Advice on a 17" "workstation" laptop choice? ($800-$1300ish range)

  • Budget range: up to $1200-1500, shooting for around $1000

  • Purpose: Basically mobile workstation. Photoshop, Illustrator. Web design stuff. Maybe a few lower req games from time to time.

  • Screen size preference: 17". I’ve gotta have a big crisp display at 1920x1080.

  • OS preference: Windoze

  • Gaming requirements: Meh, games that are a few years old or run ok on “low”.

  • Other performance requirements: Can run many programs and windows at once without bogging or getting too hot.

  • Brand preferences and reasons: None really. My last was a Dell and it’s held up great actually. But I just want quality and reliability.

  • Any particular style that you like: Black?

Which of the following qualities would you prefer? (Choose one, two, or balanced)

  • Long battery life -vs- Low weight -vs- High performance: In order of importance: Battery, Performance, weight.

  • Build quality -vs- Low price -vs- High performance: Build quality > performance > price

  • Low noise/heat -vs- High performance: Hmmm, performance > heat, but not to a degree of having a scorcher.

  • Which features would you pay a premium for?** SSD for the OS, Good battery life, crisp and bright display

  • High resolution screen: 1920x1080

  • A great keyboard: Yes, needed. No wimpy keys with no tactile feel.

  • A great touchpad/mouse buttons: Don’t use the touchpad. hate em. Mouse only.

  • Great audio: Don’t care about audio, headphones only.

Ok, here’s my list from most important to least:

17" screen at 1920x1080 (hopefully crisp and bright)
Reliable reputation as a workhorse. I’ll take an older model 2013/14 if it’s reliable.
Good quad core processor
8+ gigs ram. at least.
SSD for OS, ideally
Good battery life 4+ hours
Good keyboard.
No heat issues. It’s ok if it gets hot. Not ok if it shuts down or damages itself.
Decent video card. Lower on the list. Hopefully should be average enough to play some games, and need to also drive some graphical apps.
Good WIFI card.
Trackpad - dont care, I don’t use.
Speakers - dont care I don’t use.

Thank you in advance for your time and expertise.

So I've really liked what I've seen and heard about Msi's laptops lately. I think going with something more gaming oriented is going to be a good idea unless your program suite requires something more specialized. I like this Msi GE 72 Apache. It's running windows 10, with 16gb's of ram and a 1tb hard drive. Although, if I were you, I'd hold off for a little bit. Broadwell quad cores are starting to role out, but the older Haswell quad cores are still really prevalent in the mobile space right now. Unlike on the desktop space where Haswell to Broadwell is a really small deal, its pretty huge. Broadwell is using a smaller manufacturing process and is much better about heat output and power usage. I really don't like the idea of buying into a Haswell powered laptop right now. I think you should at least wait a couple weeks to see what gets rolled out. There will be a much broader range of Broadwell touting laptops in the next 2 weeks to compliment the windows 10 launch.

What is your program suite? Are we talking just Adobe Premiere or other stuff beyond like 3D modeling? It makes a big difference as to what you'd want to buy for.

My main programs in order of use are web browsers (all) usually with tons of tabs, windows and developer tools open, photoshop, notepad++, filezilla/other SSH etc, illustrator. I DO do a little 3d studio Max and occasional video editing, but it's not part of my main work, so not 100% essential. I know from experience that my core programs don't require that much horsepower, but when I have a tons of things open, I do encounter slowdowns. I've got 8gb ram on my quad core AMD desktop and pretty much the only thing that drags it down is Firefox's ram hungry mouth. I want a solid hardware set for sure, but almost more important is solid reliability.

I agree about your suggestion for "gaming" oriented as it usually simply means performance. Good tip on the Broadwell. Perhaps I will wait.

Thanks for the reply!

How do you tell a Haswell from a Broadwell? You just have to look the chip up?

That MSI GE 72 Apache looks like almost exactly what I want by the way. (Minus the Broadwell...?) Nice suggestion.

Just get any old laptop with an i7 in it with an SSD and call it a day.

Or a surface tablet.

Yeah, MSI has pretty good laptops out now.

http://us.msi.com/product/workstation/WS60.html#hero-overview MSI has that out, it's kinda old now, and not what you want. But it should be a very good computer if a Quadro is what you need. With a Quadro, you won't really be gaming though.

I personally would pick up something like the GS70 2SQE. It's very powerful CPU wise, and has a very good GPU. It has a 17" screen at 1080p, and should have an okay battery as long as you don't plan on running around with it at 100% all day. However, if it's anything like the older GS laptops, it will get quite toasty if you do some gaming on it, but will stay quite chill other wise.

For the record, 17" is a terrible idea unless you already have a 17" and like it or don't plan on moving around with it too much. I have a 15" laptop (Lenovo G510), and my friend has the GS60 Ghost-013 (also 15") and I personally regret going with a 15", I have all the CPU power I want, but I could have lowered my expectations and went with a 14" laptop and gotten more power out of it. 17" imo is basically a desktop.

When chip number starts with 5 on Mobile and consumer grade desktop, it means broadwell. 4 Is haswell, and 6 is SkyLake which id due later this year to early next year. It will be a small performance bump, nothing super noticeable probably. Also the GE 72 I linked is Broadwell, and its the high end quad core I7. Here's the link again, the hyper link can be kind of hard to catch: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152902

Thanks for the responses.

StreetGuru: Can't tell if trolling. A tablet? I'm trying to work here.

VXace: Thanks for the suggestions. I basically want a desktop. I need the screen space for web design / photoshop. I have a 15" now and it feels too cramped.

thecaveman: Ah I see. Oh that one is the Broadwell. Dang, I'm kind of temped to just pre order that one now. You think I'd see much advantage in waiting for other deals on the same specs, or would they mostly all be within that same range?