Best laptop for cs5 and photoshop?

boxerone

New Member
Hi all,
I am going to be going to school for web development and design and want to buy a laptop.
It's mind boggling considering how many laptop choices are out there :-o
I need something that works well in handling cs5 web premium - it sure is a memory hog. I don't want a Mac simply because my desktop is a PC and my additional licenses for software are for PC's. I'd want something with 15" or greater screen, $900 or below, low heat, decent battery life (3hrs or more ok), reliability w/ good customer service, fast processing speed, fast Wi-fi performance, 6lbs or less (no desktop replacements). My desktop is a HP Pavilion w/ AMD Athlon II x 4 620 processor (2 yrs old) and I've had no problems with it. It's handling cs5 beautifully so I've been looking at HP notebooks but during my research, I've noticed complaints that HP desktops are good but the laptops are not. I would love to see suggestions!!!! Thx!
 

kayla

New Member
I went to school for web development and used my Dell Inspiron for everything. Ran the Adobe suite and 3D Studio Max daily with no problems.
 

LouTheDesigner

New Member
I use a MacBook Pro and the Dell XPS 17 (which has an SSD)... I enjoy the mac for its intuitiveness when using CS5.

BUT, No text editor available for OSX (including Dreamweaver's code view), can hold a candle to Notepad++. It's an amazing piece of software and it's free.

You can talk down the pricing with Dell by going on their website and just initiating a chat. Tell them what you want, and mention all the specs you need (and mention your budget). They'll generate a customized solution for you, and send it to your email address for your approval.

I managed to get my laptop down from $1,540 to ~$1,150 when I pointed out that one of the hardware specs that they e-mailed to me didn't exist.

-Lou
 

ronaldroe

Super Moderator
Staff member
BUT, No text editor available for OSX (including Dreamweaver's code view), can hold a candle to Notepad++. It's an amazing piece of software and it's free.

Top of the heap for Windows, too. I eventually switched to Aptana, but just for the auto complete feature. I still use N++ for quick edits or troubleshooting.
 

LouTheDesigner

New Member
TextWrangler is a great free text editor for OSX!

I find that one thing TextWrangler has over TextMate is its remarkable ability to show more hidden characters than any other program, particularly those that are carried over from desktop publishing programs (Quark, InDesign).

Notepad++ all the way though.

-Lou
 

Big Secz

New Member
I know from my time studying graphic desing in college, Macs were the only machines we used. To this day Mac run Adobe suite a lot smoother than PCs with less instances of hanging up or freezing. I would recommend finding out what machines your school is using and go from there. You want to ensure that you get something that is going to be compatible so that you won't have to keep trying to reserve time in the computer lab.
 
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