Low Cost, Multimedia Laptop?

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

I start college on August 25, much to my happiness, I have mostly art/multimedia classes.

For starters, let me list the classes.

  1. Computer Graphics 1
  2. Intro to Design
  3. Drawing 1
  4. Composition
  5. Human communications

It’s a two year community college, and both years, for me, are mostly nothing but art, design, and graphics classes (luckily for me, there’s a 3d design and animation class).

I’d like to get a good laptop that it suitable for college, but also really inexpensive and powerful to boot. I use lots of different programs, but mostly Blender, ZBrush (you really need a decent rig for a high polycount in that program), Painter, Photoshop… You get the drift…

Most people recommend an inexpensive Dell or HP laptop, but for me, I need a computer that is fantastic on graphics and performance. Honestly, I’d prefer an XP computer or, less preferably, a Vista (I hate Vista with a passion, but I’ve grown accustomed to the one we have at home), to a Linux, Mac, etc. I want a laptop that I’ll be able to boot up and know what I’m doing right away, and one that a wide variety of software is developed for.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

2

I have an HP Pavillion entertainment laptop that I got for $600 with a discrete Geforce 8400m graphics card. It handles MOI3D and Blender beautifully. It came with Vista, but pretty much anything you buy currently will have the free upgrade to Windows 7. I had no issues using Ubuntu with it as all wireless, bluetooth, etch was recognized and properly configured. For the price, it was the best bang for the buck.

3

Good suggestion :smiley: . I’ll look it up right now. That’s an excellent price for a laptop.

Now, will the same programs I have installed on a Vista laptop work if the laptop’s upgraded to windows 7.

4

What the crud is human communications? :wink: This looks like a decent deal. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152107 2 Ghz, a pretty decent graphics card, and 3 gb of ram already in it!

5

Believe it or not, the so-called ‘course description’ for all listed classes does an EPIC FAIL job of actually describing the classes. If by ‘course description,’ they mean numbers, letters, and times, then…

But a completely unrelated site says the goal of a human comm class is
"

  • To develop an understanding and an appreciation for communication areas and processes;
  • To develop critical abilities in structuring and evaluating written, verbal and gestural messages in a variety of communication settings;
  • To gain a broader understanding of the role in critical thinking within our daily lives;
  • To develop strategies and skills commensurate with college level writing, thinking and speaking;
  • To investigate the potentials of electronic media for communication;
  • To deepen research strategies and skills."

Anywho, nice suggestion for a laptop :slight_smile: . But it’s battery life is looking a bit sketchy.

6

You could try looking at performance laptops which are 1 generation old, particularly those where the latest has just come out. The “old” models have the same performance they always did, but the price just takes a dive, as manufacturers try to sell out their stock.

7

How much you got to spend? Check out Newegg.com

8

Well, I’ve got about 600-700 on me. Don’t know if that’ll get me a good one though.

9

you can get 2ghz dual core with 2-3gb of ram from newegg for 400. Thats more then enough for your 2d stuff. And for 6-700 you can probably get something thats good enough for 3d.