I just bought an expensive laptop - was it a $2500 mistake?

Note that I have not yet booted up this laptop and I am not a gamer.

The base price for this laptop is $1300. I paid $2500 for it because I'm a speed freak. No, I don't need a drug intervention, but thanks anyway, Dr. Drew

I customized my brand new laptop for speed. I customized it for work and school projects....9 to 5 stuff. I'm a little schizo. Between 9 to 5 I'm a madman. Or maybe, thanks to genetics and coffee, I have a type A personality between 9 to 5. I'm all business between 9-5, The words "lighten up - take it easy" aren't in my vocabulary between 9-5. America was built with great men who possess the same demeanor. Christopher Columbus was addicted to coffee.

All I know is that when I use the computer to work on a school or work project and I experience a slowdown or blockage, I go mad. I go nuts. I scream. I act like a racehorse who's stuck in quicksand. I have a little meltdown is what I'm saying.

So that's why when I ordered this computer I told myself to emphasize speed, speed and more speed. So I built it with 8 gigs of RAM and a quad core processor. That is the main reason why it went from being a $1300 laptop to a $2500 laptop. (no desktop, thank you - I bought a laptop so I could get out of the house and work away from home 3 or 4 days a week).

So did I make a mistake in ramping up a $1300 laptop to the tune of $2500?

Before you answer that, you need to know what I'll be using it for: I'm going to build websites with Wordpress and Dreamweaver. I might be using several programs at once. Programs like Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash. I might even have a web based video tutorial open when I'm using Photoshop or Dreamweaver. In a nutshell: I'll be using a lot of Adobe software.

I'll note that there's no need to point out that I could've gotten far more for my money by buying a desktop. That's a given. That goes without saying. I already have a high performance desktop for work and school. I bought the laptop because I need a portable computer that is easy to transport, a computer that I can place in the back seat of my car, or carry on my back when I ride a bicycle or chopper to work or school.

So now that you know all there is to know, don't hold back with your answer. If I made a mistake just say so. Or maybe I bought the perfect laptop, one that has the type of speed that a busy body like me can utilize? A laptop that'll handle anything a worker bee can throw at it 5 years down the road?

Either way, tell me what you think, because I want THE TRUTH, and unlike Tom I can handle the truth!


Hard drive: 7200rpm
Memory: 8 gigs of RAM
GPU: 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9000 (2.00Ghz)

 

Wowsa. . .

You do need a relatively fast computer for doing the kinds of things you're talking about without any slowdown whatsoever, but damn son. . . I have an old PC with 512 MB ram and a 3 ghz regular ass processor and i am able to have blender (a 3d modeling program) open as well as a media player pumping music and a few browser windows open without any real noticeable slowdown - this IS however, in ubuntu (linux) - windows is naturally slower because Bill Gates makes sure there are a bunch of programs running all the time that he thinks you need, but that you don't really - not to mention the almost unavoidable spyware which you won't get in linux.

Even so, that there is a gamer's PC - I just don't think you need that much horsepower for most other applications unless you're trying to build a render farm or run some intensive matlab scripts or something (maybe its just me but matlab seems ridiculously slow for what it does).

Also, keep in mind that laptops just don't tend to last very long. Especially particular brands.

If you got a Dell laptop, expect aggravating problems right out of the box that will get gradually worse until a year or two has passed, at which point the thing will probably be mostly unusable. If you got an HP laptop (or HP anything for that matter), you can expect the same, perhaps to an even worse degree.

IF you got either of these brands I'd suggest returning the laptop immediately if that is an option and doing some research to find a better one.

Also, I think the behavior you describe would be more accurately described as "manic" rather than "schizo."

I'd wait for some other people to post before you return it though. My knowlege of hardware and what software requires of it is a little dated (mostly because my computer is kind of old).

 

Also, you might consider getting a solid-state device instead of a standard hard drive. I hear the load times on those are basically zero.

 

You probably would've done better buying a some Mac Book, Mac tend to be better at media processing then most PCs builds. For what you are trying to do, you shouldn't have any slow down or processing power problems in general however I would worry about the quantity of battery life the older your laptop gets. You really can't do much about that with laptops but that is something to keep in mind when you drop $2500.