Laptop for University

[Guest]

My brother is studying graphics design at university and needs a new laptop, it wont have to be anything amazing just something able to run photoshop and other 2D rendering software and maybe some 3D rendering (but thats not crucial). He wants a high resalution screen but isn't sure on specifics, i was thinking a 17inch 1440p IPS but that isnt mandatory. Battery life should be good too.

one of his advisors told him that a macbook would be most suiting, but he's never used OS X befor and isnt experienced with it, and also looking at the price of macbooks compared to laptops with similar specs is astounding, but he will go with macs if they are the best option.

 

thanks.

 

p.s he will need a lot of storage hopefully ssd.

[begadelavela]

5 minutes ago, Broken_Duck said:

My brother is studying graphics design at university and needs a new laptop, it wont have to be anything amazing just something able to run photoshop and other 2D rendering software and maybe some 3D rendering (but thats not crucial). He wants a high resalution screen but isn't sure on specifics, i was thinking a 17inch 1440p IPS but that isnt mandatory. Battery life should be good too.

one of his advisors told him that a macbook would be most suiting, but he's never used OS X befor and isnt experienced with it, and also looking at the price of macbooks compared to laptops with similar specs is astounding, but he will go with macs if they are the best option.

 

thanks.

budget?

 

[Guest]

Just now, begadelavela said:

budget?

 

Oh yea...

 

he idnt to specific, he said around £500(UK) but can be flexable by a good amount.

[cc143]

42 minutes ago, Broken_Duck said:

Oh yea...

 

he idnt to specific, he said around £500(UK) but can be flexable by a good amount.

I don't think that what you want is doable on a 1000 quid budget, not nyxh less on a 500 quid budget...

 

Unless you are willing to go for used or refurbished, and then still...

 

Whatsmore, if the budget is really 1500 GBP, which is the price of the entry level MBP 15, if I'm not mistaken, recommending something cheaper would be counter productive. 

 

I would say, something with an i7 6700hq, 16gb of Ram and dedicated GPU would be necessary for what he needs it for. 

[Guest]

Really thats a bit too much of a strech, i didn't think phototshop would be that demanding, other programs too.

[Pendragon]

4 hours ago, Broken_Duck said:

Really thats a bit too much of a strech, i didn't think phototshop would be that demanding, other programs too.

You are correct. Photoshop doesn't require anything intensive. 2-D rendering software is pretty easy too. The 3-D rendering is what needs the most horsepower. I would say grab a second hand/refurb 15inch quad core macbook. What people don't understand with Macbooks is that the OSX is waaaaay (like years more) optimized than Windows, so hardware doesn't really matter (unless you're running windows, gaming, or any non-native OSX application). Video editing on the core-m 12in macbook on FCP is going to beat any windows laptop with quad core + dGPU + 16gb of ram. OSX is just a more optimized OS. Granted there are alot of limitations but for graphic design, macbooks are a decent choice.