Macbook Pro 15" for Degree Course?

[Terror-Inferno]

I'm in the middle of searching for a new laptop/macbook for my media degree course at college.

For my course I use programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Flash, After Effects, Premiere Pro and a bit of Autodesk Maya.

The laptop I have now is a 14" Acer Aspire (Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM) and is very slow when running After Effects and Premiere Pro and the screen (1066x768) is a bit small when working with 720p video.

I was thinking of buying a Macbook Pro 15" (High res screen) as I want it to still be portable and the 17" maybe a bit too big to carry around.

I have no idea what version of the 15" would be best as I don't want to buy any upgrades I don't really need.

I was thinking of going for the "2.2GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7" with bigger hard drive and 1GB graphics card. Would this be a good option or would the lower spec be just as good?

Also would I need to upgrade the RAM to 8GB or is 4GB alright?

This will be my first mac that I've owned so I don't know what specs would be best compared to a windows pc,

Any help would be appreciated
Thanks,

 

[AppleFanatic10]

I think the 15" MBP would be good for you. It's not too big, not too small. Most people end up bumping the ram to 8GB so that it's faster and you may want a bigger HD (500gb). I have a 13" MacBook and I can say that it's a little too small (screen wise) when I'm trying to do Photoshop, etc.

 

[Terror-Inferno]

I think the 15" MBP would be good for you. It's not too big, not too small. Most people end up bumping the ram to 8GB so that it's faster and you may want a bigger HD (500gb). I have a 13" MacBook and I can say that it's a little too small (screen wise) when I'm trying to do Photoshop, etc.

Thanks, I like how portable the 13" is as one as my friends in college has one, but the screen is far too small for me, so the 15" would be somewhere in the middle with a good enough screen size and still portable enough to carry around.

Still not too sure about the RAM so I tempted to get 4GB for now and upgrade to 8GB if I need it later on,

Here is the specs for the MacBook Pro 15" I'm thinking of buying:
2.2GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Hi-Res Glossy Widescreen Display (1680x1050)
AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB GDDR5

Does this look alright or should I go for the low-end model instead?

The main reason I'm thinking of going for this version is for the better graphics card and faster processor which I think will be beneficial with my After Effects, Premiere Pro and Maya work.

 

[Terror-Inferno]

it looks awesome, definitely go with 4gb of ram and upgrade if you need to, its a lot cheaper then doing it straight through apple and there are plenty of videos on youtube to show you how to do it!

Yeah, I had a quick look at videos on YouTube before and the RAM seems simple enough to change so I think I will get just the standard 4GB for now.