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Participant
February 11, 2025
Question

Dell inspiron 16 laptop For Photoshop

  • February 11, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 217 views

Hi, 

I'm currently searching for a windows laptop to use with Photoshop 2024 since my Mac is now so old it can't handle the workload. 
Would any one have any thoughts as to whether the below would be good. I often use files that are 1-2Gb in size for my artwork. 
Any help would be much appreciated. 

Dell inspiron 16 laptop

  • Processor

    Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 155H (24 MB cache, 16 cores, 22 threads, up to 4.80 GHz Turbo)

  • Operating System

    Windows 11 Home, English, Dutch, French, German, Italian

  • Graphics Card

    NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4060, 8 GB GDDR6

  • Display

    16", Non-Touch, 16:10 2.5K 2560x1600, 120Hz, IPS, WVA, Anti-Glare, 300 nit, ComfortView Plus

  • Memory

    32GB DDR5, 2x16GB, 5600MT/s

  • Storage

    2 TB, M.2, PCIe NVMe, SSD

 

Thank you

Katie 

2 replies

creative explorer
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 11, 2025

@katieemmamoore if you are a student (or even a past alumni with access to your school email address), you can also see if you can get the education discount. It can range from a $300 to $500... towards to a new Mac. And if wait until June, that's when the Back to School specials will start. Last year, not one student, not two students but four students got a new MacBook. The deal was the discount + a $200 gift card. One student would buy it, and sold his gift card to another student for $150. And then they get the deal, again, and sold it for another $150 and and onwards. It worked quite nicely for them!

Some past deals have been free iPods or Beats headphones! 

m
Participant
February 11, 2025

Thank you, but unfortunately I'm not. 

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 11, 2025

The specs are fine and on the face of it this should work well, but laptops generally come with some complications.

 

Most laptops come with dual GPUs, which sounds like an excellent idea on paper, but which tends to cause conflicts for Photoshop. You may need to disable any integrated GPU. This is a problem you don't have with a desktop.

Covered here (for future reference): https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-gpu-graphics-card.html 

 

Another potential problem is that laptop vendors tend to modify operating system, hardware and drivers extensively. This is their chance to put their brand stamp on the product (all of which they get elsewhere). All this is mostly intended for gaming and the standard consumer-grade software. It can in some cases get in the way for Photoshop.

 

Go through all installed software and uninstall everything non-essential. For instance, uninstall any third-party antivirus immediately. All laptop vendors have special deals with Norton, McAfee and so on. You don't need it! Windows has excellent security built in nowadays, Microsoft pour enormous resources into this.

 

One specific issue with Dell that you should look into. Some of their models have a GPU/driver so modified that they can't use drivers from Nvidia. You have to use special Dell drivers. This is a red flag.

 

In general, pick a model that is as bare-bones and basic as possible - not in terms of spec, but in terms of configuration. If it's specifically marketed for gaming, avoid.

 

 

Participant
February 11, 2025

Thank you so much for your feedback.