Choosing the best laptop for college and other uses.

gabinoln

Honorable
Apr 15, 2013
1
0
10,510
I will be going to college soon and I will e needing a new laptop. My current laptop is fine for browsing the web and light photoshop, but I want to venture on to HD video editing and other programs which require more power. I will use the format shown in the FAQ for all the info.

1. What is your budget?
$1,300 is the max I will go.
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15 inches or less.
3. What screen resolution do you want?
HD preferably, not retina or anything that expensive.
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
A little bit of both.
5. How much battery life do you need?
4-5 hours is fine.
6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Not really looking for gaming.
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
I want to do photo editing using PS CS6 and video editing with Premiere and after effects.
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500GB.
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Tbh, I do not know where to begin with when looking for a suitable laptop. Only one I have looked at possibly buying is this macbook http://store.apple.com/us/product/FD102LL/A/refurbished-macbook-pro-29ghz-dual-core-intel-i7 but if I can get better performance for the price it'd be great.
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
~2-4 years.
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD, maybe blu ray. Not really important.
12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I do not have a preference in brands as long as the product is good, but I do prefer mac os over windows due to its fluidity and better appearance.
13. What country do you live in?
United States.
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed
Thanks to all the help in advance, and the more performance for the price, the better.
 

Mustafa Muhammad

Honorable
May 13, 2013
1
0
10,510
Wish you luck with your college: So lets see ermm you need good video editing im guessing you will be using heavy software for that such as adobe premiere

I suggest you look for a computer with these specs
intel i3/i5 or i7 - i have used these and they are amazing for intense video editing and photoshop
8gb ram
1tb at least for your video editing.
water cooling would be prefered but not necessary.
and definetly windows 8 64 bit this will allow you to use more than 4gb ram

dell xps 15 is good for video editing

hope i helped if you have any questions feel free to ask me
 
If you can find one in your price range with a graphics card that is supported by Adobe it would be helpful with the Premiere and After Effects work. For editing and After Effects work I would say 8GB of RAM is the minimum you would want to go with. Windows 7 & 8 64-bit both support use of more than 4GB of RAM. You could look at one from Sager - http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_customed&model_name=NP9130 - this one starts at $1,199 and is customizable on the site.
Personally, I don't think you would be happy trying to edit on the 13.3" Mac and Blu-ray is not supported (natively) by Apple.