Laptop for web design

[mattl-26]

Searching for a laptop is difficult, especially when your not the most hardware savvy person. After reading numerous reviews on different laptops and still being unsure about what kind of laptop I should purchase, I arrived at this forum.
I need a 15"/17" laptop with;
A good graphics card (for Photoshop, Fireworks),
i5/i7 processor,
Budget £1000.


Anyone got any recommendations???

note: I don't want a mac, nothing against them, just rather have a pc/laptop.

Thanks : )

 

[C12Friedman]

I have a few options I think would be adequate for a web design laptop. All feature Intel Core i7 processors and 8GB of ram, both helpful with multiple applications running. By order of my preference
1) MSI GE60 Core i7 Full HD Gaming Laptop in Black & Red - GE60 0ND-285UK
2) Acer Aspire V3-571G Core i7 Windows 8 Laptop in Black - NX.RZNEK.004
3) Samsung RF711 17.3" Core i7 Blu-Ray Entertainment Laptop - NP-RF711-S08UK

Notes: The MSI is by far the more powerful with a faster processor and better graphics card. The Samsung has a larger screen (and is heavier) but is Sandy Bridge, while the others are Ivy Bridge (newer), the Samsung also has an older gen graphics card (540M vs 640M of Acer... the MSI has a 660M)
I didn't pay attention to pricing - that may be a factor in your decision.
Hope it helps

 

[mattl-26]

Hi C12Friedman,
thanks for looking into this for me! I like the choices you've come up with. The MSI seems a decent laptop, do you have/or know of anyone who has had this laptop, its just I've never heard of MSI before, I'm just wondering what the build quality is like and whether they are a problematic laptop or not?
I wish I lived closer to a big computer store so I could go and look at these laptops, but the closest one to where I live is over 3 hours away!

So you recommend I should look at laptops with the same sort of specs as the MSI? Are the specs good enough to handle having photoshop CS6, fireworks, text editor, internet and monitor being used at the same time with no stalls or glitches or anything like that?
Oh and is the harddrive fast with in these specs?

Again, thanks for the help : )

 

[C12Friedman]

MSI, (Micro-Star International) has been around since the late '80's, Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia on MSI "MSI is one of the world's largest motherboard and video card manufacturers. In addition, MSI also manufactures a wide range of products including notebooks, gaming laptops, All-in-One PCs, servers/workstations, industrial PCs..." I'm fairly impressed with the few (I've only actually seen three in use) I've seen. I talked to the owners of two and both are/were very happy with their notebooks. As far as what you can expect for performance from the MSI specs... I think you would have to load up almost all your programs at once to get any real slowing from it. I would really have liked to get you 12-16GB ram but it probably isn't needed really.
A 7200rpm HDD in a laptop is rare, you're more likely to find an SSD anymore (which would also make a difference in loading/save times - an upgrade option to look at down the road). I think the reason for that is the amount of heat generated by the faster HDD.
Another notebook model that falls into those specs is the Lenovo Y580, you might check pricing on that. Lenovo took over IBM's consumer division ~10 years ago and (last I saw) continues to produce the Thinkpad line of notebooks.
I know what you mean, I also live 2+ hours from any computer stores (makes being an enthusiast sorta hard - basically means I have to do more research before purchases, like you're doing)