I'm graduating! I need a laptop! Help me choose the best!

[NMR]

Okay, I'm graduating. Hell yeah! And well, since I have collage starting within half a year, I need a solid laptop to get me through everything I need. I will be going into graphic design, web design, multimedia; so I need a laptop with a dedicated video card (preferably), plenty of ram, and a decent CPU. I will be using the CS4 suite from Adobe, so I wanna take advantage of all the features, hence the dedicated video card. I would like some opinions from the forum goers on what to get.

Now on to the laptops!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115555

This is a beast. Core 2 Duo, 4 gigs of DDR3(!) ram, a dedicated 90600GT card, and a spacious 500 gig HD. This one looks the best out of the bunch by far. The only thing I do not like about it is the price. It is the most expensive right now (It isn't at the moment because of the sale.). I hope it stays on sale, because this is the one to get.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220517

Not as good as the first one, but not a major step down. I've heard amazing things about most ATI cards, and this one does well apparently. It also features a slightly higher clock speed, but a smaller HD. Also it probably has DDR2 ram, but it does not say. It is $100 US cheaper though, so this may be what I want.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115546

Here is the last one. It is the cheapest (ATM) and this is the one I would probably get if I do not get much money. It has a solid dedicated card that rivals the 9600GT somewhat I think. Not sure about that though.

I want to get the first one, but I do not know if the extra high cost justifies maybe a few extra seconds of speed. I'm not two worried about hitting high benchmarks, but if anyone would like to know, they all can play Crysis. Will the lower end be good enough? Or should I save for the most expensive and roll with it.

I forget to mention that I will be doing moderate gaming, video editing, photoshop, web design, HD video, and some other computer intensive stuff. I kinda want this to be my desktop at school.

Any help would be much appreciated!

EDIT!: Whoah! I just put this in the wrong forum. My bad. If any mod online would be kind enough to move this baby to the right forum, that would be much appreciated.

[Nikose Tyris]

Can I maybe direct your attention towards this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220520

I've handled these after they had the bloatware stripped out. I was impressed, and That video card? It's definitely interesting. It's built for DirectX10, VP3 video processing, and hybridpower, which isn't too shabby.

It basically produces an SLI-video card scenario in your laptop, and bang for buck, that's going to be, most likely, the best video card solution in anything. (I didn't know laptops could DO SLI before handling this beast.)

Quick Breakdown for you to see the specs:

- Runs Left4Dead on max settings with 38 frames per second (30 seconds is the standard)
- runs Crysis on max settings with 24 frames per second (slightly choppy graphics in that scenario)

-Manufacturer NVIDIA
-Series GeForce GT 100M
-Codename NB10P
-Pipelines 32 - unified
-Memory Bus Width 128 Bit
-Memory Type GDDR2, GDDR3
- Shared Memory no
- DirectX DirectX 10, Shader 4.0
- Transistors 314 Million
- technology 55 nm
- Display: up to 2560x1600


be advised this video card is for VISTA ONLY, and you won't get shit out of it if you downgrade to XP.

If you are looking for a laptop that kicks the most ass with video cards? I gotta reccomend this.

be aware that current Asus and Acer books suffer "Shitty Case" syndrome, where it's flimsy and wobbly as fuck. I'd grab a hard shell case if you get either brands, whether this laptop or any of the ones you linked.

I hope I helped.

edit:

a comparison of leading video cards in notebooks using 3dmark 06 benchmarks! Just cause I'm fun like that:

NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
5136
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500M
5254
NVIDIA Quadro FX 770M
5297
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120M
5316
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX
5358
NVIDIA GeForce GT 130M
5581
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850
6101

For your price range, I would say this is most likely the best card you will find. Other considerations factor in too, obviously, and paying to have the Bloatware professionally removed is something I highly recommend. Acer and HP have really disgusting amounts of bloatware that fill your disk like no tomorrow.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Most important thing I can suggest is battery life and weight. These may seem trivial but hauling laptops around campus makes them annoying. Make sure its comfortable to haul around.
I don't know about web design and things so I don't know what you'll need for them but you should check whether your campus provides processing power for you. Like I have a computer I can dial into to run calculations for me. If that's the case you may be able to save on specs a bit.

[NMR]

Nikose. Trust me I have seen that laptop, and I wanted it. Now that it is on sale I'm going to try and get it. Thank you for pointing me back to it! Also, I plan on sticking with Vista, so no worry about an XP downgrade for me. I plan on upgrading to Windows 7 at a later date. ANd thanks for the tip on the crappy case. I will look into it.

Besides that computer comes with 32-bit. I plan on getting some good ol' 64-bit action going.

Smarty. This is my desktop replacement laptop. Sure it's going to go on some journeys with me, but most of the time it will be plugged in. I just want a computer that does not require me to go to the school building to use. In short, battery life and weight are not major factors for me.

Also, I won't be connecting to any extra computers, unless my roommates bring some.