Michael Cordiez
Posts: 369
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Take a look at the Lenovo w530 series. I bought a w510 almost 3 years ago and prices have come way down. Fairly heavy and ugly but it works great. I can even play newer videogames on it - though I use it mainly for work and for Lightrooming while on the road.
Has a built in colour calibrator. I've since added after-market RAM (16GB < $100) and an SSD ($150). I moved the original 500GB HDD to the bay so I have speed for the O/S, apps, LR catalog & previews and mass storage for the photos. You can customize a pretty loaded laptop for under $2000.
AJScalzitti wrote: However the OP did say they travel and 15" or 17" laptops suck if you really are a frequent flyer. Nobody I know would suggest one, even if they are better for editing. It really depends on how much you really travel.
I am on a plane almost every Friday. My 15" has never been a burden to me. What is more of a burden is the two 100lb pelican cases, not to mention the 2 carry on I also have.
My editor, whom also flys with me every Friday, uses a 17" and he doesn't complain.
Hey guys, sorry for bringing this topic up but I really need some good advice.
I'm desperate for advice about new laptop for retouching pics, but with good specs too. I have no option to look at them in my city, so without testing.
Budget is around 1500$, sometimes it is nice to play games, good video-card and processors are welcome, 14-15" display with ips.
I don't like mac, please don't suggest
I have a MacBook Pro Anti Glare 15 inch. Got it 2 years ago. Have only had two issues with it. One was my own stupidity. I deleted the disk when verifying disk permissions. Took it to Apple and they told me to insert the disk that came with the computer. I did it and it was fixed in a minute. Second issue was the power cord started to peel and it stopped charging the computer. I took it to Apple because it is still under warranty. I got the extended warranty. They gave me a brand new power cord for free.
Now, I also have had several PCs. Unfortunately, the list of issues is too long for me to even try to write them.
Bottom line: Macs last longer, better warranty, easier to use, anti glare screen is beautiful, operating system is better (Windows 7 Sucks) you worry less about viruses and trojans.
I know a lot of people hate Apple but they only hate it because of the price. Spend the same amount of money on an PC and you get more specs but the PC will crash and break easier than the Apple. Plus Apple gives you the first year of service for free. PC you have to purchase the warranty.
Moon Pix Photography wrote: I will be traveling this winter and hope to book some gigs while I do. I am looking for people's opinion's on best laptop for photo editing.
I mostly use Lightroom and do not do much with photoshop.
I am looking for something that has:
LOTS of RAM (or ability to upgrade) since from my understanding is one of the most important factors to high performance and speed in LR.
Great CPU - i7?
FAST! Maybe SSD?
and last but not least - A great and accurate monitor with a larger screen (at least 15" but prefer 17") which can be calibrated accurately. I have a great monitor, so I could potentially get a laptop with small monitor and connect it to my nice big 24" but prefer to find something that would not need me to do so.
Looking for something $2,000 or less.
Thanks!
I use only LR3 for converting then editing-down (selecting which stay & which are deleted) images from shows & events I shoot. I'm a lazy prick often, and instead of sleeping at my office I go straight home and use my laptop so I can have stuff out in under 12 hours if-needed (often the case). My laptop is a used IBM Thinkpad I bought a couple months ago for a few hundred bucks, a Pentium 4 1.5 Ghz or wtvr. Only 1.5 GB of memory. I installed a copy of my LR3 on it, but only have Photoshop Ver 7.0 on it (if I need it in cases of small urgencies!). I shoot D3 & D700, 14-bit RAW - 12-bit, usually tbh. Here are some pix from my last show, D700 using the software/equipment/methods as-described. 6 hours 23 minutes from the time I left the club, which was a 45-minute travel away.
Disclaimer:I am not an expert, nor do I claim to be. Anyone who questions the weight of my opinion(s) is free to validate my words based upon their review of my work – which may/may not be supportive.
P.S. Yes, including watermarking individually in PS 7
Maxximages
Posts: 1,704
Los Angeles, California, US
Don-Jones wrote: I use ASUS. They've been making quality motherboards and components for computers since the beginning. And actually make most of the stuff for their notebooks and I know their parts are good.
You get a sony, samsung, etc... will be using cheap off-brand boards.
I have that laptop, I hardly use it as the mouse seems to works off of static charges. I hover my fingers over the mouse pad it activates whatever the pointer happens to be on, very irritating.
