Laptop Buying Tips?

[Dominic Mott]

Hey everyone,

I have been wanting to get a laptop for my work for a very long time now. I am in graphic design and I also do concept art and illustration.

This being said, this is what my thought is; I need something that has at least Intel i5, a decent Nvidia card, SSD and HDD, and stock 8 GB ram that can be upgraded to 16 GB.

Why am I thinking this?

1. I have read that Intel processors are a lot more forgiving with the Adobe Creative Cloud
2. I have read that programs installed on SSDs are faster to open
3. Nvidia card for obvious reasons. I can't see a Radeon or other brand doing the trick. (I am bias, I am on my third Nvidia/AMD PC build.)
4. I can get stock of 8 GB ram or hell, even 4 GB. So long as it's up-gradable to 16 GB.

Am I tackling this wrong? Are there any suggestions from people in the profession? Can I avoid buying Mac?

Anything that can help me out would be very appreciated. I am committing to a high price budget, so I definitely want this laptop to count. My work requires me to be on the go, and my full size tower is not going to cut it anymore.

 

[Robert Cook]

there is unlikely to be a 4GB laptop that can be upgraded to 16GB, but there are 8GB ones. I'll take a look and should have some results in 30 minutes.

 

[Robert Cook]

the real issue is is that all the quadro laptops are either priced sky high or they couldn't run minesweeper. the gaming laptops will probably be the best bet, I presume you do not want a very flashy one?

 

[Robert Cook]

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4P02WU1975
this is one of the most powerful quadro laptops out there, and it is about $1700, it does have a 256 GB ssd and an i7 but for its price you could get a 980M maybe even two, which would be much better.

 

[Robert Cook]

also there will be the new 5th gen i5s and i7 coming out which may drop some prices, that would be next week.

 

[Robert Cook]

this seems to be the best laptop out there, it is well priced, can get more RAM (16GB max), and has a GTX 960M with GB of RAM it is $900 flat.
it does not have a SSD, but it does appear that you can add one.
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4P02WU1975

 

[Robert Cook]

I hope this is not that many posts...

 

[Dominic Mott]

there is unlikely to be a 4GB laptop that can be upgraded to 16GB, but there are 8GB ones. I'll take a look and should have some results in 30 minutes.

Thank you!

 

[Dominic Mott]

this is exactly the type of information I needed! Thanks again Robert!

 

[Robert Cook]

no problem glad to help!

 

[jaguarskx]

also there will be the new 5th gen i5s and i7 coming out which may drop some prices, that would be next week.

If you are referring to Skylake generation Intel CPUs, then be aware that Intel has not officially announced the launch date yet. The following article from May 21st, 2015 speculates that it desktop Skylake CPUs are coming out in August while mobile CPUs are expected to be released in September.

http/www.valuewalk.com/2015/05/intel-skylake-schedule-coming-august/

In any case, I am guessing that Father's Day sale will kick off a discount on many laptops throughout the summer to clear the current stock of laptops using Intel's 4th generation Haswell and 5th generation Broadwell (released earlier this year) CPUs.

 

[jaguarskx]

Since Intel's 6th generation Core CPUs are expected to be released at the same time as Windows 10, an August / September 2015 release date sounds about right.