Best laptop for adobe photoshop; for gaming

[demon3200]

hey everybody,

I am looking for a good laptop for editing graphics, running photoshop, and also gaming with counter strike: source, crysis, etc. My budget is $1700, although if I don't have to spend too much, that would be nice, too. Portability is not a major concern; power is. Battery life doesn't matter so much. I may also be doing some multimedia. I have looked at many laptops, and I've narrowed it down to:
Apple Macbook Pro 15"
Sony Vaio F
Samsung Series 7
Acer laptops

Will these laptops suit my needs? Which is the best for graphics editing? Multimedia? Gaming? Photoshop?

Any opinions would be great, and any other options would be great, as well! Thanks!

 

[oparadoxical_]

This is something that you might be interested in: http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8150-clevo-p150hm-p-2972.html

The base price is $1221.23 which would leave you plenty of wiggle room in your budget to upgrade the CPU and RAM some. You would defiantly want at least 12gig of RAM for graphics editing and the i7-2760QM @ 2.4-3.5GHz would also be a good pick for the upgraded CPU.

With that CPU and 12gig of 1600MHz RAM it would bring the cost to about $1,500, which would also allow you to upgrade the GPU to the radeon HD6990 for $145 more.

Some information on xoticpc.com and the sager/clevo brand name: http://www.xoticpc.com/who-really-makes-laptops-the-industries-best-kept-secret-a-47.html
and: http://www.xoticpc.com/why-buy-sager-branded-notebook-from-sager-authorized-dealer-a-54.html

For gaming, I wouldn't recommend the macbook as it will cost much more for similar hardware, and photoshop is no better on the Mac than it is on PC.

Also, the other laptops would work as well if you build them up to similar specs, I am just offering you more possible choices that you might be interested in.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

None of those frankly would be on my list. I'd get an Asus Sandy bridge laptop if ya want something off the shelf but at your budget a custom build seems the only way to go.

Clevo 170HM $1,600

17.3" 1920 x 1080 Full HD (16:9) LED Backlit Glare Type Display
Intel Core i7-2670QM Processor, 2.2 GHz (Max Turbo Frequency 3.1GHz), 6MB Smart Cache
8GB, PC3-12800/1600Mhz DDR3 - 2 x 4GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M w/1.5GB GDDR5
750GB/7200rpm Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid SSD / Hard Drive w/8GB SSD Memory SATA-600 (SATA III 6GB/s)
4x Max. Blu-Ray Reader / 8x Max. DVD±R/2.4X Max. +DL Super-Multi Drive
Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit
8 Cells Lithium-Ion Battery Pack 76.96WH
Intel Ultimate-N 6300 Wi-Fi
Built-In 2.0M Pixels Digital Video Camera
Built-In Fingerprint Reader
Built-In Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Built-In 9-IN-1 Flash Memory Reader(MMC/RSMMC/MS/MS Pro/MS DUO/SD/Mini-SD/SDHC/SDXC)
1 IEEE-1394a Fire Wire
2 USB 2.0 Ports
2 USB 3.0 Ports
1 eSATA Port
1 HDMI Output
1 DVI-I Port
1 CATV Port
1 Kensington Lock Port
Built-in Microphone, 4 Speakers and 1 Sub-Woofer
4 Audio Jacks for Headphone, Microphone-In, S/PDIF-Out, and Line-In
1 100/240V Autoswitch AC Power Adapter
Standard Carrying Case with Strap

+$100 Remove Momentus Hybrid HD and replace w/ 128 GB Crucial M4 SSD and 500GB/7200rpm 16MB Cache Buffer SATA-300

If ya thinking ya never heard if Clevo, rest assured ya never heard of the people who actually make the Apple Macbook Pro 15", Sony Vaio F, Samsung Series 7 and Acer laptops

The vast majority of laptops on the market are manufactured by a small handful of Original Design Manufacturers (ODM). Major relationships include:

Quanta sells to (among others) HP, Lenovo, Apple, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu and NEC
Compal sells to (among others) Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo and HP/Compaq
Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of Acer) sells to Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP
Inventec sells to Toshiba, HP and Lenovo
Pegatron (former manufacturing & design division of Asus) sells to Asus, Apple, Dell and Acer
Foxconn sells to Asus, Dell, HP and Apple
Flextronics (former Arima Computer Corporation notebook division) sells to HP


http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/91510-clevo-guide-v2-0-faq-reseller-info.html

CLEVO is a large Taiwanese computer company specializing in laptops. While the Clevo brand name is perhaps not widely known, their products are re-branded and sold by known boutique brand OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers)… notably Sager, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Eurocom, etc.
They are also considered (by whoever knows about notebooks) to design and manufacturer the best of the best notebooks in terms of superior build quality and innovative designs.

 

[demon3200]

Ok, so now that I know that, my opinion is clearer, but I really want to know if the laptops I mentioned are any good at doing this: Graphics Design. Because, you see, I may be doing projects like that, and also some architect related projects
(my dad is an architect). I want to know how those Windows laptops I mentioned do that, how well they do that, but more importantly, how the Macbook does graphics design/architect documents, how well the Macbook does it, but most important of all, how the Macbook compares to Windows laptops in general for doing that. That question has been plaguing my mind very recently, and I really wanted to know.

Also, if anyone has benchmarks for all the laptops that I first mentioned, that would be nice if you could show me.
Thanks!

 

[oparadoxical_]

Here is a review for the Clevo 170HM which is also the 17in version and slightly more powerful version of what I recommended: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=6242&review=sager+np8170+clevo+p170hm+xotic+pc

I would say that you should go with something more like the Clevo/Sager vs a more common name brand product like the ones you suggested. Much better pricing and cooling solutions for a high powered laptop. Anything with a 2nd gen sandy bridge cpu and at least 8gigs of ram would be just fine for video editing/graphics design/cad. Since that seems to be your priority over gaming, you should put any extra money into getting a better CPU and more RAM instead of getting a better GPU which would only help in games.