Avilio
Posts: 52
Tegucigalpa, Distrito Central, Honduras
Hi All,
I have read many posts on this forum to help you choose between a PC or a MAC. The conclusion I reached is that it is better a personalized desktop than a laptop (PC or MAC).
But I have to think of a laptop to work in photography / retouching during travel.
Having read many articles, I think it's clear that if you have the money, it is better a mac book pro. But what is not clear to me, is what is the best option than MAC.
The top of my budget is $ 1500. I would appreciate any help.
the only reason why a macbook pro would be better then a pc laptop for retouching is because of the quality of the screen. Acuracy of the colors. Besides that, a laptop is way more faster for rendering if you spend the same amount of money on it.
I have an Asus Eee Slate PC. It's a 12" touch screen display that also has a Wacom digitizer pen with 256 levels of pressure sensitivity but I bought a different one with 512 levels of pressure sensitivity plus a programmable rocker button so it's very similar to using a Wacom Cintiq. I opted for the 64 gig sdd with 4 gig of ram and with Photoshop CS6, makes for a really nice computer to retouch on whenever I want to go out and about. Main complaint though is that it is power hungry and the battery only lasts 2 to 3 hours. Not much of a problem though if you can sit somewhere near an outlet.
Avilio
Posts: 52
Tegucigalpa, Distrito Central, Honduras
Patrick Paduano wrote: the only reason why a macbook pro would be better then a pc laptop for retouching is because of the quality of the screen. Acuracy of the colors. Besides that, a laptop is way more faster for rendering if you spend the same amount of money on it.
They are still a bit expensive even used, but nobody has really ever made a PS workstation / laptop like this before or since. Lenovo discontinued its 17" pro line stuff, some consumer models I think are around but not the business one.
Still this thing had everything, built in Wacom, secondary screen built it, wide color display, Pantone color sensor. I think you can find the W700 without th secondary screen for a lot less BTW
Avilio
Posts: 52
Tegucigalpa, Distrito Central, Honduras
Ruben Vasquez wrote: I have an Asus Eee Slate PC. It's a 12" touch screen display that also has a Wacom digitizer pen with 256 levels of pressure sensitivity but I bought a different one with 512 levels of pressure sensitivity plus a programmable rocker button so it's very similar to using a Wacom Cintiq.
Avilio wrote: Its good to know of this option, thanks.
But I was looking for something more like a desktop (in a laptop of course).
I honestly don't know what that's supposed to mean. A computer is a computer so you can have super fast laptops and abysmally slow desktops. It all depends on what hardware you have inside.
You'd probably get better responses if you can tell us what spec's you're looking for.
I honestly don't know what that's supposed to mean. A computer is a computer so you can have super fast laptops and abysmally slow desktops. It all depends on what hardware you have inside.
You'd probably get better responses if you can tell us what spec's you're looking for.
How about an i7 Quad Core (like 36xxQM or faster) and Win 7x64, and of course must have a very good graphics card.
In general you want a "mobile workstation" rather than a "laptop." Or possibly a laptop specifically designed for gaming. I would look for one with dedicated graphics, at least 8GB RAM and preferably expandable to at least 16, and a 7200rpm HDD.
Lenovo makes one that sounds pretty nice and is within your budget - W530, currently selling for $1,484.10.
Intel Core i7-3740QM Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.70 GHz)
Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)
15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) LED Backlit AntiGlare Display
System Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro K1000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3 Memory
8 GB DDR3 - 1600MHz (2 DIMM)
500GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Avilio
Posts: 52
Tegucigalpa, Distrito Central, Honduras
Ruben Vasquez wrote: You'd probably get better responses if you can tell us what spec's you're looking for.
You are right.
What I'am looking for a machine to replace my old desktop, but, with the facility of transportation. So, I was thinking on a notebook with:
i7,
8G Ram to up,
750G HD to up,
Good Graphic Card, a
and something like that.
There are plenty of options of all brands: HP, DELL, Sony, Asus, etc; but I don't know who's best for design/photography/retouching, or just the model which has less hardware o software problems.
