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[iheartlinus]

So I have been working on a very cheap Compaq notebook for about a year - and I really need something with a bigger display. I'm thinking about going the desktop/ all in one route. Also needs to be PC as opposed to Mac. Just wondering what your requirements are for min. screen size, RAM, etc. Thx in advance!

[Fruityger]

I prefer a CRT monitor for photo-retouching and graphics, because the pixel density and color range seems more refined. (I haven't found a moderately cheap LCD monitor where "#000000" is not "#333333")

If you are planning on creating fluid layouts I'd take a monitor with a width of at least 1400.

The stats of the PC should depend on what you want to do with the pc: big vector drawing, video editing, 3d animation, flash. Or just the capability to run the adobe suite. Do you want to do other stuff on the pc too, like gaming etc. etc.

[Ryan Williams]

Of course, you do have to watch out for colour rot on a CRT. I don't know the technical term for it, but every CRT I've ever owned has had the colours degrade in a non-linear fashion where the darker end of the curve gets progressively darker, ultimately getting to the point where it's impossible to differentiate between black and darker tones without severely blowing out the higher end of the curve.

For a while you don't even notice this, and I noticed that when I viewed my designs on a properly configured monitor I'd been overcompensating on darker tones across the whole spectrum. Lots of designs where I'd thought I'd put in subtle grey and such turned out to be... well, not so subtle.

CRTs are also significantly blurrier than LCDs, which I don't find desirable for fine graphics work although it's fine for photos and videos.

One saving grace for LCDs is that when they age, they simply dim — very slowly. I personally prefer knowing that my colours and tones are at least displaying properly in relation to each other rather than having inky blacks. Not that I've tried the latest LCDs to see how they fare on the blacks front. My VIERA TV I got last year does excellent blacks, so it must be possible in thin displays nowadays.

With regards to hardware, most hardware bundles you get nowadays are more than adequate for web design. If you want to get a PC capable of handling all forms of multimedia work (video editing, etc), I'd go for something with a minimum of:

• Quad-core CPU clocked at 2.4GHz
• 4GB of DDR2 or DDR3 RAM
• Latest-series NVIDIA graphics card (~£50 is fine)

That shouldn't cost you very much nowadays, but runs the entire Adobe suite flawlessly.

Monitor-wise I'd go with a 24-inch 1920x1200 because it's just over the size of 1080p HD, which means if you do need to work on HD videos you can do so at their native size. Also it's generally a really nice size (any bigger would be too much IMO), that suits the way I work perfectly — I very rarely maximise windows, instead having them thrown all over my screen.

[Parallax]

1. Build a dual or quad core Pc. Just order the parts and put them together. There, you saved $1500! Spend the money on a nice graphics card and some extra RAM.
2. Dual LCD monitors. Dual monitors because it's actually helpful, LCD because I prefer to see things how most of my users see things.
3. Wacom tablet!! Bigger = better.
4. Laptop - for showing designs to a client, taking to meetings, etc ... consider a macbook pro here if you can afford it. Better screen for presenting designs, and it helps sell the designer image to clients.
5. Thumb drives and portable usb HD's ... invaluable tool for moving and backing up files, getting stuff from client, etc ... i also run my local dev servers off thumb drives (diff thumb for each site)
6. Hardware based monitor calibration (i use "eye one")
7. Digital camera - being able to capture your own photo assets is awesome

[iheartlinus]

Thanks everyone, its nice to have some solid requirements to keep in mind. Another reason that I am looking into buying a desktop is because my right arm/hand is having really horrible symptoms of RSI, and have the time I cant feel my right hand when I type. Will a desktop be better than a laptop to work on? Or, should I just use a Graphics tablet? Right now I am working on the Compaq Presario CQ50 (15 inch display, argh, you get what you pay for I guess..)

[mike_h]

I think dual monitors are very important for productivity.
Code on one, browser on the other. or code on one, documentation on the other when your learning something. It's a lot better than continually tabbing between windows.

I know nView for nVidia cards has some good tools for managing multiple monitors. I have setup keyboard shortcuts to (un)maximize windows, and move them between monitors. ATi may have something similar, not sure.

For Photoshop I use the left edge of the second monitor to store toolbars and parts of the interface, which leaves most of the first monitor free to display the image. If you're doing this you'll want to map the tablet to only be able to access as far across as the edge of your toolbars (not all of both displays). This keeps the mapping between tablet and display roughly in proportion. If your tablet has access to the full width of two displays the proportions get skewed and its hard to use.

Whether you need a tablet or not depends on your work. For any drawing/brushing actions I think they are indispensable. For applying filters or using a vector pen tool they are of no benefit.

For the general specs, well at least Dual Core, but 3 or 4 cores would be reasonable if you're doing heavy multimedia work, run Virtual OS (handy to test several IE versions).
4GB of RAM is cheap enough to be considered a practical minimum. DDR2 is especially cheap.
More will probably only help if you edit BIG files, do video work, or want to run several OS and lots of apps together.
You will need a 64bit OS to use more than about 3GB of RAM though.

And remember to have a backup procedure for your data, such as a second physical HDD.