Hey, did a search, and couldnt find any info about this on here…
Basically, Im thinking about possibly getting a laptop maybe early next year.
I want it for mainly video editing, and abit of music. I’ll need a DVD writer on it too.
My questions:
What spec would be suitable for this?
Would vista be good on it?
Is it just as good as a desktop PC?
Cheers,
Joe,
Video editing you might want good RAM, and processor, and if there’ll be a lot of videos a big-ish HDD.
IMO vista is great, for whatever you’re doing.
and…I don’t see why it would only be good on a desktop, my laptop is great 
What’s the budget?
Edit: This is a HOT laptop IMO, for a pretty good price for what you’re getting (I paid the same for something with a smaller screen and (half the HDD)… a few less extras)
How portable do you want the laptop? Are you going to be bringing it to class daily? Is there a specific reason why you’re looking for a laptop instead of a desktop?
Do you want to play 3D games?
A laptop with an Intel Core 2 Duo and the basic Intel onboard graphics will do fine for general computing tasks. Just make sure you have 2GB of RAM. 1GB of RAM doesn’t cut it even when using XP. With Vista you really need that 2GB. Keep in mind that with onboard graphics and even the higher end notebook graphics chips you use some of your system RAM for video memory. So you end up using 256 MB or so of your system RAM for graphics memory. That’s the main reason why 1GB of RAM doesn’t cut it in a notebook or even a desktop that has onboard graphics.
I picked out an Acer notebook for the parents just a few weeks ago. It has one of the slowest Core 2 Duo chips and the basic Intel integrated graphics along with 2GB of RAM and Windows Vista. It does just fine for general computing tasks. It plays DVDs just fine. Not sure how it benchmarks though for video compression tasks and video editing and video processing.
I looked at the AMD based notebooks but those all felt slow. The integrated graphics that are on the AMD notebooks is not as fast as the Intel solution. You do notice the difference for general computing apps even though the AMD CPU matches up performance wise to the low end Intel dual core CPUs. There is a noticeable lag in how fast windows appear. The Intel Core 2 Duo is the one to go with at the moment.
[QUOTE=joe]
Hey, did a search, and couldnt find any info about this on here…
QUOTE]
My first thoughts are that there are probably better places than the unicycle forums when looking for laptop info.
That said, not so long ago I would have said that a laptop was not a good choice. They used to break more easily, were very expensive, tended to be much less capable and were difficult and expensive to repair. Some of the older Toshibas were a nightmare to dismantle. Good fun, but you needed to be very careful with the screw counts out and in.
Much of that no longer applies, although the same spec desktop or tower will still be cheaper, and far easier to repair and upgrade. I finally bought a laptop for mobility, although for my purposes an effective alternative would have been a big memory stick or external drive. But I finally bought a laptop on the basis that if it breaks seriously I can now, at today’s prices, salvage the disk and if need be, throw the rest away. But for serious stuff, I still prefer the deskside machine.
As JC says, it probably depends on how mobile you wish to be.
Nao
I wouldnt go Vista, one of my mates has it and i reckon its sh!t and so does he… I know a few others with it and they hate it too!
I have a Laptop and rate it way more over a desktop - its great to be able to move round and do stuff.
Laptop with XP all the way:D
I hate Vista, for multiple reasons… what video editing programs do you use? Is it just a hobby or are you making short films and the like? My Dad makes short films/etc, he does contests around the west coast with film production teams (mostly amatuer) but for video editing he swears by the mac. Otherwise, the PC will be more compatible with games and such. I have owned both, and each ones have their ups and downs, it just depends on what you are going to do with it.
Oh yeah, macs are always more expensive.
Well, we can all say that - but you haven’t explained why it’s sh!t
Being a spectator can be hard work, just ask Cynthia Huynh. Exhausted from running up and down the sidelines to get shots of her eight-year old, Brian, she needed a high-zoom camera to capture sharp, stable pictures from afar. We gave her three popular cameras–the Canon Powershot S5 IS, the Kodak Z812 IS, and the Olympus SP-560 UZ–to take to Brian’s championship game, and asked her to tell us which ones could keep up with her son.
If you’re going to trash Vista at least do so with an informed opinion. A lot of Vista bashing is being done by people who don’t know of what they talk about.
I’m using the Acer laptop right now with Vista. My home desktop has been switched to Vista. I like Vista. Vista is different enough from XP that you have to go in to it with an attitude that you’ll adapt and do things the Vista way rather than fight it and try to do things the XP or Windows 2000 way.
Vista by default enables a lot of background processes that aren’t in XP. If you’re the kind of person who trimmed down XP to minimize the performance and memory hit of background processes then you’re not going to like the default Vista install. But a lot of those background processes in Vista can be disabled or tuned if that’s what you want.
Some of those extra features that make it look like Vista is hogging memory is Vista caching things more aggressively than XP. Caching things in RAM uses more RAM. But when an application needs the memory the caches get dumped and the application gets the memory. So just because the memory is in use by the OS doesn’t mean that the applications get starved for RAM.
Disk I/O is also slightly different in Vista. Many OS functions are using a lower priority disk I/O so that background disk access doesn’t affect foreground applications. So the background disk defragging or indexing or Windows Defender scan or many other background processes don’t impact foreground performance as much as they would in XP. I’m not certain, but I suspect that the file copying in Vista also uses the lower priority disk I/O which is why disk operations get dinged in performance benchmarks against XP. But that also means that you can do a large file copy and get on with other things more smoothly in Vista than in XP.
