CS5.5 on a small laptop

Charles W. Hull · July 23rd, 2011, 06:50 PM

Why? I wanted a very small easy to carry laptop to backup my clips when I travel, good battery life and enough computing power to play PP CS5.5 (not with a big stack of layers and effects, but enough to string a story together before I get home to a larger machine).

What? I ended up with a Dell Alienware M11x gaming computer (and I took off the gaming stuff). It has a low voltage 1.5GHz i7, 6GB ram, a 2GB NVIDIA GT540M, and a 750GB disk. Battery life is about 7 hours. This is obviously not up to spec for a high performance editing machine, but I was anxious to see what it would do.

Alienware M11x Gaming Laptop Details | Dell

My cameras are a Canon 5DII and a Canon XF100. The Canon utilities for both cameras run beautifully, and I can download and review 1080p clips smoothly. The 5DII clips play on Media Player or ZoomBrowser and the XF100 clips play on the Canon utility.

I loaded CS5.5 Production Premium, and added the GT540M to the GPU list. Premiere Pro plays amazingly well. I can stack two 1080p clips with effects and still scrub and play smoothly. It typically stalls with three clips - so it's not a Mercury engine powerhouse - but I don't stack clips in the field anyway.

When I travel I've taken a HDMI cable to use the hotel TV as a big monitor to get a larger look at what I've shot. While I like very small laptops, for many the M11x may be too small. But Alienware also makes systems up to 18 inch that could be worth looking at.

Greg Clark · October 10th, 2011, 05:31 PM

Charles I am interested in this tiny notebook. How is holding up editing CS5.5?

Charles W. Hull · October 10th, 2011, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg Clark

Charles I am interested in this tiny notebook. How is holding up editing CS5.5?

Greg, it's doing fine. I've had it on several trips, and just got back from a three week trip. It does exactly what I had in mind - I back up clips, and string together and view storiy lines with PPro. I also use a WD Passport 1TB USB 3.0 drive to double-back-up the clips.

July 23rd, 2011, 06:50 PM	#1
Charles W. Hull Major Player Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Canyon Country, CA Posts: 445	CS5.5 on a small laptop - Dell Alienware M11x Why? I wanted a very small easy to carry laptop to backup my clips when I travel, good battery life and enough computing power to play PP CS5.5 (not with a big stack of layers and effects, but enough to string a story together before I get home to a larger machine). What? I ended up with a Dell Alienware M11x gaming computer (and I took off the gaming stuff). It has a low voltage 1.5GHz i7, 6GB ram, a 2GB NVIDIA GT540M, and a 750GB disk. Battery life is about 7 hours. This is obviously not up to spec for a high performance editing machine, but I was anxious to see what it would do. Alienware M11x Gaming Laptop Details \| Dell My cameras are a Canon 5DII and a Canon XF100. The Canon utilities for both cameras run beautifully, and I can download and review 1080p clips smoothly. The 5DII clips play on Media Player or ZoomBrowser and the XF100 clips play on the Canon utility. I loaded CS5.5 Production Premium, and added the GT540M to the GPU list. Premiere Pro plays amazingly well. I can stack two 1080p clips with effects and still scrub and play smoothly. It typically stalls with three clips - so it's not a Mercury engine powerhouse - but I don't stack clips in the field anyway. When I travel I've taken a HDMI cable to use the hotel TV as a big monitor to get a larger look at what I've shot. While I like very small laptops, for many the M11x may be too small. But Alienware also makes systems up to 18 inch that could be worth looking at.

October 10th, 2011, 05:31 PM	#2
Greg Clark Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Surprise Arizona Posts: 297	Re: CS5.5 on a small laptop - Dell Alienware M11x Charles I am interested in this tiny notebook. How is holding up editing CS5.5?