A PowerBook 17". I wouldn’t typically recommend a Mac system but in this case you can’t beat their notebooks for this kind of work. The PowerBook 15" would be the second choice if the 17" is too much but any smaller and you’re really going to have a cramped screen.
I like my Dell Inspiron 8200. Sure, its a 15" screen, but it is very bright (much more candela/squareinch than any mac laptop), and its 1600×1200 native resolution gives my a whole lot of screen real estate.
It´s fast too, and handles a lot of multimedia programs at the same time.
If you want to go really fast, check out what Alienware has to offer.
And dont forget you need to buy a spyder solution to calibrate the TFT monitor.
Mathias
I’ve just acquired a new Dell Latitude D800 with WXGA screen (1920×1200). If you can cope with the display size (I can, but its pretty small), then its pretty good. I have mine configured with a 1.7Ghz PentiumM (there are 2Ghz available now), 1Gb RAM and a DVD+RW drive. It was bought to be a mobile workstation of sorts for when I’m doing onsite video & graphics work, and it does pretty well. I have’t photoshopped on it for an extended period as yet, but all seems fine so far.
BTW: if you can carry a desktop external HD and power supply with your laptop, then you can use it for scratch space/temp space and healthily increase responsivity when you’re multitasking or working with large files…
Keith
Hi All,
I am thinking of upgrading or selling my Dell Insipron 8200 currently it is a P4 1.8 with 768 megs of ram PC2100
64 meg ATI Raedon 9000
60 gig 7200 Hitachi drive (main drive-O/S)
80 gig 5400 rpm ibm (modular bay-DATA STORAGE)
orinoco gold b/g client card
15" uxga screen
I am looking for a Machine that will give me desktop like performance when running Photoshop CS Is it better to upgrade it to a 2.5 GHZ CPU and add a gig of ram for a total of 1.5 gig of PC 2700 (333 mhz)
this upgrade costs approx. $650 (& the ram can be migrated to a new system later)
Or is better to just invest in a new machine ??
in reality how much of a performance gain am I going to see by upgrading it to the 2.5GHZ CPU ???
Or should I go to a new Centrino Dothan CPU’s in a new machine ???? 1.8 GHZ ??? will this make that much of a difference ???
I use the machine for everything but I do not play games, I do alot of digital photography,converting RAW files to jpegs and then editing them in Photoshop CS
and other imaging programs,and basic office apps,burning CD’s and the web the 3 spindle design is also very important to me because I don’t know of many laptops the hold 2 hard drives and a burner at the same time !!!!
Also how Important is the amount of video ram 64 vs. 128 megs Can you please put me in the right direction ????
thanks……..Stu
I run PSCS on a Sony Vaio PCG-GRT360ZG. It runs at 3.07GHz and has a 16" XBrite display (1400×1050 native) that’s the best I’ve ever seen on any computer. It’s very bright and the color is brilliant. Aside from the standard problems with CS (slow to start, slow to open files, etc.), it works flawlessly.
