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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Best laptop out there for CS5?

I'm getting closer to find the optimal situation - I would like to do some editing, watch dailies etc on my laptop but its not like I'm going to do all my editing on a moving train... so - I should get a maxed laptop with one 256 SSD drive and.... then an external raid array for my "real" editing..... simple. I'm not missing anything, am I?
 
The problem with these HP is that they only come with 128 SSD..... or are you saying that for the sort of "on location editing" that I want to do a standard sata 7200 drive is enough? or two of them for a raid 0?
 
In my opinion, mandatory specs for something really capable in CS5 would be:
-Quad-Core Core i7 (watch out for desktop cpu's in laptops if you care about battery life, then again maybe dont go quad core if you care about battery life)
-High-end Nvidia Geforce or Quadro GPU (CS5 is CUDA only from what I understand, no ATI Stream)
-8+GB RAM
-USB3 and esata
-as many expresscard slots as you can get for expandability
-fast internal SSD boot drive
-internal HDD (some workstation laptops have support for up to 3 internal HDDs)

Something like this might be worth looking into:
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...-category-id=3B10ECA8EB78454180D484668504D02E

The extra slide out 10" LCD for palettes and a small video monitor and the wacom tablet and 2 expresscard slots are cool features.

BTW I wouldnt go with the SSDs provided by laptop manufacturers, buy your own and install it or have it installed. They'll usually give you old slow expensive drives, and with newer faster cheaper SSDs coming out every month they usually cant keep up. Personally I'd do the same whenever possible with HDDs as well as I think its worth knowing what you are getting.
 
great specs and i'd recommend the HP too. their 8740w series looks amazing, and they run quadro cards in there. if it's mercury pro compatible, you are gonna see the best performance out of a laptop with cs5. With a dreamcolor screen and plenty of super fast ports (esata, usb 3.0) you can have good external editing solutions that will be portable too.

as for SSD's, u can install a SSD yourself, 256 gig, 512 gig, whatever, and also max out the ram on it. plenty of tutorials on youtube and etc on how to do that.

I'd also recommend internal SSD just for the fact that it's no moving parts and you'll run into less of a chance of a critical hard drive malfunction since you'll be moving around a lot and probably bumping the laptop everywhere.

for external hard drive solutions for your edit cause you'll need larger storage, there are plenty of mobile raid solutions out there, or even SSD. you can create your own SSD external HD's, or go mobile with g raids, or caldigit.


http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/e...-3740645-3955549-4138087-4138089-4155897.html


I'd go with a system with a more beefy video card because that's what PP takes advantage of. I'd call HP or email them and as if you can have a more custom solution for this, see if they can upgrade the HD for you, more ram. etc. and I'd email adobe too and see if this quadro card inside is PP cuda/Mercury playback compatible.

as for the clevo, i wouldn't recommend all that spinning disc solution internally for mobile use. You'll run into heat issues, and at a much higher risk for failure. Mobile editing I'd go for SSD options budget permitting, external storage, and run backups whenever you get to a more secure location (whatever home in whatever country, at a hotel and throw your work on a passport drive or something and mail it to one of ur houses or a friend)

I work as a media manager/DIT also on being an editor, so being extra paranoid about footage is usually my trademark...
 
and i still think the HP beats out the Lenova if not just for the dreamcolor display alone. it' a beautiful screen, and you'll be able to do some more close to accurate color representation and corrections too.
 
Note: also be careful about i7 mobile CPUs, for example the HP linked has a Dual Core i7 CPU.

I agree that Dreamcolor sounds very good. Lenovo has RGBLED which should be quite good. I've just been impressed with the build quality of Thinkpads and their multiple expresscard slots and additional HDD options.
 
IBM makes INCREDIBLY rock solid laptops don't get me wrong, your right about the CPU's, but PP doesn't use that much processor, and they both have matching GPU's, so to me the dreamcolor is the better deal.

but both systems are on very level playing fields. I'm speaking from a point of view where I'd trick out the rest of the system myself, hard drives and ram. cheaper that way IMO. and not that hard.
 
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Definitely SSD boot drive and HDD for media etc.

As for RAM and SSD options... you could save about $500 installing your own 16GB RAM (quite trivial to do) and I would never go with the unnamed SSD HP provides unless you can get confirmation ahead of time about the make and model and performance of the drive they are installing for you.
 
Mike Brent said:
By the way, for the same system (NVIDIA 2800M, 500 gig raided, WUXGA, 8 gig RAM) - HP is cheaper by $450...
Click to expand...

Is that with Dreamcolor? With Dreamcolor (vs RGBLED+10" retractible LCD) they seem to be almost exactly the same price.

A more even comparison might be HP without dreamcolor and Lenovo without the retractable screen, in which case Lenovo comes out $200 cheaper and still gives you a dvd-drive that can be replaced with a 3rd internal HDD, an extra expresscard slot. Looks like the built in wacom tablet and integrated monitor color calibration device are $150 extra but would still keep it below the HP. Btw there always seem to be 10-15% off coupon codes for lenovo around from my experience.

I have just always been impressed by Lenovo's offerings, I got a T400 2 years ago since it was one of the only laptops around that could handle P2 and SxS with its two slots and could take two internal HDDs and had dedicated graphics while being about the same size and price as the cheapest macbook.
 
agreed, and as i stated before, tons of tutorials online showing you how to install your own ram and replace the hard drive. i would got with a CRUCIAL or CORSAIR SSD, or one of the newer OCZ's, but performance wise, i've been reading CORSAIR is one of the best (it uses samsung internals)

SSD for boot, and applications drive, and i'd probably skip the internal raid solution and get them single disk or even more ssds. your probably gonna be running your raid off the motheboard. i've had bad experience with motheboard raided internals (not on my mac pro though) but with even full desktops i'd have array failures, not from the drives but the MOBO not being able to keep the array together properly.

and unless the specs allow for a independent raid card, i'd go with external raided solutions for your editing.
 
By the way - where will I be buying the RAM? I changed RAM on my Acer, its going to be that easy?

Can I also install the SSD or is that more complicated?
 
Santiago Marti said:
ok, let's start over, USB3 is a must!!! Have you seen what black magic design is releasing at nab?!?! WOW, i want everything, really!!!
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/?nab=2
Click to expand...

Yes, this is one of my big reasons for suggesting this besides bus powered high speed external drive connections. If USB3 is even half as prevalent as USB2, you are going to want this as a built in functionality of any new computer.

@Mike
Yes in general installing RAM and SSD/HDD is quite easy in most laptops. These parts are usually the only parts that are made to be easily user serviceable, however, and I highly recommend taking advantage of that fact.
As for where to buy RAM, I'd recommend newegg.com
 
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SSD prices are unfortunately still really expensive wherever you look, point of installing your own is simply so you know what brand you have and it's "rated speed" for quality assurance. If you trust HP, then i'd just take the SSD from them, they'll offer service and warranty on it too.
 
Tom.Wong said:
SSD prices are unfortunately still really expensive wherever you look, point of installing your own is simply so you know what brand you have and it's "rated speed" for quality assurance. If you trust HP, then i'd just take the SSD from them, they'll offer service and warranty on it too.
Click to expand...

Yup, although if price is a concern, you will likely have more options on this by buying your own as well. If $650 for 256GB is too much and that is all HP offers, you could get a smaller less expensive one somewhere else. With 80GB SSDs <$200 it seems crazy not to have at least a small one (if you are price limited) as your boot drive given the performance increases you get. I can't even imagine using anything else these days since I am used to even the biggest applications loading in 2-3 seconds. I can really feel the lag when I have to use someone elses non-SSD computer for anything.
 
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