New Laptop - advice needed.

[pyrrah]

DH is buying me a new laptop as a joint xmas/b-day present but I'm really stuck on what to get.

My last 2 laptops have both been custom-built Dells. The first one was pretty problem free and I had it for 4 years. The current one is nearly 5 years old - I had a 4 year warranty and it's had 2 new mother-boards, a new fan system and a new hard-drive in that time (Dell customer service was faultless).

I work my computers quite hard!

My main needs are:

• lots and lots of memory
• fast
• good graphics
• reliable
• a workhorse

Weight and size aren't an issue as I don't carry it about with me.

I do a fair amount of graphic design and photo editing - I have CorelDraw and Photoshop Creative Suite on the current one.

DH moved to Mac last year and likes it a lot. I last used Mac about 18 years ago when working in a design studio and have been on PC ever since.

I'm reasonably techy but am generally reluctant to change to new systems (hate the beginning bit of not knowing where everything is) which is a bit pathetic.

Any suggestions are very welcome. Budget is up to £1k max.

If it doesnt need to be portable do you have room for a desktop,I have bought both desktop and laptop on the past 12 months and you can get far more for your money with a desktop,also easier to upgrade a desktop.

I'd agree - go for a desktop. You'll get more performance for your money, a bigger screen and you can work it as hard as you like and won't have to worry about it dumping the heat as it's not cramped like a laptop is.

I already have a desktop, but I want something to plonk on my knees in the evening in front of the TV (I have a special thing that goes underneath to stop it/me getting too hot). I tried doing all my photo editing on the desktop, but I have a seriously messed-up spine and it's way more comfortable to sit on the sofa than an office chair.

I don't need anything that's portable on a daily basis, but I do take the laptop away on holiday or when visiting the APs/ILs.

Personally, I'm Apple all the way, but if you're happy with Dell and Windows there's no need to change. For raw computing power you get more for your money with Dell than Apple.

For example, the Dell Inspiron 17 looks well specified for £900.

4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4500U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.0 GHz)

NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 750M 2GB DDR5

16GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600MHz (8GBx2)

1TB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

44cm (17.3") LED Backlit Touch Display with Truelife and FHD resolution (1920 x 1080)

Is there a reason that you prefer Apple?

What are the big pluses - or is it just a personal preference thing?

We use these HP EliteBooks at work. We must've bought several hundred by now. They're big, solid machines that perform very well and have built a good reputation for reliability. They'll take up to 16GB of memory and are available with a choice of processors.

They won't win any design awards but they do the job. If you have a company that you can order through then you can probably find an HP reseller who will significantly undercut the prices on HP's website.

In general I'd recommend going for the business ranges of laptops rather than the home user lines. They tend to be better built.

I used Windows professionally for 15 years, so was no stranger to it. I bought a Mac Mini as an experiment about 6 years ago. I used it rip all my CDs. Then I realised it had iPhoto and loaded all our growing collection of photos (new baby) on to it. Then I bought a freeview USB and used it to record programmes we wanted to watch. About 3 years later I realised it had 10,000 tunes, 10,000 photos and tonnes of TV and worked flawlessly, never crashed once, and was still fast. At the same time my windows machines would crash once a month and need rebuilding. My MacMini is still working today (7 years old now).

I think the reason I like them is that the hardware and software are designed to work together and are both reliable and quick. I don't mind paying more as they seem to last considerably longer.

My DD has recently started using iMovie on my Macbook Air to edit little film clips together. She's probably put about 10-12 hours of work into it and in that time iMovie has crashed three times - once so badly that it made the entire Mac hang(!) I usually run Windows on that Macbook and I was surprised at how unstable it was when it was running OSX.

I don't do Video editing much although I have used iMovie before to Stop Animation with my kids (it worked fine). I guess my demands on the machine are less than video editing and maybe that's why I've never seen a crash.

Going back to my original post - if you're happy with Windows and Dell then stick to it. I'm happy with Apple but that's just me.