerful and within your budget the options are given to you. You may have a hard time finding something that fits all three.

Why do you need a laptop for college? You may have a valid reason, I really don't know. If you don't need but want one, I would suggest getting a desktop and a tablet instead - it'll fall within your budget and you'll get a lot more performance for your $$$!

That's what i'm realizing now. I think that I'm going to have to throw away the sleek option and go with the other two. And the reason I am looking for a laptop is because my instructor recommended that it would be better if we had our own laptops for the entirety of the course. So I guess it's more of a want than a need.

 

[lovelaptops]

I would recommend the Sony Vaio S 15 inch, it fits all of your requirements (especially the light part at only 4.42 lbs) though you would probably want to pick up the slice battery and while its probably glossy the screen is IPS

Actually, the S15 is matte and it is gorgeous. Otherwise, the S15 is fully customizable and upgradeable. You should definitely consider this model. If you have time to demo, Sony allows you 30 days to "try" and return for full refund.

 

[byteman99]

Decided to go with the Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 model. I felt that one was the best fit for what I was looking for. It had the specs and the price that I was looking for. Thank you all for your help.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Right, my two cents:

- You want your laptop to be sleek
- You want your laptop to be powerful
- You want your laptop to within a certain budget

Pick two out of the three, and you should be happy with the solution. If you want your laptop of be sleek and powerful, you can go with the Razor laptop ($2300 I believe). If you want your laptop to be sleek and within your budget go with an ultrabook. If you want your laptop to be powerful and within your budget the options are given to you. You may have a hard time finding something that fits all three.

Why do you need a laptop for college? You may have a valid reason, I really don't know. If you don't need but want one, I would suggest getting a desktop and a tablet instead - it'll fall within your budget and you'll get a lot more performance for your $$$!

Check the Lenovo website, I would link it for you but doesnt seem to work. Anyway, check the Y 580 series. You can get a quad intel and a GT660M for 800.00. The cpu and gpu will be more powerful than an AMD apu. The only negative is it is a 768p screen. If you want 1080p, the price is still under 1000.00. If you upgrade the screen, the only disadvantage will be that it is not a slim formfactor. But as someone else said, you will have a hard time to get a powerful machine in a sleek formfactor at any kind of decent price.

BTW, dont know why some posters are giving you a hard time about needing a laptop for college. I work in a major university, and during breaks between classes, I see nearly everyone working on their laptops. I could not imagine going to college without one.

Edit: Didnt see your last post. It must have come up while I was typing mine. I think you made a good choice. Did you get the 1080p model?

 

[byteman99]

Check the Lenovo website, I would link it for you but doesnt seem to work. Anyway, check the Y 580 series. You can get a quad intel and a GT660M for 800.00. The cpu and gpu will be more powerful than an AMD apu. The only negative is it is a 768p screen. If you want 1080p, the price is still under 1000.00. If you upgrade the screen, the only disadvantage will be that it is not a slim formfactor. But as someone else said, you will have a hard time to get a powerful machine in a sleek formfactor at any kind of decent price.

BTW, dont know why some posters are giving you a hard time about needing a laptop for college. I work in a major university, and during breaks between classes, I see nearly everyone working on their laptops. I could not imagine going to college without one.

Edit: Didnt see your last post. It must have come up while I was typing mine. I think you made a good choice. Did you get the 1080p model?

Yes I went with the 1080p model. Just got it today, went with the 16gb ssd drive plus 750gb hdd. Seems to be a new thing they're doing with laptops. Which is nice because it feels like boot times and faster compared to my desktop. It also came with Windows 8 which was a bummer at first but became good once I downloaded classic shell. After that I had to delete all the bloatware that came with it. I still haven't installed any of the programs I am using for school yet but hopefully I don't run into compatibility problems. So far I'm really liking it. Especially the screen which I think it might be an IPS panel. And if it's not then it's still really nice. Anyways I'm pretty happy with this purchase so far.