Laptop Suggestion [Color Grading and Gaming usage]

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Hello,

 

I am looking to purchase a laptop that meets the following criteria, would love to hear your suggestions.

 

1 - Should be able to handle basic color correction [red cine x pro, da vinci resolve, etc]

2 - 15 inch display. Since I am very very new to color correction would love your suggestions on what display works.

3 - Should handle premiere pro

4 - Ideally 16 gigs of DDR 3 ram [better is never a problem]

5 - A minimum of 500 gb storage [sSD is preferable]

6 - Decent speakers

7 - i7 Processor [ I dont trust AMD when it comes to video processing]

8 - Decent Battery Life

9 - Shouldn't heat up from prolonged use as I play computer games a fair bit. Dota 2 mainly nothing heavy.

10 - A decent graphic card thats reasonably future proof primarily for gaming and basic grading

11 - Not too bulky

12 - Not an alienware

13 - And most of all costing somewhere around 1200 USD

 

Basically I had a MacBook Pro Retina [15'' 2012] version and for the second time the screen malfunctioned.

Instead of investing in a new screen for the second time which is poop expensive I am considering purchasing a new laptop all together.

Hence I am looking for a replacement for a Mac, anyone who has made a switch from an Apple Laptop to Windows please do weigh in with your suggestions.

[Tyler Purcell]

The 2012 Retina's have a faulty graphics chip, so the video stops working. Apple will warranty it forever as a consequence. Just bring it into your local Apple store and they will replace the board once more.

 

The Retina's are the only mac laptop's that have enough power.

 

I wouldn't touch a windows computer because you're limited on external storage options.

 

- USB 3 isn't fast enough

- No firewire or thunderbolt on a windows machine

 

So good luck dealing with high-res files on a windows laptop. Plus... its got all right features...

 

The 2014 + models are a lot better.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I'd go windows--- honestly. Mac is vastly overpriced, underpowered, and faulty. Look into a Razer Blade. It has a 4K Display in fact. USB3.0 is pretty damned fast, and in truth, I'd just get a laptop with extra SSD space internally to work with the files.

 

The 100% truth is, however, you should be doing this on a proper tower, PC or Linux based, air-gapped, and running into a well calibrated monitor in a lighting controlled room since that's what color correction really is if you're doing it in and kind of professional capacity.

 

Else, if you're looking for something to do dailies with-- most people will go mac-trashcan on a cart. I think that's stupid, but it is what it is.

[Michael LaVoie]

I have a Dell M6600 that cost $600 new. But I did add 24gigs of ram and I put a 2tb SSD Samsung Evo drive into it. So I added about $1200 to the price with those addons a while ago. But it's great to have onset for dumping and viewing raw dailies and applying quick grades to stuff.

 

You'll end raising the cost of any windows machine with better n bigger SSD drives and ram because out of the box they are pretty weak.

 

But my recommendation would be to go with an HP z book when the new Intel 6th generation chips are installed and USB-C becomes readily available. HP is definitely targeting filmmakers more than Dell. With their dreamcolor displays and other features that Dell seems to be ignoring.