Laptop setup for Graphic design for up to $1000

[Guest]

Hello Everyone,

I have been looking at Dell's various laptops for up to $1000 (previously owned, refurbished as well) for my wife who uses Photoshop , Indesign and sometimes Illustrator (some times at once). The laptop will NEVER be used for games. Just looking for best value to do this job.
How is the graphic card that comes on the motherboards ("Intel HD Graphic") of the Studio 17 laptops?
How is the card called "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD" on some of the Studio 15 models?
Is it true I can sacrifice HD memory (and use an external one Western digital) in favor for more RAM and a faster processor?

Thank you very much, I'm sure it's clear I am new to this world of PC building.....

JG

 

[ninelivesproductions]

Photoshop doesnt take much to run, you don't need anything overly strong. Any dell laptop now-a-days is more than capable of running PS and Illustrator.

If you plan on using an external Hard Drive, you should consider getting a smaller Hard drive on the Laptop itself and getting more ram and a better CPU (which are more needed by PS and Illustrator.

 

[Guest]

Thanks GLaDoS

How about those graphic cards which come with the newer i3, i7
And is it true that it is 'really' important that the HD speed be 7200 RPMs ? Someone mentioned that in a forum.

Again, many thanks

JG

 

[ninelivesproductions]

Again, you dont need much to run those programs, just a lot of ram and hard drive space. My 10 year old dell desktop PC with onboard video can run PS VERY fast.

You dont need anything overkill like the core i7 for your needs... that processor is more for video editing when rendering a video which takes a long time. You dont need a lot of processing power for photoshop though.

The difference between hard drive speeds are only noticeable when you are moving large files from one place to another... you will also notice a very small difference when opening up programs such as PS and Illustrator too.

What I strongly suggest is getting at least 4GB of DDR3 ram which is included in the cheapest version.

If I were you I'd just buy the least expensive version which might I add has very good specs, with an intel core i3 processor, 4GB of DDR3 ram, and a 320GB HDD which is more than enough space for just using those 3 programs.
LINK:
http://www1.dell.com/ca/p/studio-1749/fs

If you can just find the $799 version refurbished!

 

[Guest]

Hi Again Ninelives !

Your feedback is very helpful.
I will look into that.

Thanks again for your help!

JG

 

[ninelivesproductions]

best answer?