# Photo Editing Laptop Recommendations



## bholliman (Jan 13, 2015)

The laptop computer I use for most of my photo editing is nearing the end of its useful life. It's over 5-years old now and starting to act erratically. I recently reformatted the hard drive and re installed everything and its working better, but I am planning to replace it this year.

I'm looking for recommendations, my budget is roughly $3K. I only have experience with Windows PC's, so I will probably be looking in that direction instead of a Mac.


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## Gollum (Jan 13, 2015)

Recently I was facing the same problem and I decided to switch from Windows laptop to MacBook Pro (512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM, Retina Display).
So far I havn't regret this decision.
As the hard drive is quite small I have all my photos on an external drive now.
My main Software for photos is Lightroom and it works excellent.
It's quite easy to move your photos (incl. Lightroom catalogue) from Windows to Mac.
And latest after a few days you will get used to the new Environment of Mac and you will not miss your Laptop anymore.
BTW in principle I'm not a fan of the Macintosh philosophy (isolated application) but it works really well for this purpose.


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## JustinMartin (Jan 13, 2015)

I was faced with the same situation last year - I am another one that made the transition from PC to Mac. I also installed Windows 7 via bootcamp on my Macbook Pro for the first little while and have now fully switched over to OS X. It was a pretty painless move and overall I am very happy to have made the switch. Too many headaches with Windows, the updates, viruses etc etc. I have always kept my files on external drives so my 512mb SSD has not been an issue for me.

Id recommend the switch.

Learning OS X was quite simple


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## Famateur (Jan 13, 2015)

I've been quite pleased with my Dell M3800 mobile workstation. It's very thin and light but is quite powerful.

Specs:

1. Intel Core i7-4712HQ @ 2.3GHz
2. 8GB RAM
3. Ultrasharp 1920x1080 IPS Touchscreen Display (also available in 3200x1800)
4. 500GB Hybrid Drive

The bottom panel is easily removable for doing your own upgrades (much cheaper than ordering the higher specs from Dell). It also means you can replace the battery yourself -- not sure how "user serviceable" Apple products are.

Here's what I would do if I were you and bought the M3800:

1. Move the 500GB drive to the second internal drive bay for storage and install an SSD for system and programs.
2. Add another 8GB of RAM.
3. Go for the 3200x1800 resolution (wish I had done this, although it's still beautiful at 1920x1080).

Some other thoughts:

1. Whatever laptop you choose, I would put display quality at the top of the priority list, even above raw power. Don't settle for anything less than a high quality IPS display. Gaming laptops are packed with all kinds of power, but they often use TN+Film panels for maximum response time. You do NOT want that for color-critical work.

2. Because it's a touchscreen, the display is glossy. This means glare. It's a little irritating, but not a deal-breaker for me. I'm pretty sure you'll get a glossy screen on the Mac variants, too, but I could be wrong.

3. Invest in a set of external drives for regular backups of both your photos and your Lightroom catalog. I use a free utility to sync with my two backup drives. One drive stays home, one goes with me everywhere (and yes, I mean everywhere -- after experiencing loss of a couple hundred photos of my daughter's birth, I'm pretty anal about backing up).

4. You could do all of these upgrades on the M3800 and still be well within your budget, including the backup drives.

5. This is my first Dell, so I can't speak to life span or reliability yet. My previous mobile workstation was an HP that lasted seven years. It was big and heavy, though, and for the price, I couldn't find anything better than the Dell to replace it. We'll see if that was wise in a few years...

Good luck in your search! Once you get that shiny, new, fast, light machine, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it...


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## Skirball (Jan 13, 2015)

bholliman said:


> The laptop computer I use for most of my photo editing is nearing the end of its useful life. It's over 5-years old now and starting to act erratically. I recently reformatted the hard drive and re installed everything and its working better, but I am planning to replace it this year.
> 
> I'm looking for recommendations, my budget is roughly $3K. I only have experience with Windows PC's, so I will probably be looking in that direction instead of a Mac.



Does it have to be a laptop? For that budget you could have a top of the line desktop and IPS monitor. You could do it for much less too, if you'd like


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## wsmith96 (Jan 13, 2015)

I recommend a HP ZBook. I use one for work and it has been a pleasure to have. I use it to drive 3 24" monitors (using a doc and thunderbolt connection) without issue. It's like most other laptops and completely customizable even down to the dreamcolor screen. The graphics are certified for adobe products too if that is of interest to you.

