Tool of the trade?

limeblu · Mar 20, 2014

Wondering if anybody tech minded could look at this for me and see if it is pretty much the best bang for around the $1000 buck? I have more to spend, just would rather find something capable and upgradable and use leftover for glass etc. suggestions on other machines is more then welcome, Main thing that grabbed me was matte, IPS screen and dedicated graphics. Here is the link,

ASUS N550JV-DB71 15.6" Notebook Computer (Gray) N550JV-DB71

Sidenote, this will work in tandem with a calibrated ips monitor in the office.

CdTSnap · Mar 20, 2014

Specwise its pretty good for $1000 US? im guessing... I have the same GPU in my HP Envy and its quite good. only thing i would watch out for is heat dispertion and make sure your monitor at the office has HDMI in as that laptop has no VGA or DVI plug. Those laptops tend to get a little bit hot on heavy graphical use but as long as your not having the blankets over it or something like that youll be fine.

But yes CPU is good, GPU is good, screen should be REALLY good.

TreeofLifeStairs · Mar 20, 2014

I've been in the market for a laptop too. The only thing I would change is the hard drive. 1 TB is a good amount of storage but I'd prefer to have a smaller solid state drive.

CdTSnap · Mar 20, 2014

TreeofLifeStairs said:
I've been in the market for a laptop too. The only thing I would change is the hard drive. 1 TB is a good amount of storage but I'd prefer to have a smaller solid state drive.

SUPER easy to replace though, so no biggy

limeblu · Mar 21, 2014

thanks guys, its been a brutal search for something just right, definitely will try it out and if not up to speed swap in ssd and good to go. Your input is greatly appreciated.

remylebeau · Mar 21, 2014

Be very cautious of the monitor. Check to see if there are color/contrast/brightness shifts are you change your angle of view.

I bought a really great Toshiba quad core i7, 1tb hd, lots of goodies. But I didn't think much on the monitor and it's really bad, I have it calibrated with a spyder3 but if I'm not careful of what angle I'm looking it shifts in color so much that I decided not to trust it. I shoot my stuff with a color checker passport and do emergency edits on there...but I don't do any color related work until I get home to a good monitor.

For $600 it was a steal of a laptop but I now know where the extra costs would have gone to.

TreeofLifeStairs · Mar 22, 2014

CdTSnap said:
SUPER easy to replace though, so no biggy

Is it really? I've built several desktops but I've never even owned a laptop. I guess I thought that most of the innards were proprietary. That's good to know.

vimwiz · Mar 22, 2014

TreeofLifeStairs said:
CdTSnap said:

SUPER easy to replace though, so no biggy

Click to expand...

Is it really? I've built several desktops but I've never even owned a laptop. I guess I thought that most of the innards were proprietary. That's good to know.

Hard drives are replaceable in nearly all laptop (not new macs though i think), and memory in most (not some new models)

pondball · Mar 31, 2014

Looking myself and will go Mac once again. I was leaning to tb drive as well but both MacBook Pro and Air have SD slots making storage a no brained. More important to me is making sure the internal had is a flash drive so there is no waiting at startup. I'll max ram out, bump up the processor and stock up on SD cards. Will leave HD at 512 flash and that should be enough for any photo editing or video work I'll end up doing
Oh yeah the retina display on the MacBook Pro is top notch. That may be the deciding factor between the pro and the air modrl

vimwiz · Apr 1, 2014

There is a retina version of the Air too. P.S the SD card slots on the new Macs cause cards to stick out quite a bit rather than being recessed flush + spring loaded, basically acting as a giant lever, and therefore are not really suitable for using semi-permananely.