Buy whatever laptop that fits your needs, and an external monitor. No laptop monitor will (to this date) even be close to say a NEC PA/Eizo SX/CG anyways, so why bother? If I was buying a laptop now I'd probably go for an Asus UX32, or if I had shat money (which I don't) a Retina MBP with Windows 8. I'd still use my NEC SpectraView 271 no matter what.
Avilio
Posts: 52
Tegucigalpa, Distrito Central, Honduras
MarcMarayag wrote: who cares about the specs
I Care O_O
Jostein Roalkvam wrote: Buy whatever laptop that fits your needs, and an external monitor. No laptop monitor will (to this date) even be close to say a NEC PA/Eizo SX/CG anyways, so why bother? If I was buying a laptop now I'd probably go for an Asus UX32, or if I had shat money (which I don't) a Retina MBP with Windows 8. I'd still use my NEC SpectraView 271 no matter what.
Thanks!, I live in a country were no one has a Asus, It's well recommended?
get one with an ips screen like the asus zenbook - it's super light and will handle photoshop well
If you have to work with a lot of raw photos, especially large raws like from a D800, specs matter quite a lot since they are the measurements to guide you to what machines will have the speed you need and what won't.
Hate to say it, but Alienware seems to have better specs (GPU) than the Lenovo, and for the 14" model less expensive for same CPU.
SKITA Studios
Posts: 1,321
Boston, Massachusetts, US
ME_ wrote: Lenovo makes one that sounds pretty nice and is within your budget - W530, currently selling for $1,484.10.
I have one and like it quite a bit because I have 32MB of RAM in it and it makes my VMs happy for development work :-)
And it can be stuffed w/ 3 drives while being fairly light.
I'm not sure I'd recommend the screen if it's your only option though...angle of view isn't that great because it's not IPS but laptops w/ high res IPS screens w/ 4 memory slots were upwards of $2k when I looked :-P
SKITA Studios wrote: I have one and like it quite a bit because I have 32MB of RAM in it and it makes my VMs happy for development work :-)
And it can be stuffed w/ 3 drives while being fairly light.
I'm not sure I'd recommend the screen if it's your only option though...angle of view isn't that great because it's not IPS but laptops w/ high res IPS screens w/ 4 memory slots were upwards of $2k when I looked :-P
I hope that you mean 32GB of RAM! :-d
Re screens, yep to get a decent screen on a laptop is either not gonna happen or it's very expensive. I would always recommend that someone buy a monitor to use with a laptop - the laptop itself is sufficient in a pinch but not for serious work. In fact if my traveling were in a car, or to places where I could ship something, I might even carry or ship a monitor, if the trip were of a long-enough duration and I had to do so much processing while there that transporting a monitor would be worthwhile. But I'd definitely have one at home to use, at least.
All you need to know is that brands call them Mobile Workstations. Asus, DELL and HP have workstation lines that have either higher specs than macbook pros at the same price or the same specs at half of the price. Most come with color work oriented screens and some even have Nvidia Quadro Gpus.
It is expected that they start rolling out with high resolution displays as, for now, most will only do 1920x1080 which is actually not bad at all.
These are currently the real work horse laptops. Escaping the current Apple trend, these laptops can hold more than 1 hard disk, up to 32Gb of ram and sport all the must have professional ports like Ethernet, USB3.0 and even firewire800.
I am only waiting to see what Apple does with their Macbook Pro update expected this June 2013. If the macbook pro they release is still a toy computer, then that'll be good bye Mac for me. Laptop and dektops.
Dell told me their M6700 is the only one you can get an IPS screen on though.
It's confusing times right now. We're currently in a stage where the screens realm is experiencing a lot of changes. Some are making them tactile, some others are betting for higher resolution displays and some will do both, hi-dpi tactile displays. Then others say hi-dpi is a useless thing given the distance at which you look at screens and some others say that a tactile computer screen is un-ergonomycal, statement with which I partly agree.
