High-end 3D Art Laptop needed: Considering HP Envy i7 16GB 15.4", 12GB i7 12GB 17" or Macbook Pro with Intel Iris Graphics

[maverickhornet]

Hey everyone,

First time on this so please be gentle with me!

I am on the hunt for a powerful laptop. It needs to be great at handling high-end graphical software such as Autodesk Maya 2015, The Foundry's Nuke X, Adobe Photoshop CS6... I think you get the picture.

My initial thoughts look to a Macbook Pro as it seems they're 'great' for this kind of arena. Their screens are also a big pull (when doing visual work it's a big deal) with their 2880x1800 pixel resolution compared to most laptops standard 1080p. However when doing some hunting around I came across these two portable power-horses:

HP Envy TouchSmart 15-j144na Laptop, Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB, 15.6" Touch Screen, Silver
http/www.johnlewis.com/hp-envy-touchsmart-15-j144na-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-ram-1tb-15-6-touch-screen-silver/p1585641#tabinfo-ratings

HP Envy 17-j141na Laptop, Intel Core i7, 12GB RAM, 1TB, 17.3", Silver
http/www.johnlewis.com/hp-envy-17-j141na-laptop-intel-core-i7-12gb-ram-1tb-17-3-silver/p1585645?navAction=jump

Comparing these two to this Macbook Pro:

Apple MacBook Pro with Retina Display, MGXA2B/A, Intel Core i7, 256GB Flash Storage, 16GB RAM, 15.4"
http/www.johnlewis.com/apple-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-mgxa2b-a-intel-core-i7-256gb-flash-storage-16gb-ram-15-4-/p1613211#tabinfo-ratings

I'm curious to hear from anyone who might have experience doing Maya/3DS Max ect. work on both Windows laptops and Mac. I know Macbook Pro's get a lot of stick due to their price but I never hear any actual reason why they would be bad. Two things putting me off a Macbook Pro is the price and its Intel Iris Graphics 'thing' sharing the graphics power with the processor? That seems rather underwhelming.

Anyway if anyone can offer any words of wisdom I'd be eternally grateful!

 

[prettyflvcko]

I think your choices for the hp labtops are very weak for what you want to do with it, and for the mac... let me tell that it isnt a good idea as well. I would recommend you to go with this :

http/www.johnlewis.com/acer-aspire-v-nitro-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-ram-1tb-128gb-ssd-15-6-4k-ultra-hd-black/p1751338

Better GPU, you get an SSD.
The best thing about this one is the resolution : 3840 x 2160 pixels wich will give you more accuracy and better renders for your projects

 

[njoy]

I'm not sure about Maya, but Autodesk Alias runs rather well on my Envy 15 with 4700MQ/8Gb/GT740M and CS6 is flying. Overall, it has been adequate for pretty much every task I have thrown at it so far. The only thing it's not meant for is gaming. But that's not of concern for you as I can see.

However, even though I can't speak for those two over at JL, but I'd say the screen on MBP is definitely better. The screen from HP that beats it is the DreamColor, and that only comes with EliteBooks AFAIK. But those are easily in the MBP price range and more.

Another thing - from my experience, Autodesk products behave the best on NVidia hardware.