My son is going to college for graphic design and has a scholarship that allows for the purchase of a laptop. I know gaming specs but Im a bit lax on what is needed for a lap top with designing in mind. and what price range....So I cam to the experts
Probably be best to find out what the program there is teaching on, I'm betting Apple and they probably have recommendations . It would be easier for him to learn on what ever they are using there and a lot of your design jobs are going to be Mac based. if you really want to stick with PC Dell has a couple nice Win10 touch screen XPS machines that would be great... looking at around $9-1200 (example XPS 9350) http://www.amazon.com/Dell-XPS9350-5340SLV-Touchscreen-Generation-Microsoft/dp/B015PYYO0C Asus makes a laptop that was suppossedly made with graphic design in mind Zenbook UX303UB http://www.amazon.com/ZenBook-UX303UB-13-3-Inch-Touchscreen-Discrete/dp/B014VHVZFQ long as it has some horsepower it should be fine... just don't skimp on the screen, get a good high pixel count touch screen. then maybe worth it to get a good monitor for him to hook it too back in the room. I don't know a ton about Macs but i would assume any of the mid range or up MacBook Airs would be just fine, but those can get up to $1500 real quick. if you got money to burn i would say get a Macbook Pro and that would last him for a while hopefully including out of school.
Thanks man I know he needs the adobe suite, as far as OS not sure oh btw where have you and Brad ben?
He might also need to get a tablet for drawing. Some people do well with mouse but a lot of people use drawing tablets. I plan on getting an intuos intro line once I have a job and spare money after bills. I want to learn drawing so that I can make my own comic covers. And digital is handier than pen as you don't need to use an eraser while drawing, just click a button. I am going to be looking at this: http://www.amazon.com/Wacom-digital...TF8&qid=1462320160&sr=1-5&keywords=intuos art Each one comes with some free software, not the ones on his course maybe but useful for drawing. That one comes with corel painter essentials 5 and a lot of people use it, some even make comics in it. But it is more for artistic drawing. Some people will say to get a medium or large intuos but it is best to get one that matches your screen size and resolution. And a small one for a laptop should be perfectly fine. It's about $100 bucks and can become an essential tool for his work. Phaedo has an older line Wacom tablet that this one is essentially a reskin of. And he is happy with his.
Depending on how artistic he is, a Surface could also be really excellent. The ability to freehand draw is incredible when it comes down to the deciding factor on PCs for art students. I actually just "graduated" yesterday (I finished in December, was mailed my diploma in March, but I walked yesterday) got my BA in Game Design Animation & Programming So naturally I'll be on the streets starving soon But I have a wacom tablet for my PC and I couldn't imagine not having it. The Microsoft Surface is a touch screen PC with really good specs for designers, and a lot of my friends recommend it to people for its mobility and the ability to work anywhere and not need a mouse and tablet with you at all times. Personally. I would avoid apple. Unless his school uses Apple computers. It doesn't really matter ultimately if it's Apple or PC, but he will take about twice as many classes compared to what his major will require, for all the gen ed stuff. That's where having an Apple computer could be frustrating. I'v seen all sorts of issues handing in projects for English and Science courses simply because of this.
For longer than a week? We can always stick to the simple ones and do cards against humanity again :P
I also have a wacom, works really well, and I've tried out a Surface and it was pretty nice, not sure if I would prefer it over a laptop though.