Best Photoshop CS5 Laptop around $1500

[thinkpic]

Hi, I am looking for the best windows laptop (around $1500) to work with and edit large image files in photoshop CS5 (my D800 produces files about 60 megs each). It could have a 15.6" screen but 17" would be better. Dell is trying to sell me an XPS Laptop L702x Intel® Core™ i7-2760M but I am not too keen on Dell's reputation and this computer does not have a graphics card that supports Open GL. Having said that I am not too sure how important Open GL is but I know that it does enable photoshop to do some kinds of processing quicker. Such a graphics card may well not be too important and/or come at a price well outside of my budget.

I have been told at least 8 megs of ram is very important as is having 3 disks. One smallish one for programmes, one large one for data and one small but fast SSD that would be great as a photoshop scratch disk. Two of these disks could be internal and one external. Can you have an external SSD disk that functions at full speed?

The next problem I will have is that I am living in France and need an English keyboard but I'll face that hurdle once I have the computer I am looking for.

Any help you could give me on this would be very gratefully accepted.

 

[ad14]

Hi Thinkpic:

With the most recent i7 chips being used in so many different laptops, you have many options. My recommendation would be to read through the article I recently wrote (updated 7/2012) on choosing a laptop for photo editing/organizing. I also add some links to some powerful Windows machines, including a link to avadirect.com, which is a company who allows you to customize the laptop to an unbelievable degree, including having three hard drives/SSD drives inside.

You can find a link to the article here:

http/photo.net/equipment/digital/computers/how-to-choose-your-next-photo-laptop/index.published.adp?

All the best,
Andrew Darlow
Editor, The Imaging Buffet
http/www.imagingbuffet.com