Dan OMell
Posts: 856
Charlotte, North Carolina, US
I'm interested in the same thing, plus sometimes I use 3D software, and rendering process is very often totally a performance hog. terribly slow. and I don't care about battery life much. more about electricity consumption.
I prefer to continue using my Win7 license and don't install, or get pre-installed, Win8 OEM. So, it could be Linux-based (free OS), and I can reinstall my Win7.
A lot of RAM and a good graphic card are the must.
Jeff Waters Photography wrote: Sorry, sometimes I feel like Mac people are like militant vegans, they just can't accept that other people might not like it
End of rant.
That's being a big disingenuous. Only the militant Mac users are like militant vegans (or militant anything).
For the OP, it's really an analysis of baseline hardware cost + cost of upgradeables + lifespan. Then weigh that against any intangibles like common, documented issues or user know-how or workflow/time-management. While the last seems like it would go without saying, if you need to get the ball rolling immediately and aren't tech-savvy enough to do some upgrades then you can't build your own beast. If a total package doesn't offer the support you need and has an uncommonly high rate of tech issues then you can spend the extra in lost income when you are late in jobs or have to send hardware back.
A lot of factors to consider. Sometimes the most expensive option is the cheapest long term (and many manufacturers other than Apple price their hardware to take advantage of this; sometimes pricing is based on a name but other times its based on has much you save in incidentals).
The pocket battleship of ultrabooks. Awesome screen. Best screen available apart from a rMBP. All for about $1200. Very upgradeable. Can bump the memory to 10G and drop in any 7mm SSD.
Sadly, it looks like the windows 7 version was discontinued and the win 8 version isnt available yet. It was an extremely had machine to get at launch. I love mine.
RKD Photographic
Posts: 2,989
Iserlohn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
I just went into PC World three years ago and bought a cheap Dell Inspiron with a Corei3 processor for £350 and then doubled the RAM to 8Gb - the max. it would take (the 8Gb version cost £150 more in-store; by purchasing the memory modules separately from Kingston, it only cost me an additional £30).
The newer version probably costs the same amount and will have a faster processor, more memory, faster graphics and a bigger hard-drive...
Mine runs Win7 and happily runs CS6 and LR4 at the same time.
Yes, I'm sure Macs runs really nicely and look lovely, but I'm cheap.
My PC laptop does me fine and for a quarter of the price has run seamlessly for three years with no issues.
I picked up a refurbed 17" MBP for around 2k, honestly, laptops are not ideal due to low gamma screens and not being able to see all of the color. If you do get one, suggest getting a secondary monitor unless you are doing location only editing.
This is also a very popular notebook for image editing and gaming. Not the best looking imo but effective...and considerably less expensive than the MacBook Pro.
What ever happened to the thinkpad that was designed for graphics work? It had a built-in graphics tablet and a 2nd monitor for editing. I was hoping they would keep on evolving that concept.
I purchased my latest laptop from them and have been VERY pleased. You can customize to whatever specs you want and need to fit your budget.
I ended up with a PowerPro R model, 17.3 screen, NVIDIA dedicated graphics, Core i7 processeor, 16GB of RAM, SSD for main drive (boot, programs) and a 1TB additional drive for storage purposes.
In addition to the great hardware they also have fantastic customer service. The order and purchase process was one of the most pleasant buying transactions I've had in a long while.
me voy wrote: I have a MacBook Pro Anti Glare 15 inch. Got it 2 years ago. Have only had two issues with it. One was my own stupidity. I deleted the disk when verifying disk permissions. Took it to Apple and they told me to insert the disk that came with the computer. I did it and it was fixed in a minute. Second issue was the power cord started to peel and it stopped charging the computer. I took it to Apple because it is still under warranty. I got the extended warranty. They gave me a brand new power cord for free.
Now, I also have had several PCs. Unfortunately, the list of issues is too long for me to even try to write them.
Bottom line: Macs last longer, better warranty, easier to use, anti glare screen is beautiful, operating system is better (Windows 7 Sucks) you worry less about viruses and trojans.
I know a lot of people hate Apple but they only hate it because of the price. Spend the same amount of money on an PC and you get more specs but the PC will crash and break easier than the Apple. Plus Apple gives you the first year of service for free. PC you have to purchase the warranty.
I am typing this on a 7 year old PC with Windows XP and no problems. I can only guess why you say that you had problems.
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