Best laptop for incoming multimedia student

arctic7

I'm starting in DCU studying multimedia and was just wondering if anyone could give me some advice on the best kind of laptop to get? The course seems as if it will require a fairly good one, but I'm not really sure what to look for? Most people say Macbooks would be the best but I could never afford one of those.. Ideally I'd like something around the E400 mark. Any advice from current/past multimedia students would be appreciated!

Noodleworm

I'm going to be honest. a cheap laptop, you may find yourself replacing in a year. I bought a 700 euro laptop before the course (this was 2009, so, the same thing is cheaper now) and only had it a year and a half before I got a macbook, and after that I even went on to build a powerful desktop PC. The macbook and PC I am still very happy with 3 years later.

Having a laptop around that price will be fine for your assignments, photoshop work, coding, but just remember other bits like video editing and later if you try 3D are very tough on your computer.

You will end up spending a lot of time on the college macs for certain software. For example when I was doing video, we only used final Cut, which is mac exclusive.

sarahguitar92

I'm going into 2nd year Multimedia, and I got through the first year with the fairly ordinary laptop I had, though I've just upgraded to a MacBook Pro. It's not a requirement, but that was just my personal choice. Like Noodleworm said, you'll spend a lot of time in the college's Mac labs, and you'll get a lot done in there. As long as you can get a good reliable laptop in that price range you'll be fine. We did do some work in the PC labs last year too. Our web design classes were taught on PCs, and you'll be able to use software like Photoshop on a PC too.

arctic7

Ok so I guess I'm saving up for a Mac! Thanks both of you for your help, I think I have a better idea of what to look for. I'll hopefully be able to afford one by next year, but in the meantime I'll make do with a newer version of the laptop I currently have

LiterallyLuke

I know Sarah has already got your question pretty much answered, but for first year you don't really need a laptop. Last year I just did all the work I needed to do in the mac labs. However, if you feel you want to be able to do some stuff outside of college, here's an idea of the software you'll be using (in first year)

Flash
Illustrator
Photoshop
Dreamweaver (if you'd rather use that as your text editor, but personally I'm against it)
Final Cut Pro(mac only)
text editors (for HTML/CSS)
Microsoft Office (but any Office suite will do).

To run Adobe CS4 (the version that was in DCU last year, but might have been updated for this year) you need only have a basic processor and at least 2GB of RAM. Text editors like Notepad++ are lightweight.

For your budget you'll easily get that these days, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Other than that all I can say is that I hope you enjoy the course! Any further questions I'm sure either myself or Sarah would be happy to help

Noodleworm

Having some kind of laptop is still handy, since all assignments are typed, and you'll have online research.
There can be big demand for the maclabs, just like there is with the library computers.
Around the end of the year when assignments were due people were coming in at 9am and taking a mac for the day. So try to do all the work that doesn't need a powerful computer on your own laptop, or home computer.You don't really need a laptop for classes, but there is often breaks between classes, depending on the timetable, where you can be working on assignments.

arctic7

I'm definitely going to get a new laptop in the next week or two. Thanks you've all been really helpful and knowing that I don't necessarily need a mac is a massive weight off my shoulders! Just looking forward to starting the course now

sarahguitar92

No problem, as Luke said, if you've any more questions at any stage we'd be happy to help. It's a great course, I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Greenmachine

Why the fascination with mac. Particularly with people working in multi-media. :eek:

Noodleworm

its a mixture of the fact we use some mac exclusive software, and work mostly on macs in college. In personal experience they tend to have better performance.

Murph_D

Noodleworm wrote: »

Around the end of the year when assignments were due people were coming in at 9am and taking a mac for the day.

Luckily the Henry Grattan building opens much earlier than this so it's not hard to beat this if you have to