Laptop advice

[dav56]

I am looking at buying a laptop and was wondering if you have any recommendations for make and model. I will be taking it with me on my holidays so I don't want anything bigger than a 15", it will also need to be quite sturdy. I am planning on using it for some downloading off my camcorder so I would need at least 3gb ram and at least 200GB hard drive storage for my photos.
I am trying to narrow it down and would like advise from people who's requirements are similar to mine i.e. more inerested in photoshop than Grand theft auto.

thanks
Dave

[Badllarma]

Hi Dave are you down loading video off your camcorder or stills?

[dav56]

It will be video off my camcorder. My still photos will be off my Canon SLS cameras.

Thanks
Dave

[RobSutton]

I'm a big fan of Apple computers and wonder if any of their iBook range would meet your needs. The big advantage I would see is the Apple iMovie and iPhoto software that would let you deal with and sort out video clips and photos on the move. Not sure of their current specs but think 3GB Ram might be pushing it for them. They are certainly tough and portable machines though there is often a price premium to pay over PC laptops.

[Badllarma]

For PC I'd go for this
XPS M1530 Laptop

XPS M1530
Designed to get the most out of high-definition entertainment powered by very latest Core 2 Duo technology & featuring 4GB memory to crunch through those high-density, high definition movies & games.

BUT and it's a big BUT you really need harddrives doing (7200 RPM) for video work. Then I'd add Lightroom 2.0, Photoshop Eliments or CS 3 if your flushed And Newtek's Speededit. (just check you can use your video codecs with it may need a download.)

I would not touch Premiere in any of it's forms as it's just tooooooo slow. For editing you have to realise you running at a compromise with regards to video. A laptop will go no where near what a work station will do for video editing work.

Any old piece of rubbish will run Lightroom and Photoshop. I've it running on my HP 2133 for emergencies in the field(but it looks like I'm running Windows 98 I've dumbed vista business down that much)!! As it's part of my mast kit.

I know Vista is a dirty work in some parts but if I was running video editing software on a laptop I'd dumb down vista as much as possible (so it ends up looking like Windows 98) to be honest, then all it's memory hogging bells and whistles will not eat up your RAM

Don't know much about MAC's to be honest but if you want to throw your money away and thats your chosen route A big powerful laptop running FCP, Aperture and a flavour of Photoshop.