I don't believe you will be disappointed with a Zbook. Here's a link to the product info: 
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/zbook-17.html


Good luck!

Wes


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## Neutral (Jan 13, 2015)

I would suggest to have a look at this : 
http://www.originpc.com/workstation/laptops/eon15-s-pro/
http://www.originpc.com/workstation/laptops/eon17-s-pro/

ORIGIN PC is US based PC manufacturer/vendor for professional top level grade laptops and desktops which are fully customizable - could be ordered in any required for customer configuration. 
You just need to select laptop , select required configuration, place order and you will get best for your budget.

I ordered one in my own configuration one year ago and I am extremely pleased with that since I received that.

I spent quite amount of time evaluating different options from different vendors and found that ORIGIN PC is the best way to go - best investment for available money - you get exactly what you want and need .
It is not very well known brand - as they specialize not in mass production but in providing custom made system with top performance

Regards.


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## MARKOE PHOTOE (Jan 13, 2015)

Here is what I did just last week for a mobile photo editing laptop:

Toshiba Satellite S70-BBT2N23 17.3" Full HD (1920x1080) Premium Business Notebook PC (Intel Core i7-4710HQ *Quad Core* CPU, Windows 7 Pro, 2GB GDDR5 Graphics, Blu-Ray Burner,* 1TB Hybrid SSD Hard Drive*, Intel Dual Band AC Wireless,* 16GB RAM*, Latest Model)

Running Windows 7 Pro. $1,399 from Amazon. Its fairly light for a 17.3" laptop. Battery life is about 4+ hours.

Super fast, quiet, excellent screen. Really pleased with this purchase.

I compared Zbook, Alienware, MSI, and Dell for comparable spex and pricing and this one fit my needs the best.

Best of luck!


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## bholliman (Jan 13, 2015)

Thanks for the replies.

Regarding Apple vs. Windows PC, I am open to looking at a Mac, just don't have any experience with them. Would I need to purchase new copies of my software (MS Office, LR5, PSE13)?

I'm less inclined to purchase a desktop, even though I know you can get more computer for the money. I travel often for business and don't spend much time at home.


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## JimKarczewski (Jan 13, 2015)

If you find a laptop that doesn't have 2 drive bays, at least find one that has an mSata port. It's slightly larger than a CF card and come in up to 1TB configs. At least with my HP, you can use up to 26GB for "System Cache" so all of my apps and the system itself boots in no time at all.

I have a crap processor, I wish that I could afford a sweet laptop, but for what I need (quick adjustments and conversion from raw for up to 20 photos along with captioning) It was the laptop that worked. The SSD helps immensely and when the 250GB mSata drive fills up, I just move them over to the 750GB Traditional drive until I can move them to my server.

I only got a 15" display. If you go for a smaller laptop, watch out because there are way too many that aren't HD. I lived with one for almost 18 months and it's a pain in the a$$ to not have at least HD with photo editing. Samsung makes a 4k display in a 15" laptop complete with SSD, etc for around $3k. Unfortunately without being able to look at the thing first (I would had bought the cheaper version and upgraded the SSD and memory myself) I wasn't going to buy it, even though Best Buy said I could order one and bring it back if I didn't like it.


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## Famateur (Jan 13, 2015)

wsmith96 said:


> I recommend a HP ZBook. I use one for work and it has been a pleasure to have. I use it to drive 3 24" monitors (using a doc and thunderbolt connection) without issue. It's like most other laptops and completely customizable even down to the dreamcolor screen. The graphics are certified for adobe products too if that is of interest to you.
> 
> I don't believe you will be disappointed with a Zbook. Here's a link to the product info:
> http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/zbook-17.html
> ...



Based on the 7 1/2 year, full time service of my HP, you'd probably be well served by the ZBook. I just couldn't do another 6-7lb. laptop.  Having a machine that's 4lbs. and only .71" thin is a very pleasant upgrade for me...