The UAC (User Account Control) in Vista is a bit annoying for power users and those who like to muck around. My view of UAC is that if you are getting too many UAC prompts then the applications are not doing things right. Too many UAC prompts is a sign that applications need to be redesigned. Developers got lazy cause previous versions of Windows allowed them to do things willy nilly that now cause UAC prompts. Linux and Unix developers have been conscious of operations that would cause the user to need root access. Windows developers are being forced to become familiar with operations and side-effects that will cause users to need Administrator access in Windows now. I consider that to be a good thing, but temporarily annoying till the developers catch up.
If you don’t like the UAC prompts you can disable the feature and then flip a setting in Group Policy so Vista won’t nag you about the disabled UAC. I keep UAC enabled cause I want to know when applications cause too many prompts. I do software QA and some development so I need to be aware of that so I don’t cause the problem myself.
I do have some complaints about Vista.
Managing the Start Menu causes way too many UAC prompts. Microsoft needs to redesign things there.
The highlight color that is used in Windows Explorer (the file manager) and in other places is way too light in color when Aero in active. I can barely see the highlight marking. The new Aero highlight color happens to be a setting that you cannot change like you could in previous versions of Windows. Who was the idiot that decided that such a light color was a good thing and then make it so the user cannot choose to make it darker? I really want to find that idiot and give them a piece of my mind.
I’ve been googling for a solution to the highlight color problem and so far the solutions mentioned are to use Windows Blinds along with a custom theme or enable a hack so you can use custom themes. Sigh.
Otherwise Vista had been good to me and I’ve been learning to adapt to its new ways.
I was saying that vista is good there btw…
If you are going to be doing a lot of Video editing a Mac really is the way to go.
I’ve done a bit of editing with various bits of software and the mac is by far the best at it. It seems faster, smoother and easier to get the desired result.
They tend to cost a bit more but you do get what you pay for.
Plumsie
One aspect of a laptop that you may find unsatisfactory for critical photo and video editing is the display. Pretty much every laptop is using a 6-bit display that can only display 262144 true colors. They display 16-millions of colors by dithering. The dithering method relies on some persistence of vision effects in your vision. The dithering is noticeable in moving objects and video especially when looking at the screen with peripheral vision. That all works for normal computer use and non-critical photo viewing or editing. But for critical editing where you’re looking at shades of black and grey and gradients and subtle colors you will find the typical 6-bit display to be inadequate.
Some 6-bit displays do better than others. It seems that as displays have become more commodity and less expensive the quality has gone down and the dithering more noticeable.
Even Apple uses 6-bit displays on their laptops. Google on grainy MacBook display and you’ll find a saga about Apple users not being happy with the 6-bit display on some MacBooks.
With a desktop you can splurge on a good display if that is important to you. With a laptop you get what you get.
The Acer laptop I’m using right now has an obvious 6-bit display and obvious dithering. Most lay people would call it a good display and give the display very high marks. But if you’re critical about color and display quality you will notice the faults.
PC? Windows Vista? Whats all this rubbish you speak of?
A new Macbook is what you want.
Or you could buy whatever screen you want, plug it in to your laptop, and have a dual/single display when you’re at home
Linux>XP>Win2000>MacOS>Vista>Win98
hey guys… thanks for all the info!
To answer some questions -
I asked this question on here, as as you can see, I’m getting good replies, and people do know their stuff. If i was to ask anywhere else I think it would be even more technical and would require signing up to another forum.
As for how portable, John, it will really just be in my bedroom, and I don’t have a desk so that’s why desktop wouldn’t be any good… unless I used my TV as monitor? I just really need it for video editing, as a hobby (here i come UNICON video comp :P), and internet for MSN etc.
My price range is really about £600 atm. Any more than that and I’d rather just use this computer…
Any other advice would be much appreciated
Cheers,
Joe,
I don’t know what laptop pricing is like in the UK. £600 is about $1200 USD and that should get you a nice laptop. The Acer laptop I got was about $700 USD on sale. It is the lowest end of the Acer Aspire 5920 line. I’d expect £600 to get you into the 5920G which has the Nvidia 8600M and dedicated graphics memory.
For your purposes you don’t need a fancy thin and light travel notebook. You also won’t worry about having a more powerful battery for more battery life. That all saves you on money since you don’t have to look for the more expensive thin and light laptops.
A laptop like the Acer 5920 is a bit thick and a bit heavy. But that’s no matter if you’re not regularly taking it with you as a regular mobile mover.
Thinkpad makes a couple really nice laptops.
I love my macbook pro.
Thanks again John.
What do you think of this: Acer Aspire 7720G
I believe its the newer version of the 5920?
This too would suit my needs, http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Lenovo_3000_N200_0769_TY2BMUK/version-1.asp yeah?
Joe,
Update,
I bought one today. This is what I went for: Advent 9915
The spec says 2Gb RAM, but on the system is actually says 0.99Gb. Why is this?? Is it per processor?
I also bought Pinnacle 11 Ultimate, while I was at it. I was told it would run fine, but looking at it, it says 1.6 GHz Dual core required for Windows Vista. Mine is 1.5Ghz. Will this matter?
I’ll get it connected to the net very shortly.
Cheers,
Joe,