Recommendation for laptop for a graphic designer

[Fryguy9]

My sister is a graphic designer looking for a laptop. Her primary use is heavy Photo and Video editing...Photoshop, Corel Draw, Illustrator, Sony Vegas. She will also be doing some gaming, but not crazy high end gaming.

I had read that gaming laptops were good for graphic designers and have been researching MSI and Asus ROG laptops, but the choices and varieties in the models are completely overwhelming. Need some help narrowing down to 2 or 3 choices.

1. What is your budget?

USD $1000-2000. Might go higher if necessary, but would like to save her some cash, if possible...starving artist and all

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

15.6" screen seems ideal

3. What screen resolution do you want?

FHD or 3K IPS (or maybe PLS? definitely not TN)

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

Mostly desktop replacement. She has 2 external monitors, so it has to have at least 2 HDMI or DisplayPort. It will be used in light travel to family or work, as well, so lightweight / decent battery would be nice, but not required.

5. How much battery life do you need?

Would prefer more for light travel purposes, but it's mostly going to be plugged in at a desk, so not as important.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?

Medium level gaming... Battlefield, Portal, Dreamfall Chapters, Indie games from Humble Bundle, maybe Diablo 3 or new games as they come out.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Primary use is heavy Photo and Video editing. Photoshop, Corel Draw, Illustrator, Sony Vegas.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

At least 1TB...SSD or hybrid. Video editing takes up a lot of space.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

Amazon (I have Prime), or whatever is cheapest.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

As long as possible

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

Not required, but if it has one, then DVD Writer...can always buy an external if needed.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.

13. What country do you live in?

USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

Musts are 16gb RAM, minimum of 2 HDMI or DisplayPort adapters, minimum of 2 USB ports, and an IPS screen. I'm thinking it should be an i7. Lower weight and decent battery life would be nice.

 

[Darkbreeze]

It's highly unlikely to find all of your criteria in one unit. I'd suggest the Lenovo Y70-70 Touch - 80DU000HUS here:

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y70-touch/

It has i7-4710HQ, 17.3" touchscreen, GTX 860M discreet graphics, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Wireless AC, Bluetooth, Windows 8.1 (And most likely, according to current information, eligible for free upgrade to Windows 10 when it's released) and is unlikely to matched by any other unit currently available at that price. Plus, the quality and customer service of Lenovo are outstanding.


And then add your own 1 TB SSD or an external hard drive for storage. You can also ditch the optical drive, get a drive bay carriage and install a second drive in the optical drive bay as a secondary drive. Laptops with large SSD's are rare and expensive. Almost prohibitively so. You could also get a Western Digital dual drive that comes with a 120GB SSD and 1TB hard drive in one and add that. I have no clue as to the reliability of those yet though as they are fairly new to the market.


It's next to impossible to find a laptop with a large SSD plus a discreet graphics card with the kind of capability needed for advanced graphics. Integrated graphics don't cut it for professional applications. There a quite a few units with 128GB SSD's and 1TB 5400RPM hard drives with the necessary graphics cards, which I'd recommend at least a GTX 850M and preferably an 860M or 870M.