Photoshop Laptop & Notebook Review:What to Consider

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I want a Laptop that can run Photoshop like Butter

Now that laptops are being made more powerful and useful, they can handle Adobe’s Photoshop much better than in past years. Some of the Major players in the Industry right now are HP, Dell/Alienware, IBM – “Lenovo”, Sony, Toshiba, Acer, Toshiba, & Gateway.
What’s Important for a Laptop if it’s going to run Photoshop like butter?
In the past it was about how many Gigahertz (GHz) a computer had, and then it was about the Memory/RAM, and then about the Video Card. Today the most important factors in buying a good Photoshop laptop generally look something like this.

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1.    CPU L2 Cache. The L2 Cache is like a pipeline, with bigger pipelines in your processor, more information can go through at once – speeding up the time it takes Photoshop to render effects I recommend looking for a laptop with between a 2-4MB/L2 Cache
2.    CPU Dual-Core & FSB. The Front-Side Buss is the speed that the processor can send information through its pipeline, just like a two lane highway at 90 MPH is better than a four lane highway at 30MPH. Ideally a FSB of 1066 is really what to look for, and a FSB of 1333 will churn that butter.
3.    Memory. To run Windows Vista well Microsoft recommends at least 1GB Minimum RAM, make sure there’s between 2-4GB of Memory to handle the larger Photoshop files and still have room for the fancy effects afterwards, also make sure the Memory for the laptop is a speed of 667 MHz or higher.
4.    Dual Core/45nm Processor. The laptop should be at least a Dual-Core processor, Intel Core 2 Duo and the AMD Athlon 64X2 are currently the leaders in the market, in desktops the 45nm processor can out-perform the Quad-Core 65nm in certain tests, as this starts to come to laptops it’ll quickly become #2 on the list for speed.
5.    Hard Drive. No doubt hard drives are extremely important to store all of the Photoshop files, and the space goes quick when files quite often are between 50MB-500MB Files, at this point in time I recommend shooting for 300GB+ or more in a Laptop, the new Solid-State-Drives (SSD) are starting to gain steam with 64GB Models, these Drives are far superior in the speed of opening and saving files, but limiting for Photoshop users because of their lack of space and will only be viable in the next few years when 200-500GB Models are affordably available.
6.    Graphics Card. You may wonder why I list the Laptops Graphics card on the bottom of the list, this is simply because Photoshop generally relies more on the RAM/Memory, and Processor much more than the graphics card – this is because graphics cards are designed to render complex moving objects, perform shading and anti-aliasing on the fly, a powerful graphics card will mean more bang for your buck in Gaming, CAD, and 3D Studio Max, whereas Photoshop generally will rely more on L2 Cache, FSB, and Memory.

So, now that we have the details hammered out, let’s talk about the manufacturers,
Dell XPS – Some people like their dells, this personally has not been the case for me, based off Dells targeted market over the past few years, I find that their products have motherboard, overheating, and other mechanical problems much more than their competitors. In addition, one of their target markets are corporations, thus cheapening their computers/laptops to increase profits. Generally their laptops are most expensive than what they’re worth, who wants to pay more and get less. The Dell XPS has an okay 800MHz FSB, 3MB L2 Cache, and reasonable 4GB 667Mhz DDR2 Memory, and a mediocre 250GB Hard Drive. Their Graphics Card on this Model is only a 256MB GeForce 8600M GT which isn’t the most important for Photoshop, but definitely tells a person that the quality of the laptop isn’t there.
HP Pavilion dv7-1020us – I’ve owned a HP Pavilion dv6000, the predecessor of the dv7 and I loved it, the dv7 is equipped with a powerful GeForce 9600M GT Integrated Video, 320GB Hard Drive, and 4GB DDR2 Memory/RAM with a 1066MHz FSB, and 3MB L2 Cache CPU all wrapped up with a stylish 17” Widescreen Display giving you the screen space you need to work with all of Photoshop’s Toolbars & Workspace. This particular model is even equipped with a BluRay player and two head-phone jacks for multimedia. The only thing I didn’t like about the HP Pavilion after 1 year of use is the built in touchpad, the cursor sticks and the left and right mouse buttons don’t click-in when pressed – which takes some getting used to. Otherwise, this HP Model laptop is solid, I personally would buy it again-and might even put out some cash this year for the new model.
Sony VAIO VGN –FW290JAB – Sony generally creates quality products, and the VGN has some very attractive Specs, Their processor has a 3MB L2 Cache and a Front-Side Bus (FSB) runs at a speed of 1066Mhz, which is a major plus. It’s equipped with 320GB of File Space, and 4GB of ram, it weighs in at 6.9 Pounds. Sony laptops generally have more rich-colored glossy screens because the company plays such a big role in the Television industry, this laptop is equipped with a very slick XBRITE Full HD LCD Display. With other Sony VAIO’s it’s a shame that there’s only 3 USB ports, 1 for Mouse, 1 for External Hard Drive, 1 for Printer, and in the past I didn’t feel wonderful about all the ports being placed on the left and right sides of the laptop with none in the back. 99% of the Pre-Installed software on each VAIO is garbage and wastes disk-space, Memory, and effort to remove, but if you’re looking for performance, under the hood the VGN-FW290JAB is definitely a high power champ.
Toshiba Satellite A205-S5879 – In the past, just like Dell was king of the Desktop, Toshiba created really high-quality laptops that have lasted ages, I know several people who’ve had theirs for 4+ years. There’s quite a difference in the manufacturing quality of the old Toshiba Satellite series and the new, Thos A205 is equipped with a 15.4” Screen, and Intel 1MB L2 Cache, 533Mhz FSB, and 200GB Hard Drive, on the Plus side it does come with 3GB of DDR2 Memory, and unfortunately an Intel GM Video Chipset, definitely a minus compared to NVidia and ATI Graphics Cards. Overall this laptop is quite a bit less expensive than its counter-parts, and its screen size makes it ideal more for travel. It could run some smaller Photoshop quite well, although it’d definitely choke on anything over 150MB, other Toshiba makes like the Qosmio seem much more promising for High-End Photoshop work, although the Satellite series definitely does not fit the bill.
ASUS M50 – Vm-X1. Asus in my experience has always provided high quality hard-ware and I’ve purchased between 10-15 Motherboards from them without ANY issues for the past 6 years, that alone puts them at very high esteem in my opinion. Their M50 Looks like it’s more of a mobile laptop as it only has 250GB File Space, and a 15” Screen, but don’t let that trick you – this thin light laptop packs an extremely powerful punch with In addition to its 1066Mhz FSB / 3MB L2 Cache CPU, and the 4GB DDR2 Memory/Ram… 1024MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GS Video Memory. The “GS” is the lower-end GeForce, but it with its ram it deffinately packs a punch, it’ll run alongside Photoshop with quite some power, and is a more viable choice for as a highly mobile laptop.

To touch on the other manufacturers, in the Computer Repair Industry I’ve seen the most problems with Gateway and Dell Laptops, and IBM “Lenovo” looks promising, Alienware was bought out by Dell a few years ago – which makes it hard to rate them due to Dells scaled-back conservative model. And after owning an Acer, it performed alright, but I’ve heard from very technical people that Acer has had some “reputable” problems with their laptops in the past.

To conclude, the best Photoshop Laptops are HP 17”, Sony 17”, and ASUS 15”, and from there it’s preference.

Tags: best photoshop laptop, Photoshop laptop, Photoshop Laptop & notebook, Photoshop laptop review