Best Under $600 Laptop For Art and Watching Shows?

kazthedark · Sep 15, 2014

My old laptop broke, so now I'm looking for a laptop that costs less than $600 (this is a must), runs Photoshop well, and will allow me to watch television shows and movies with minimal buffering. I'd prefer a laptop with a disc drive, but it isn't entirely necessary.

ETA: I will only be using this laptop for about a year, as I must replace my old one quickly with one that is within my budget.

Legere · Sep 15, 2014

don't have a model for you, but look at laptops with 4GB+ ram and an SSD hard drive. Also try to lean towards Intel I5 haswell CPU's (intel hd 4600) as they provide a pretty nice boost to photoshop rendering.
600$ for a new laptop is low though.. especially asking to run photoshop... tis like asking for a cheap car that's going to race.

spentshells · Sep 15, 2014

For 600 this is the best I could find on newegg without being refurbished

http

/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA29P1ZC4557

high resolution (3200 x 1800) 8GB of ram and a lot of features like touch screen and bluetooth, i'd love to try photoshop on that high rez screen and using touchscreen for the tools, it would help to have a stylus.

It also has a bag and a bunch of accessories.

16GB JetFlash 360 USB 2.0 Flash Drive

HP Essential Black 15.6" Carrying Case

Gift Card $10

Targus PAWM10U 3-button Wireless Optical Notebook Mouse With Power Management

Mind you the cpu isn't that great but at least it has hyperthreading and a serious turbo boost up to 2.6Ghz

jaguarskx · Sep 15, 2014

Word of warning:

1 - Very high resolution screens tend to have a premium price. A 3200x1800 resolution screen on a $600 laptop is an immediate warning that it could be a low quality screen. Need to find reviews to verify if the screen is of good / low / passable quality.

2 - To the best of my knowledge Photoshop does not scale up icons in Windows 8.1. The menu icons are going to be extremely small on a 3200x1800 resolution screen. Below is a link to a screenshot of what Photoshop will look like on a 3200x1800 resolution screen.

https

/forums.adobe.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/2-5828409-499967/dell-xps-15-3200x1800-photoshop-cc.jpg

jaguarskx · Sep 15, 2014

You are not going to find a laptop with an Intel HD 4600 graphics core for under $600 to the best of my knowledge unless you are fine with just a Core i3-4000m CPU which I have seen from time to time. The difference between a Core i5 model is Turbo Boost which is a feature that overclocks the CPU for better performance.

Most laptops using Intel CPUs selling for less than $600 will be using an ultra low voltage CPU ("u" models) like the i5-4200m / i5-4210m. These laptops have the Intel HD 4400 graphics core, but they tend to have pretty good battery life due to low power consumption.

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Best Under $600 Laptop For Art and Watching Shows?

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