<p>I am getting a laptop for college, I just don't know what kind. I am open to Mac, but I would prefer PC. All the computers at home are PC, and the last time I used a Mac was in 8th grade with the 2nd generation iMacs. I will be doing film and animation, and I sometimes do some coding as a hobby. I want something fairly affordable. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Last time I checked, film editing uses a TON of resources. Try to get the laptop with the best specs you can. </p>
<p>Possibly a Dell XPS notebook?</p>
<p>i would've said Mac, until you said coding anyway. do you mean programming? OSX is much better than whatever they used back then...i hated those iMacs. my thinking is if the art industry uses macs, and its laptops have a mid-upper range graphics card at best, that must be fine. of course, i don't have any experience using animation/film editing software. and you wanted something affordable (which, by the way, is a rather nebulous word...what do you think is affordable?)</p>
<p>to start with, look at Acer and Asus. i'm sure there are more brands that fit the bill, but those are the two i look at that're cheaper than IBMs and Macs. don't get Dell if you ever plan on using tech support.... and if you look at Acer, make sure you read some reviews or anything you can find on notebookreview.com - some of their laptops are below average build quality. the ones that are better will be cheaper than the equivalents in better-known brands...excluding the thousands of discounts Dell throws at its products. Asus is generally known as a gaming company, might be a little expensive though.</p>
<p>see if you can get a desktop and a laptop - that way you can have the desktop do the really resource-intensive operations without the risk of frying the motherboard. and then you have a laptop to carry around and do smaller things.</p>
<p>if you already do some animating/video editing on your computer right now, could you tell us how it performs and what hardware you're using?</p>
<p>Right now my desktop has a 2.2 GHz single core processor, 1 gig of ram, and a 256mb GeForce 6600 graphics card. Adobe Premiere Pro works fine on it, but rendering in Blender is slow.</p>
<p>Why is it the macs are considered better for video editing than PCs? Is it just the software? I'm looking at a HP Pavilion dv9500t right now and to get a hardware configuration that looks like it's identical to the 17-inch MBP except that the HP has a 2.20 GHz duel core instead of a 2.40 GHz duel core for the Mac, the HP is $800 cheaper. What features does the MBP have that would make me want to spend an extra $800?</p>
<p>I always thought the advantage of Macs as far as video editing went had something to do with the architecture, so I don't know if that's true anymore since they started using Intel processors.</p>
<p>I guess the main features of Macs that might make it worth the upgrade are the operating system Mac fanboys seem to adore so much (with pretty colors and underlying Unix system and whatnot), maybe tech support/warranty/brand trust. If you're used to and prefer PCs, definitely go with a PC.</p>
<p>If you’re doing film editing, you’ll likely be using Final Cut Pro software from Apple. Check out the Final Cut entry on Wikipedia. It’s the de facto standard for film editing. The Wikipedia entry list a whole slew of films that use Final Cut Pro including the film “300”. </p>
<p>You should check with your college to see what they would recommend in the way of computers. While it’s usually the case that either an Apple or Windows based laptop will do, there are specific cases where one is more strongly recommended. If you’re a film major and will be assembling a student film, you’ll probably need a Macbook Pro to get the job done.</p>
<p>The school I'm going to (Biola) suggests Mac, but they support both Mac and PC and have workstations with Final Cut Pro and AVID.</p>
<p>I don't have any film classes this semester, so I think I'm going to get a PC that is inexpensive but still an improvement on my desktop. Right now I'm looking at a HP Pavilion DV6565US or HP Pavilion DV6450US. The DV6565US is slightly slower but has a better graphics card. I can get either one for about $950.</p>
<p>i don't think Macs are "better" for video editing, just preferred. film/art software i believe is also tailored to work more efficiently and quickly on Macs. if you prefer PC, though, then buy a PC, but you might want to make sure about Final Cut first. as for the slow rendering on blender, it may improve when you switch to a dual core - CPU performance does affect graphics performance, after all. i don't think the 6600 is a bad card from my brief research, though of course i might be wrong.</p>
<p>i suggest you raise the price your willing to pay a little (if at all possible), or look at more vendors and models. the two HPs you pointed out have 4200rpm hard drives and integrated graphics. 4200rpm is pretty slow, and it means longer boot and application load times. of course, you could probably live with that. more importantly, you need a dedicated video card, meaning an ATI Radeon or Nvidia Geforce Go. the processors i think are fine, just personally i wouldn't go below 1.66 Ghz for a dual core.</p>
<p>two more things: 1) install XP instead of Vista if you can, unless you've used Vista and like it a lot more. you'll have more resources with the same hardware, and 2) also look at resolution, you can have a lot more workspace with 1440x900, say, than the 1280x800 on the two you picked. it's not as important as graphics, but something to take into consideration.</p>
<p>i found a list of graphics cards for you to look for, all with about the same capability as the Nvidia 8600M GT in an MBP:</p>
<p>
[quote]
From lowest to highest performance:</p>
<p>Nvidia GeForce Go6600
ATI Mobility Radeon X700
Nvidia GeForce 8400M GT
Nvidia GeForce Go7600
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600
ATI Mobility Radeon X1700
