We need a reasonably priced laptop with good graphics power and RAM to do animation, 3D, etc. Anyone have a suggestion?

My daughter use Asus - 15.6" Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 8GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive - Aluminum/Black

Windows 10 with Photoshop CC2015 with Cyberlink Power Director for videos. Never had a single issue! She does a lot of design on it! Tons of drawings and videos. 

Best value for money I have seen in the $1,000 range with i7 CPU, 12GB Ram, 512GB SSD, lightweight, great battery life, and a very high quality IPS screen:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232777

I'd get a MacBook pro Instead. Windows machines are not very compatible with the design industry.

We need a reasonably priced laptop with good graphics power and RAM to do animation, 3D, etc. Anyone have a suggestion?

If you don't mind the non-portability of it, I also recommend a 5K iMac. More affordable than a MacBook Pro and more powerful.

Quote from: Minsc on June 18, 2016, 17:36

I'd get a MacBook pro Instead. Windows machines are not very compatible with the design industry.

agree but you will needs extra $$$$ compared to a windows machine...

It's true. It's probably twice as expensive, but I see it as an investment. A Mac in general is just a better investment.

I bought my MacBook Pro in 2012 and the ROI on it has been incredible. I've had freelance jobs that I wouldn't be able to do on a PC. In the era of app design and app development, you pretty much need a Mac these days.

If you don't have one, you're missing out on a lot of stuff out there, especially if you're a designer.

We had been a PC house for 14 years and here in Africa, never had the money to spend on Apple. Then last year I had to replace an ageing HP laptop and was confronted with the same question . . . what is a reasonable price for a design laptop that will also edit video?

In the end I came to the conclusion that I really had no idea what PC specs would be required at all. And by that what I mean is that with PCs there appears rather large gap between "specs" and actual  capability.

What I did know was that an Apple computer (even and older one) would work, while I'd just be guessing with a PC priced in the $800 to $1500 range.

So I purchased an older 2012 Macbook Pro 13inch with adaptor for a larger external monitor. That setup although "old", was boxed as new from a local supplier and cost less than the PC laptop alternatives I was looking at.

Within a month I was so impressed with this little laptop that I looked for ways to convert our whole office to Apple.

And we did . . . for less than the cost of buying new PC components and upgrading the PC machines ourselves! We simply bought second hand MacMinis on eBay and shipped them here.

We maxed out the RAM on all machines and can report no problems with any of the Apple products to date. They just run perfectly and take on any task you want them to do.

Something drastic would have to happen for us to go back to a Microsoft solution. Linux, maybe, but Microsoft . . . I don't think anyone in our office would like to go back there.

If you do want to go down the Apple off eBay route, just be careful what machine you want to buy. You can't really upgrade the RAM or HDDs of a lot of the newer ones so upgrading is limited. The older ones are great though and can be fully upgraded with SSDs and maxed out RAM.

Investiment includes ratio quality/price as well.

And time too.

Like the amount of time it takes to fix the blasted things every time you get browser hijacked / lose a driver / turn on to an inexplicable screen of death. Spamware, bloatware and all that crud. Man, that stuff is stubborn to get rid of.

Hours and hours behind a computer but not actually doing any work. All lost revenue and pissed off clients because you are giving your PC CPR instead of getting their paying work out.

That t-shirt arrived white. Was a dull grey with the stains of nicotine, caffeine, blood and tears by the time the last PC was made safe. "Exorcised" with Ubuntu actually, after a browser hijacker automatically routed my 10-year-old from YouTube to a porn site.

With Mac so far it's been one year with three systems. No maintenance. No glitches. No viruses. No failures of any kind that I can think of.

Quote from: Minsc on June 18, 2016, 17:36

I'd get a MacBook pro Instead. Windows machines are not very compatible with the design industry.

agree but you will needs extra $$$$ compared to a windows machine...

True, but I only commented because of the four $$$$ signs in the quote above. Apparently when you were discussing Apple as an option, Mr Nobody.

Quote from: Mr Nobody on June 20, 2016, 13:53

originally the requirement was 'Windows' based laptop   

I think that was understood, but if one is in the market for new equipment, it doesn't hurt to look at all options. One of the biggest comments I hear about Apple products is that they are so expensive. Typically PCs need to be replaced every 2-3 years, whereas Macs last twice that long, making the cost virtually the same in the long run. In fact, I have never had a failed Apple product. They get outdated and the hardware can't keep up with the software improvements, so I typically end up selling the old stuff on eBay and at least recouping some $$.

Plus, factor in all these headaches, as previously mentioned: "Like the amount of time it takes to fix the blasted things every time you get browser hijacked / lose a driver / turn on to an inexplicable screen of death. Spamware, bloatware and all that crud. Man, that stuff is stubborn to get rid of."

It is understandable if a person is comfortable with Windows and doesn't want to switch...all of my software is for Mac, so if I wanted to change to Windows, I would incur at lot more in cost than just the price of the computer, and vice versa, so I get that.

give you a plus on this one! Windows machines get hit a lot with hackers/viruses. Plus don't forget about when they do an update- how many times your machine doesn't work or some hardware fails due to the updates. I hope apple is better about this than Microsoft...

Quote from: loop on June 20, 2016, 11:37

Investiment includes ratio quality/price as well.

And time too.

Like the amount of time it takes to fix the blasted things every time you get browser hijacked / lose a driver / turn on to an inexplicable screen of death. Spamware, bloatware and all that crud. Man, that stuff is stubborn to get rid of.

Hours and hours behind a computer but not actually doing any work. All lost revenue and pissed off clients because you are giving your PC CPR instead of getting their paying work out.

That t-shirt arrived white. Was a dull grey with the stains of nicotine, caffeine, blood and tears by the time the last PC was made safe. "Exorcised" with Ubuntu actually, after a browser hijacker automatically routed my 10-year-old from YouTube to a porn site.

With Mac so far it's been one year with three systems. No maintenance. No glitches. No viruses. No failures of any kind that I can think of.

Not sure what you mean, but sorry, my PC laptop have been working flawslessly and smothly, no problems, no lost time, great experience.

Thanks again for the variety of suggestions.   We ended up going with a Dell Precision 5510.  Not the cheapest, but a lot of power and room for growth.

To the Mac fans, all my existing software is Windows, so no plans to fork over for all new software along with the computer.  And FWIW my last Dell lasted 6 years.

When purchasing a laptop, the fastest laptops (intel) will have MQ or HQ or a similar designation. Do not buy laptops with processors that end in U (they are low power consumption and slow) even if it is an i7.

use passmark.com cpu benchmarks to find the fastest laptop processor.

for graphics cards, use wikipedia to see how many iterations it does per second.