Inspiron 8600 for animation?

[purple_cow]

Hi! I'm a freelance animator/graphic designer and am currently shopping around for a new laptop. The softwares that I use the most are After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Flash, and Illustrator. I was wondering if 8600 would be a good choice (I also considered getting a Mac but I feel like it's more geared toward print design rather than motion graphics).

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[Brian]

There's no doubt the 8600 would fit the hardware requirements, but I wonder how the widescreen would suit you. It's certainly a non-standard design environment, so you should consider that.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

[Barry J. Doyle]

Hey Purple Cow. Provided you stick with the model that has a native WXGA (1280x800)resolution, this notebook will be perfect for you. If you choose the WSXGA+ (1680x1050) or WUXGA (1920x1200)native resolution options, the graphics will not look appropriate for the current user resolution standard of 1024x768, therefore your work will appear huge on most screens. Scaling the resolution down for design work is not a good choice as it will look "fuzzy" being out of the set native res. As a bonus, the WXGA (1280x800)resolution is the lowest cost choice for this model and your graphics will appear identical in size on the 15.4" screen as they would on a 15" standard flat panel at 1024x768. Hope that helps!


Barry J. Doyle

[purple_cow]

Thanks guys! Also this might seem like a silly question, but does anybody know how many USB ports the base model comes with?

[Brian]

The 8600 comes with two USB 2.0 ports.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

[purple_cow]

A lot of people are telling me that for the work I'm doing, I'm much better off with a Pentium 4 than a Centrino, since P4 has more power. Do you think it's true, or they're about just as fast?

[m3]

purple cow,

They're more or less right. The Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz or 3.06GHz (with or without Hyper-Threading Technology) and AMD Athlon 64 (Mobile and regular) offer considerably more raw processing power than the Intel Pentium M 1.7GHz. But to ensure that you receive the speed advantage of the P4 and Athlon 64, you have to use the notebook plugged-in.

How will you use your notebook most of the time, plugged-in or on battery?

As for the Inspiron 8600, it uses the Pentium M only. You can get the P4 3.2GHz and 3.06GHz (w/ and w/o HT) with the Inspiron 5150. But don't just settle for Dell, make sure to check out other manufacturers too.