Nvidia GeForce Go7700
Nvidia GeForce 8600M GS
Nvidia GeForce Go7600 GT
Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT
Nvidia GeForce 8700M GT
[/quote]
</p>
<p>keep in mind that the 8600 GT's position would fluctuate depending on if it's the 128MB version or 256 MB. i would assume the one on that list is 256. MBPs were also just recently upgraded to the 8600 GT, they used to come with an 8400M GT.</p>
<p>i can also get you a list of midrange cards. those up there are higher-end, rated just below the best cards currently in the market.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the help, toxic_waste!</p>
<p>I thought I found some good deals on Amazon, but they were all refurbished. I don't want to take that risk at this point.</p>
<p>The one I'm looking at right now is the HP dv9535nr. It's on sale at best buy for $1250.</p>
<p>It has 2gb of ram, 240gb hd 5400rpm, and an nVIDIA® GeForce 8600M GS with 256mb dedicated memory, up to 1gb total video memory. It is 17" HiDef and goes up to 1440 x 900 resolution. It also has a built-in webcam.</p>
<p>The only downside I see it that it's only a 1.5ghz duo, but that's still quite a big step up from my current 2.2ghz single core desktop.</p>
<p>it looks ok, but will you be moving it around much? 17" and 7.7 lbs is pretty bulky. 1440x900 is also standard for 17", i was thinking of higher resolution with the same screen size, so WXGA+ or WSXGA(+) instead of the normal WXGA (for a 15.4" screen). those just cost a lot more, and the only real limitation of 1280x800 is it can't play hd dvds at full resolution. other than that, it's just about workspace. it doesn't seem like there're any higher-resolution 15.4" laptops that fit your budget...except for Dell (of course). speaking of which, are you against buying a Dell? from what i gather, the only really bad thing about them is worthless tech support/customer service, and hit-or-miss quality on the inspiron line. i personally would never buy one, but that's besides the point....</p>
<p>if you do think Dell is ok, i built a vostro 1500 and an inspiron 1520; the former is $1261, the latter $1283. prices will, of course, change depending on what you prefer. the inspiron only comes with vista, and i chose vista business, and for the vostro i chose XP pro, which is an $100 option over XP home. i also picked a 1440x900 (WXGA+/WSXGA) hi-res, glossy lcd on both, and both can be further upgraded to 1680x1050 (WSXGA+) for another $50. the vostro has a 120GB hd, inspiron 160GB. chose intel's wireless cards over the dell models, extra $20-30. both have the 256MB 8600M GT.</p>
<p>if you're fine with a 17", though, forget about the above about Dells and run with the HP.</p>
<p>and don't forget to make sure about Final Cut. wouldn't want you to get screwed over just because of that.</p>
<p>oh yeah. both Dells were on 1.6 GHz dual cores. i'm not sure how cpu-intensive video editing is...upgrading even more might be smart. ask someone who does what you do....</p>
<p>there is always avid express pro for pc</p>
<p>For video editing, the most intensive data activity is going to take place on the hard drive, so I recommend you find a laptop model with, or purchase separately, a 7200 RPM hard drive for faster performance; a standard 5400 RPM drive will be moderately slower. 2GB of RAM (or even more) is an absolute must for video editing/data crunching, as well as at least 2 GHz or so dual processing speed to match, since video editing is VERY CPU intensive. However, the hard drive is also important because that's where data is created and altered.</p>
<p>As far as video cards go, if you want to go even faster than a 8600M GT, you can order an older laptop with a GeForce Go 7600, 7900GS, et al, since the 8600M GT is slower than the previously mentioned GeForce 7900GS, and barely faster than a 7600 Go. The 8700M GT is a wash compared to a 7900GS. But since video editing is not necessarily a graphics-intensive activity, a 8600M GT should be more than adequate for your needs. I only mention the 7900GS because it is indeed faster than a 8600M GT, despite being an older card - even getting a 7600 would be a good deal.</p>
<p>Overall, for video editing I would prioritize in this order: </p>
<p>1) hard drive speed
2) CPU speed and RAM, both equally important: get lots of RAM, or your hard drive's pagefile is used and performance suffers!
3) Video card</p>
<p>^ video editing may not be especially graphics-intensive, but what about animation? also, would you still really need at least 2GHz with dual cores? i don't doubt the benefits, i just wonder whether it's necessary.</p>
<p>As Strykur said, the most intensive work is being done on the hard drive for video editing. Since it sounds like that's your major, I'd highly recommend you purchase a Firewire-based 7200 or better RPM Hard drive as you don't want your data being written to the system drive if at all possible (it's inefficient and results in unnecessary wear).
As far as CPU (processor speed) vs. RAM, the RAM is certainly more important for recording/editing in terms of price per quantity, but they need to be kept in delicate balance, so if you have to skimp a TINY bit, skimp on the processor but try to do as well on both as possible (absolute floor of 2 GB on RAM, 3 would be preferable for intensive work).</p>
<p>I'd definitely recommend a dual core 2+ GHz.</p>
<p>And even with coding, I'd still go with the Mac as it IS the industry standard in all of the arts and you'll need to learn it anyway as well as the simple fact that OS X is more efficient and stable (which is why OS X is the industry standard for film, graphic arts and music recording/editing...)</p>
<p>buying a computer with an external SATA part would be faster than Firewire which would already limit the transfer rate to the point where is would become the bottleneck between the hard drive and the access times on the computer</p>
<p>Mac's are not industry standard, the software available for them are</p>