GH2 Laptop recommendations for building a small "student lab"

[peripatew]

I'm putting together a proposal to start working with a small group of students (in a public setting, with lots of accountability) to start teaching them various parts of the film world. I'm no expert, but want to give it a shot.

I'm an Apple fanboy, but won't have the budget for an Apple sponsored lab, so I'm looking at lower-midrange laptops that would "get the job done" for most small projects. I'll be working with the Adobe Creative Suite mostly, focusing on Premiere and AE.

If you had $750 to spend, what would you get right now? USB3 and Nvidia preferred. That's a short leash I know, but I'll have a few computers available if more power is needed for particular projects.

My brain is fried, so if more information is needed, let me know!

We'll be using GH1s, GH2, and cheaper, auto-everything cameras.

 

[hana]

I'm putting together a proposal to start working with a small group of students (in a public setting, with lots of accountability) to start teaching them various parts of the film world. I'm no expert, but want to give it a shot.

I'm an Apple fanboy, but won't have the budget for an Apple sponsored lab, so I'm looking at lower-midrange laptops that would "get the job done" for most small projects. I'll be working with the Adobe Creative Suite mostly, focusing on Premiere and AE.

If you had $750 to spend, what would you get right now? USB3 and Nvidia preferred. That's a short leash I know, but I'll have a few computers available if more power is needed for particular projects.

My brain is fried, so if more information is needed, let me know!

We'll be using GH1s, GH2, and cheaper, auto-everything cameras.

thhrough experience, be careful, editing HD on one of those thin mac laptops can heat up really fast.

 

[Egg Born Son]

Look on ebay for Toshiba 8540W and other 8xxxW models. Many come with a Quadro gpu. If you are patient you should be able to find one in your price range. When I was looking for a laptop recently with similar specs you are looking for (before changing my mind and getting a latest generation desktop for not much more). My budget was $1000 but I remember that there weren't many of these Toshibas but they were going in the price range of $600-1000. The one I missed out on because I went out drinking and forgot to bid, I distinctly remember going for just over $700 and had a Quadro card, first generation i7 and a spare battery.

Remember in a laptop the chip is going to be the most important thing. No laptop in your price range is going to have a gpu that is going to make a huge difference to render times, it will only help keep things moving while editing. Get a workstation laptop because it is going to generate a lot of heat and many laptop designs just can't cope with that kind of usage. I don't know if an earlier version of CS like CS4 will run better or not but it seems like logic. And CS4 doesn't have mercury so you won't be missing out by not having all the cuda cores.

The Lenovo W5xx series were pretty good too but I can't remember the pricing because I was focussed on the Toshiba. I think there was a Dell I was looking at but I doubt the good Dell is in your price range. The Dell 15z is sometimes touted for video editing but I didn't like it for CS, it has a great screen (15" 1920x1080) but in your price range you're looking at an i5 model (4 threads only). On the other hand if you like mac then this model was designed to tap that market. It is the most macbook pc laptop you'll find. If you can stretch to $1000 you might be able to get a two year old 14" alienware but i think the screen is just going to be too small if its for teaching. I couldn't find any Sony brand with the right specs in that price range, the Qosmio 7xx is the one there but you'd definitely need more than a grand for even an older one.

Some reasonably powerful gamer brands like MSI and Clevo can be found in your pricerange but it is the equivalent of buying a used sportscar. It could be gold, it could be thrashed or it might be for sale because it was a lemon from day one. It's risky but you'll get a decent gpu, cooling and processing power for the price. That's all I can remember right now, hope it serves as a starting point. You're ultimately going to have to do some research or take a chance.

If you're willing to switch to Vegas over then there are a lot of brand new laptops in your range that could handle it. Someone recommended to me that the Asus K53e worked well for them and the Dell 15z I mentioned would kill it.

Here are a couple of webpages that might help you:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

These benchmarks are as much a pissing contest as technical info but it serves for making ballpark comparisons.