The most important part is that the professional segment of any brand has a higher viscosity than theyr consumer and prosumer lines. That is, when a new technology comes out, their professional lines tend to stay as they were for some time before they adopt new technologies. Happend with just about any new development. Most recent example is the solid state drive. Today, it'd be rare to find a laptop not offering an SSD for main storage or even carry it by default.
I say wait! Apple is releasing their new macbook pro in June/July. That doesn't mean that you should get a mac, it means that the mac will set new rules. If the MBP with retina display includes drivers for people to install windows 8 and run it properly at its screen resolution, then windows will have to include proper vector scaling. If windows includes that, then PC laptops will also wanna have hi-dpi displays. Shortly after that, professional laptops will all have hi-dpi screens.
Ultimately, all computers will have hi-dpi screens, and, hopefully, professional monitors like NECs and EIZOs too.
FLEXmanta wrote: I say wait! Apple is releasing their new macbook pro in June/July. That doesn't mean that you should get a mac, it means that the mac will set new rules. If the MBP with retina display includes drivers for people to install windows 8 and run it properly at its screen resolution, then windows will have to include proper vector scaling. If windows includes that, then PC laptops will also wanna have hi-dpi displays. Shortly after that, professional laptops will all have hi-dpi screens.
Previous trends would suggest a new mac book pro for summer though if you're aware they just did a recent spec bump on the 13" retina's and what not...
Me personally...full disclosure I work for Apple and well the way their laptop line is going are yes somewhat beefy machines yet not user friendly when it comes to configuring it ones self... So that amazing 15" retina you got with 8gbs rams and maybe only a 256gb SSD. Well you are stuck with that configuration for the laptops duration.
Personally I love the over all workflow and ecosystem my Mac provides me for everyday use and mainly work outside of photoshop...If I were to get a machine that was purely going to be a work horse for photoshop/video editing I'd go PC all the way for the varying options and slashed prices.
Along now with the 10.8.3 OS update bootcamp does fully support windows 8 fyi
bobbydolan wrote: Previous trends would suggest a new mac book pro for summer though if you're aware they just did a recent spec bump on the 13" retina's and what not...
Me personally...full disclosure I work for Apple and well the way their laptop line is going are yes somewhat beefy machines yet not user friendly when it comes to configuring it ones self... So that amazing 15" retina you got with 8gbs rams and maybe only a 256gb SSD. Well you are stuck with that configuration for the laptops duration.
Personally I love the over all workflow and ecosystem my Mac provides me for everyday use and mainly work outside of photoshop...If I were to get a machine that was purely going to be a work horse for photoshop/video editing I'd go PC all the way for the varying options and slashed prices.
Along now with the 10.8.3 OS update bootcamp does fully support windows 8 fyi
My thoughts exactly. I was expecting them to increase the max amount of the now soldered in RAW to about 32Gb. People are already changing the SSD to a faster bigger one though, so that's one problem less.
I do see your point about switching to PC, and I amactually considering it. In fact, might even consider running OSX on one of the newer PC laptops. Would have to check for the latest compatibility lists though. I do have one fully functional beefy hackintosh at home so I can say they do work reliably. I guess power management would be trickier to bring to work on hackintosh laptops.
Things I can't stand about the new MBP laptops is that, they are not as beefy as it gets nowadays. They eliminated ports that were still in use, such as the FW800 and the Ethernet (and using adaptors is a no go for work), and the fact that you are buying a product that you know is more expensive than the more powerful PCs, when today, the quality difference is not as steep as it used to be.
What would I have to do to make the switch to PC? Probably bigger balls.
WMcK
Posts: 5,191
Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
The problem is that most note books use rubbishy 6 bpc TN screens running at some stupidly high CT like 9,000K which makes critical colour work (or calibration) on them impossible.
WMcK wrote: The problem is that most note books use rubbishy 6 bpc TN screens running at some stupidly high CT like 9,000K which makes critical colour work (or calibration) on them impossible.
There are plenty of laptops sporting true 8bit IPS panels. Of course, if you buy the average 900€ laptop at carrefour, you'll get the same specs as if you buy the average 100€ monitor at carrefour.