Best Laptop or Desktop for Animation and 3D

[LeeannM]

Ok, my daughter is going to an Art college next year for Media Arts & Animation, which I know nothing about, but I see some things in the catalog about the following- Programs they may be using are: Adobe Flash Professional, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut, Motion, and Autodesk 3ds Max and Maya. Can you tell us what laptop or desktop we should plan for? The $ amount is irrelevant at this point, since we intend to make it a High School graduation present, we just want to make sure she has what she needs for this college/career.

 

[hp555]

I would recommend a laptop in the 14-15.6" range, preferably with an i7 and 8gbs of ram.

If money is not an issue then the lenovo y580 with 1920x1080 screen would be a good choice.
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=AC523278A4F13F27A84F5F5622D1AC7A

For about $100 less this is also a good deal, although some people say to avoid Acer
http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/NX.RZNAA.001

Hp is a good brand and this has the option of a full hd screen (which may or may not be important), if buying this upgrade to the gt650m and 7200rpm hard drive, it is well worth it
http://shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-Pavilion/A3F49AV?HP-Pavilion-dv6t-7000-Quad-Edition-Entertainment-Notebook-PC

When buying a laptop (especially for college) purchasing extended warranties are very important

 

[kenrivers]

Here is another to throw into the mix: http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_info&model_name=NP9170
I like this one for a variety of reasons. This machine should easily handle the graphics/animation programs she will be using. I would recommend the free upgrade to 16GB of RAM (RAM is upgradeable to 32GB) and the upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. If you decide on this one and need help with the configuration please let me know. I use Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects and would consider this machine if I were buying a new one.