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## Efka76 (Jan 13, 2015)

The last week I bough a new laptop Asus G751. Specs are the following:

1) Monitor - 17.3'' IPS FHD 1920 x 1080 anti-glare
2) Processor - Intel i7-4710 HQ @ 2.5 Ghz (turbo up to 3.5 Ghz)
3) Video - Nvidia GeForce 970M 3 GB
4) SSD 256 GB, HDD 1 TB
5) 16 GB RAM
6) Windows 8.1

I mainly use Lightroom and Photoshop with various Plug-ins. Computer works extremely fast. I was amazed when I saw how LR works ( I have appr. 100.000 images in my archive). I definetely recommend this laptop for photo editing.


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## jprusa (Jan 13, 2015)

bholliman said:


> Thanks for the replies.
> 
> Regarding Apple vs. Windows PC, I am open to looking at a Mac, just don't have any experience with them. Would I need to purchase new copies of my software (MS Office, LR5, PSE13)?
> 
> I'm less inclined to purchase a desktop, even though I know you can get more computer for the money. I travel often for business and don't spend much time at home.



All I had to do was call support and they gave me a link to download a mac version from adobe . It was a 45min fight with Microsoft but they gave it to me. I just wish I would have changed 10 years earlier. 
May not be that easy now, that was several years ago. Good luck


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## Skirball (Jan 13, 2015)

jprusa said:


> bholliman said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks for the replies.
> ...



I don't know if Adobe still allows a platform swap now that they moved to the cloud. But they might.

As far as switching to Mac - why? If you love the OS, then by all means. But otherwise, why move to a new platform you're unfamiliar with, that will also cost more for the equipment. Photoshop, Lightroom and anything else are going to perform the same, regardless of the OS.


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## iKenndac (Jan 13, 2015)

Efka76 said:


> The last week I bough a new laptop Asus G751. Specs are the following:
> 
> 1) Monitor - 17.3'' IPS FHD 1920 x 1080 anti-glare



Such a large display with such a tiny resolution makes me so sad. One very huge benefit of the modern Apple laptops is the displays — the 15" Retina Macbook Pro has a 2880x1800 display. Even the 13" has 2560x1600. They're absolutely beautiful — you see so much detail when working with photos, it's amazing. The pixels on a 17" 1920x1080 display are like LEGO bricks in comparison. 

I'd argue that the display is one of the most important aspects of a modern photo editing rig. Any sufficiently modern, non bargain-basement machine will have enough CPU and GPU and RAM to run LR5 just fine.

The statement above that Lightroom is the same depending on the OS you run is very true. That's also a plus — you'll be able to use LR5 on a Mac just fine if you're used to Windows and you get to use that beautiful display.


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## FTb-n (Jan 13, 2015)

I recently purchased a Lenovo Thinkpad W540, i7-4700MQ, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB drive, with a 15.5" IPS 2880x1620 non-glare display. Also came with a built-in xRite color sensor. The display and sensor was a big selling point for me and it works great.

I have had issues with the Intel 7260 single-band wifi card. Might want to try a different one.


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## dslrdummy (Jan 13, 2015)

I have a 15" Macbook Pro with Retina display and Dell P2415Q monitor (4K 24", 3840 x 2160). Perfect for photo editing. Be aware though that only the 15" MBP will drive a 4K display as it requires the separate graphics card. The laptop is light enough for travel and the monitor great for home editing and viewing.


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## RustyTheGeek (Jan 14, 2015)

FTb-n said:


> I recently purchased a Lenovo Thinkpad W540, i7-4700MQ, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB drive, with a 15.5" IPS 2880x1620 non-glare display. Also came with a built-in xRite color sensor. The display and sensor was a big selling point for me and it works great.
> 
> I have had issues with the Intel 7260 single-band wifi card. Might want to try a different one.



Be careful. Do some research first. If it's not a Lenovo approved card, the BIOS will not allow it to work. Your best best is to get it replaced under warranty first or switch to a different WiFi module that Lenovo sells for that laptop.


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## Skirball (Jan 14, 2015)

RustyTheGeek said:


> FTb-n said:
> 
> 
> > I recently purchased a Lenovo Thinkpad W540, i7-4700MQ, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB drive, with a 15.5" IPS 2880x1620 non-glare display. Also came with a built-in xRite color sensor. The display and sensor was a big selling point for me and it works great.
> ...



For a WiFi card? Interesting. I didn't realize that laptop manufacturers put that kind of control on upgrades. I assume they do this to force you to buy their recommended parts instead of cheaper ones?


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