Need a Graphic Design laptop, need suggestions!

gateway m675XL has them all. You can also try a notebook that has the following:
PENTIUM4 3,2ghzprescott
1gb of ram
fireGL2(mobile) or radeon 9700 mobility with 128
HDD60gb at 7200rpm.
That should be it

The screen is one of the most important components for you. The following screens are good for graphics work and programming (resolution-wise, in order of increasing PPI):

15" SXGA+ (1400x1050, 117 PPI)
17" WSXGA+ (1680x1050, 117 PPI)
14" SXGA+ (1400x1050, 124 PPI)
15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050, 129 PPI)
15" UXGA (1600x1200, 133 PPI)
17" WUXGA (1920x1200, 133 PPI)

IMHO, higher resolutions make text too small and lower ones do not have enough screen estate. Of course, these numbers tell nothing about the screen quality or viewing angles, which are important, too.

Cheers, you've saved me the trouble of creating a similar thread. I'm really leaning towards getting a sony vaio.. though I don't know how they handle Flash MX/adobe etc. As for which vaio to pick.. no idea.

Basically, as long as it has a decent screen, doeasn't crash and burn when I'm working on 60mb animation files and lets me plug in a mouse to get some drawing done.. I'd be happy.

I found this one from fujitsu I think it is one of there new models can be config for less than 2K

http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Eco...n.do?series=N6

LifeBook N6010 notebook
FPCM60261

• Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 538 supporting HT Technology (3.2 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 1 MB L2 Cache
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Home
• 17" wide format WXGA+ Crystal View TFT display
ATI Mobility™ RADEON™ 9700 with 128 MB of dedicated video memory
• 1 GB DDR SDRAM memory (512 MB x 2)
• 100 GB hard drive¹
• Multi-Format DVD Writer
• TV Tuner with Instant MyMedia
• Built-in Atheros 802.11a+b/g wireless LAN, multinational² 56K³ V.90 modem and 100/1000 Base-Tx Gigabit Ethernet
• 4 USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, Memory Stick®/SD slot, PC Card slot
• Standard high-capacity battery
• One-year International Warranty
• M-Code FPCM60261

At the risk of sounding biased i've not long had my Ferrri 3400 although im not into graphical design i've thrown at it some CPU intensive programs and all of the top new games with things like AA and top res and high textures and yet to find its limit. plus the controversial choice of it being future proof 64bit and its probably excluding the P M's one of the thinest power machine on the market, although the screen is excellent you will find better screens on other laptops. it depends on whether you want a laptop or a foldable desktop like some of the DTR's

The 3400 is above $2,000, last I checked. The 3200 might be worth looking into. I've never actually done much research when it goes into 3D tools such as that (I haven't used 3DS in a long time), so I can't really decide. A P4 might not be a bad choice if you don't ever plan on moving that thing.

Nef, if Flash MX and Adobe products is all you use (sounds all 2D to me, unless I'm missing something), I think you should be more concerned about other things, like portability, etc. Any decent processor should be able to handle what you're describing, given a good quantity of RAM.

Edit: I should continue to mention that my opinion is based purely on research, no fact. I haven't gotten my CL56 yet, but its screen gets pretty mixed reviews. I occasionally do the Photoshop et al, but I'm not worried about it.

You got a good point there, but I just got Maya today.. I'm not looking for something to carry to uni every day, really.. I want something that'll be good for 4-5 years and get me through an animation school.

I've been looking at Gateway M675XL vs HP Pavilion zd7000.. big price difference, but they seem pretty much the same. I'd go for the HP, but I'm a bit biased against them as I have one of their cameras... And there's still the matter of my undying love for Sony.

Win the lottery then buy 100 Alienware Laptops

Nevermind guys, I got my babeh http://www.askdirect.co.uk/search/So...oPCGK315M.html

The only problem with this notebook for Maya is that it is running ATI. ATI is not nearly as good as Nvidia for OpenGL. And even the "consumer" Nvidia chips have overlay issues. So you might find that the 3D apps have some funky drawing issues on this laptop.

I do graphic art work on my laptop. One of the biggest things that I found that I wanted was high resolution. So I have been working on a 15inch UXGA for a few years now and love it. In fact, the only reason I don't have a new computer today is that it seems all the new laptops are not going WUXGA or UXGA. And by new, I mean this current generation.

Actually, I really, really, really wish that a 17inch WUXGA screen was available for the new Sager. Although, that would proabably kill the battery to 15min

I read some bad things about the new Dell screens, which is a shame. The new 9200, if pared with a Sony 17" WUXGA, would proabably be the perfect mobile graphic designer laptop. Well, almost, it needs to have an NVidia chipset as well to be "perfect".

My take, wait for the new chipsets that support PCI-E and the new mobile Pentiums and hope that someone slapps a 17inch WUXGA screen on that baby. Then we graphic designers will have something that can run on batteries for a few hours, but still process the majority of what we need. And, from reading a lot of benchmarks, those new mobile pentiums are holding their own quite well in many applications.

well that just plain sucks that the nvidia doesn't render appropriately, u have a link for that so i can get a sense as to what is impacted by it?

.Nox,
u may wanna go the way of the Radeon if this is truly the case. u'll prolly wanna stick w/ the P4 systems or the AMD64. the P4s have a lot of code streamlined for them, and the AMD64s will be getting similar capabilities soon. SSE3 is supposed to be just around the corner (january) for AMD. also the AMD64 chips are pretty damn sweet as is, and only likely to get better when Windows-64 is released and the likely 64bit apps along w/ it. intel's 64 solution seem like a patchwork job from what i've seen thus far and the P4 is struggling now in general w/ re: to intel's roadmap and future plans.

if i were u i'd shoot for an AMD64 system for overall system performance, future-ready, etc.

hope this helps =)

Well I was in a search for graphic design laptop myself.

It came down to two: Powerbook G4 or Vaio A270
I opted for Vaio

My A270:
Centrino P-M 1.8
17' WUXGA
1G DDR
80G 5400 Rpm
ATI 9700 64Mb
Total was around $2400 (I had a discount on HD, some additional $100 off and free VAIO mouse)

I think it was well worth it. I ran PhotoshopCS, IllustratorCS, Dreamweaver2004MX and MP3 music simultaniously and didn't experience any slowdowns, not even a bit. And I worked with 72dpi media and 300dpi. No slowdowns on either what so ever.
I don't know about animation software that does rendering.

I’m an architecture major buying my first computer and I am not a very computer savvy individual. Price shouldn’t exceed 2200. I will be learning to use:

ACAD, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, form-Z, Vis, 3D Studio Max, and Maya

I’ve heard negative things about Dells and while I’ve found a seemingly good deal with a Micro Express 259iA1 or NP3716A, I’m a little nervous to buy an unfamiliar brand. How are Sagers or Acers?

Possibly even more important is my uncertainty about the new world of 64 bit processors? How do they compare now? Is it worth the investment? Will my software versions change in order to run with a different operating sys??

Please help, I need all the advice I can get.