Help in picking a laptop

[flynempire]

Hello to everyone. In the market for new laptop and my father surprised me this weekend with one from Lenovo. He bought it at Best Buy and it was a good price but I still have to properly test it as I don't know if it will help me with my job. I know he did it out of goodness of his heart to help me and I really appreciate it but he said he has the receipt and if I want to exchange it I could.

I went to best buy last night and saw one other laptop close to the same pricing. Before I list both machines I want to explain what programs I use every day in Win 7 Pro 64-bit

Photoshop CS5

Illustrator CS5

inDesign CS5

Dreamweaver CS5

IE 10, Chrome (Latest), Firefox (Latest)

Office 2007

Acrobat Pro 9.5

Snagit 11

FTP Program

Windows Media Player

Teamviewer (when needed)

DropBox

From time to time there is Video Editing/Conversion

Burning CD's / DVD's

Picasa 3

Skype

Finally some utilities every 2 weeks like Windows Update, Norton, Defrag, etc..

Here are the links to both laptops. One I have right now (Lenovo) and the other no (HP)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Lenovo+-+IdeaPad+15.6%22+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/7906042.p?id=1218862003409&skuId=7906042#tab=overview

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+17.3%22+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive/8391284.p?id=1218874428778&skuId=8391284#tab=overview

Just need to know which one would better suited to my tasks for work. The AMD may be better because of the graphics card.

Thank you all for your valuable input and opinions!

Victor

[sc302 Veteran]

both used shared memory with the system, neither have dedicated memory. That is going to be your biggest issue right there. Both will be about the same speed.

So just so you get things in perspective, you are asking us which turtle will be faster the one with the pink shell or the one with the purple shell. The issue isn't the shell, it is the turtle. Get a faster processor, get more memory, get a ssd, and get a dedicated gfx card, otherwise flip a coin (I would keep the one you have as returning will have little to no benefit).

Your main issue is here:

Photoshop CS5

Illustrator CS5

inDesign CS5

Dreamweaver CS5

[flynempire]

Thank you for your input. I am ready to keep what I have.. I do like the keyboard though of the HP as well as the large screen which would help me. I never plan to travel with this laptop just in the city to work

[Atomic Wanderer Chicken]

I highly recommend Asus or Lenovo, I recently got an asus and its extremely well built and reasonably priced! I would stay away from HP because they've a history of hardware problems like bad motherboards etc! Lenovo makes well built laptops as well, and they will last a long time!

[flynempire]

Thanks. I appreciate the input.. There is an Asus there for $449 that I believe includes an i5 Core processor..

[a1ien]

I don't understand. The HP one is obviously much more powerful. The graphics has 8 ROPS and 256 shaders. The Lenovo screen is 1366 x 768, the HP is 1600 x 900 - those pixels are needed in Adobe applications. OP should go check it out, I think it's obvious that the HP is better for his needs.

[moloko]

HP has a better screen but not great. If you are using apps like that you need to get a discrete video card which the HP does have. Just looking at both of these there is no choice. It is the HP one. Better graphics, better screen, You will need to put more money into it though, SSD, More mem 8 to 16.

[sc302 Veteran]

HP has a better screen but not great. If you are using apps like that you need to get a discrete video card which the HP does have. Just looking at both of these there is no choice. It is the HP one. Better graphics, better screen, You will need to put more money into it though, SSD, More mem 8 to 16.

The hp does not have. If it did it would not say up to xxxx memory it would say dedicated or give an exact. Up to means you can add or take away, and the only way to do that is with shares memory. Of if you search the video card and do research you will find that it is shared memory.

As I said neither have dedicated memory they are both shared. I did look up the video card prior to posting to verify this.

The hp is not much more powerful, it has a bigger screen.

[moloko]

The hp does not have. If it did it would not say up to xxxx memory it would say dedicated or give an exact. Up to means you can add or take away, and the only way to do that is with shares memory. Of if you search the video card and do research you will find that it is shared memory.

As I said neither have dedicated memory they are both shared. I did look up the video card prior to posting to verify this.

The hp is not much more powerful, it has a bigger screen.

Or I stand corrected. Still for what is needed a discrete vid card the person needs. Of these two choices the HP is still the better way to go.

[YounGMessiah]

I would go for the Lenovo simply because you have the ability to upgrade.

But whatever you decide please upgrade those crappy 6-cell batteries

[flynempire]

Thanks again for the input. I have decided to stay with the Lenovo.

I will upgrade the memory to the max and I do have a WD Black 500 Gigabyte 7200rpm disc available. Yes both machines have integrated graphics and there is nothing I can do. The processor while being a Pentium shares some architecture or is based from later Intel CPU's.

One thing I do like besides the screen is that compared to the other laptops in Best Buy is that it has 4 USB compared to 2 or 3 with the rest, the VGA and Power Ports are located in the same area I have with my Dell Studio now as well as the DVD. Only change is the memory card reader is in front.

The thing I really like the about the Lenovo is that this model has drivers for Win 8, Win7 and Win XP if you can believe it. I will wipe out Win 8 and just put Win 7 on it and I will be happy.

I cant complain this was am unexpected gift and I will use to the max. Hopefully Photoshop and the other Adobe programs I use will run OK. I am coming from a Dell Studio from 2008 (Core2Duo), 4 Gigs Ram, ATI Dedicated card. It has held up well but it is time to let it go.

[ACTIONpack]

$400 for a laptop that will be doing Adobe software? Not sure if OP is serious!

[flynempire]

Yes I am. This Dell studio I am writing this on was 1,200.00 when I bought it and it had dedicated graphics.

So far it has held up but has problems from time to time. I will post what happens once I have everything installed

[YounGMessiah]

$400 for a laptop that will be doing Adobe software? Not sure if OP is serious!

lol you must be new into the game. I remember rocking Photoshop on Windows ME, dont doubt the computers, doubt the artist if anything..

Best of luck to you OP, im sure it will all work out and you will love it.

[Astra.Xtreme]

lol you must be new into the game. I remember rocking Photoshop on Windows ME, dont doubt the computers, doubt the artist if anything..

Best of luck to you OP, im sure it will all work out and you will love it.

Exactly. I ran CS5 on my old HP Mini netbook. The only thing I needed to make it run well was put in a SSD.

I don't think Creative Suite requires anything powerful unless you're working on huge files. It has a lot of files to load on initial startup, which a SSD will help with immensely.

[ACTIONpack]

lol you must be new into the game. I remember rocking Photoshop on Windows ME, dont doubt the computers, doubt the artist if anything..

Best of luck to you OP, im sure it will all work out and you will love it.

$400 laptop will give you a low end power and crappy LCD screen. Been in the Graphic industry for about 10 years now!

[flynempire]

Look again I cant complain it was a gift. Eventually this will lead me to a better laptop which will be more powerful. I would call this a stopgap.

I get new machine (newer tech) and get away from an older system that eventually will crap out. Could not have come at a better time for me plus I know I will stay productive. I am just so happy they have Win 7 drivers.