Laptop for photoshop?

Hey guys,
I need to invest in a better computer and have my eyes on this one?
Do you think its sufficient for PS?

Any feedback would be much appreciated.. however short

The spec is here and the price £679:

Dell - Studio 15
Memory: 4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
Hard Drive: 320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
LCD: 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA WLED (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8400 (2.26 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 cache)
Video Card 256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450

Full details here:
http://www1.euro.dell.​com/content/pr...n&s=d​hs&~ck=mn



Muchos appreciated

My only suggestion would be to get all the memory that you can afford. Vista is a hog.

dan220 wrote in post #7089860
My only suggestion would be to get all the memory that you can afford. Vista is a hog.

indeed. 4gigs should be plenty.

i have a Sony Vaio with a 1.74 (or something) Ghz Centrino Duo with 1 gig of ram and i can run photoshop CS2 without much issue. The only time i see it choke up is if i load in a bunch of pics at once or try to do a large poster collage or something... other than that it works fine. the specs you listed sound dreamy to me!

yeah definitely. i just looked at that thing and its half of what i paid for my dell 4 years ago, and 3x the computer!

That configuration is plenty fast. I also like the ATI card -- I don't think it's quite as fast (splittin' hairs here) as the NVIDIA cards, but it's a bit smoother for motion.

The biggest concern I have with your setup is your resolution. It's very low, my 12" laptop has he same resolution. A 15" laptop should have a screen of 1440x900 or larger.

Second concern is hard drive speed, 7200 would be nicer, but pictures will still be workable at 5400, just not as fast.

Seriously though, you need a bigger resolution.

Btw, RAM is cheaper to upgrade on your own. Spend that money towards a faster processor or bigger res and then upgrade RAM later on when you feel like you need it. 2GB should be sufficient.

My recent debacle with Dell set aside, I think that this is a pretty good setup. Having just returned almost this same exact laptop (Studio 15 but with a bunch of extra's) my biggest advice would be to make sure that when you order it you are getting Vista 64 loaded onto it. If not then you won't see all 4 gig's of RAM. I was pretty impressed with it for the two days I had it. I think my only gripe besides the wrong OS being loaded was that it was a little bit bigger than I thought it would be (especially since I had the bigger battery installed on it). Anyways, Dell customer service was actually not that bad to work with and I wound up with a full refund so take that for what it's worth when you read people's horror stories. I do agree with the above that if you can splurge for the extra resolution it will really do that 15" monitor a lot of good. 1280x800 on my new MacBook is good for 13" but if I went bigger I would definitely want more resolution. Good luck with your purchase!

That seems like a pretty good setup, I use Photoshop and Lightroom on my MacBook Pro which is only a bit more powerful and it runs it plenty fast. I would agree with the concern over the screen resolution though, unless you're planning on using another monitor with it a better resolution screen would be very useful for you.

Just got the almost identical setup. Runs DPP, CS2 and Photoshop Elements 6 just as fast as I would like. Granted, I'm no pro with Photoshop and I'm really not pushing the program, but with 4GB on board, the system is plenty responsive and gets fairly decent battery life.

On a recent flight from Seattle, I edited a bunch of photos on the plane. My only little quibble is that the glossy screen is kind of a hindrance with lights sometimes, very reflective and you have to get the angle just right for a decent view.

Speed the Hard Drive up, even if you go lower in size. 4GB is enought, just make sure you get Vista Ultimate and ask for 64bit as 4GB in a 32bit environment is kinda a waste.

i struggled for years on a 14 Compaq laptop with 1440x1050, i could just about cope at a stretch..

looks like my gf will be getting this laptop after her tax return arrives. hopefully ill be able to let you know how it is soon. if she lets me touch it that is.