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vostro 3460 for photographer/student

Discussion in 'Dell Latitude, Vostro, and Precision' started by ColinP678, Jan 11, 2013.

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  1. ColinP678

    ColinP678 Newbie

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    Need a new laptop for school and im a photojournalism student so I need a laptop that has enough power to run photoshop efficiently as well as play a few games on the weekend.

    I came across the Vostro 3460.
    -i7 3632qm
    -gt630m
    -6gb ram

    Do you think this laptop would fit my needs. It will be used for medium photoshop use. My most intensive work takes place on a Mac Pro I use at school. So I just need something nice for school (word, email ect.), light gaming ( Bf3, Diablo 3, Project reality, and Skyrim) and the Adobe collection as well as Photomechanic.

    What are your thoughts? Will this setup meet my needs?
     
    ColinP678, Jan 11, 2013
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  2. goofball

    goofball Notebook Deity

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    That would be fine, just note that the screen isn't high quality so get a calibrator for it. It's a 6bit TN panel screen. Brightness is pretty good but you will want to colour calibrate it. I'd also up the RAM to at least 8 (16 is better) as I've found Photoshop to use more than 6GB RAM by itself when I work with NEF files.

    An SSD would be a great idea as well and if you are worried about storage, you could get a caddy to put an HDD in, you would have to remove the optical drive to have this but I've had this laptop for over a month now and have never used the optical drive once.

    I have this same laptop and Newegg had a sale on 16GB G-Skill RAM ($45 CAN + $5 shipping) which is great for photoshop.
     
    goofball, Jan 12, 2013
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  3. ColinP678

    ColinP678 Newbie

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    Yes, good point, I planned on dropping some money in the upgrading as well.

    I saw it had the mSATA port, but also heard of some issues of it working properly. But if I do indeed make the investment... I would first start there.Then I would also invest in some RAM as well. All of my final edits are done on an external NEC 23in IPS screen, so I'm good there... I don't really care about screen quality if I am editing at my desk.

    I guess I need to decide if the GT630m will be enough graphic power for me. With the quadcore, I could be just fine since I'm not trying to run any of the games at Ultra settings...I know thats not too realistic on a laptop anyways.
     
    ColinP678, Jan 12, 2013
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  4. goofball

    goofball Notebook Deity

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    I didn't try to use the msata port, there's another thread in here about how it doesn't work for a bootable drive.

    Can't help much with the GT630m as I don't game.

    Easy to swap out the existing HDD for a 2.5" SSD.
     
    goofball, Jan 12, 2013
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