# Laptops for photo editing and other use



## 7enderbender (Apr 19, 2012)

Am I the only one who is frustrated by the limited choices available for high quality laptops? I currently use a dual core 2GB IBM/Lenovo T60 - the old kind with the 14" high resolution 4:3 ratio screen. I love that thing and it's my most used computer in the house. And I do 90% of my photo editing with it and usually don't even touch my desktop PC with its big screen and all.

The T60 is extremely sharp, the colors are surprisingly accurate and with its perfect keyboard, trackpoint and form factor just works for me. And this is for both business use (Word, Excel, email) and photo editing (CS5, LR3). Performance is mostly good enough unless there are too many photos open or if its a power hungry process such as HDR processing. So in other words: it works.

Problem is that eventually I'll have to replace it. So I started looking around. And that really wasn't a pretty sight. Lenovos still come with the good old IBM keyboard and the trackpoint and some of the other great features - but it appears their screens have a lot of issues now.

Dell seems to have an XPS model with a good screen but I always found their build quality for laptops to be substandard. Not to speak of the toy keyboard.

Well, and that gets us to Apple. I really really don't like that company and its politics. And the MacBook pros are not only ugly (who cares) but also bulky and unruly compared to my 14" IBM - and don't even match the screen resolution. Keyboard is awful also. And then you can't change anything yourself not even a battery or so. So that's very likely (again) a big no-no.

And now what? Sonys look pretty weak also. Some point to Sager. Not sure about that. I'd need to actually see one of those somewhere.

Any thoughts? It's not even the budget so much. I'm ok with shelling out $2000 or so if it is suited for lots of typing, portable and has a stellar screen for photo editing. 14 or 15" would be ok. Oh, and a large and fast hard drive. For the life of me, I can't seem to find anything like that.


----------



## prestonpalmer (Apr 19, 2012)

just deck out a MacBook Pro. 8GB ram works very well for photo editing.


----------



## msdarkroom (Apr 19, 2012)

+1 for the MBP.

Get one of these: http://amzn.to/HWFzMK
And max out the ram here: http://bit.ly/rs4TM


----------



## 7enderbender (Apr 20, 2012)

I know that lots of folks like the MBPs. I just can't get to understand why. They are big, the screen resolution is low, the keyboard is horrid and you can't even change your own battery or really anything.
And for all that they are very expensive and not fully compatible with a lot of stuff. Not to speak of the fact that Adobe would charge me again to get a new CS5 version. That's not Apples fault but still. No way will I buy anything Apple anytime soon.


----------



## arussarts (Apr 20, 2012)

Dude... Take a deep breath and consider coming over to the dark side. 

Consider this. You can get a 15" MBP with a hi-res non-glare screen. Then max out the RAM with OWC Ram to 16BG. Then put in an OWC Data Doubler as a dedicated scratch disc and your MBP should smoke. 

I can't speak to the PC, but like your Lenovo, my Macs "just work". I currently use a 2009 White Macbook with a Seagate Hybrid SSD hard drive and 6GB of Ram. I process HDR and Capture One/P+ files all the time. Is it AWESOME... no, but it's from 2009. And it's made of plastic, and it was $1000 so I don't care about smashing it to bits. I'll be upgrading this year when the new MB's come out and the "old" ones drop a little in price.

I also hate the idea of not having battery swap-ability but you can get "remote batteries" if you're not near a plug for 8 hrs. (http://quickertek.com/products/macbook_air_charger.php) And if your battery loses its ability to hole a charge, it really isn't that hard to change yourself.

As for Apple politics, please enlighten me. I have no idea what you're talking about. Hippies or Facists? Vegetarians or Meat Eaters? Or are you just against their policy of charging a S##tload of money for an awesome machine? Cause it bugs me too.


----------



## 7enderbender (Apr 20, 2012)

arussarts said:


> Dude... Take a deep breath and consider coming over to the dark side.
> 
> Consider this. You can get a 15" MBP with a hi-res non-glare screen. Then max out the RAM with OWC Ram to 16BG. Then put in an OWC Data Doubler as a dedicated scratch disc and your MBP should smoke.
> 
> ...



You know what? I'm an open minded person. I'll look into the option again just like I've done any time I needed a new computer and also in between.

But I have doubts and that's the "politics" I was referring to. And I don't mean politics really - though it somehow appears to be related, but that's where things get really complicated. It's this annoying mother-knows-best approach. Take it or leave it. And once we have sucked you in you'll have to just keep buying and updating because all the other stuff won't really work with it.

But hey, if it's really that good?? After all, my dad has never used any, err, remote assistance for his iPhone - unlike all his other (PC) gadgets that I take care of on a regular basis and from a distance.

I'll keep my eyes open and am curious if Apple will really come out with some kind of retina display. That could be the selling point - unlike their "hi res" 15" display which my 6 year old ThinkPad still beats. And if they maybe then throw in a mouse button or two in addition to the hideous trackpad we might be in business. And for Office (including a fully functional version of PowerPoint and Excel...) I could switch to a Win7 installation. So who knows - maybe I'll give it another shot. Only that this is easily a $3000 endeavor with software and all...

But then again the laptop PC market has nothing better to offer it seems.


----------



## KKCFamilyman (Apr 20, 2012)

I do it. I was down that same path recently. There are not many choices under $2k. I ended up with the HP envy 17 3d model. It has a 17.3" led radiance tn panel. It has can display 72% of the rgb color gamut which is really good for a laptop. It is well built and comes with all the goodies like backlit keyboard and blu-ray. It also has a msata ssd for your os and apps. There are still 2 bays for standard hard drives so you could essentially have 2tb of portable workspace. I found editing in LR was way better with the larger screen than the 14 or 15.6" panels. Either way you can calibrate it with a Spyder pro and really have a great machine for well under $2k depending on your configuration. It also has a bright 120hz panel and it's is better than any other laptop display out there except your HP dream color ips notebooks running in the $3k + range. There are many more features. I have the hp17-3090nr model. Apple is not the only way.


----------



## arussarts (Apr 20, 2012)

7enderbender said:


> arussarts said:
> 
> 
> > Dude... Take a deep breath and consider coming over to the dark side.
> ...




I hope I don't sound like a Mac Fanboy, because I've certainly looked at the PC market. But by the time I got done comparing comparable platforms it was all a basically a wash. Plus, like you, I was already heavily invested in the Mac software.

I do love my Macs though, but that's probably because I know how to keep them clean.

BTW - I have heard that Lion sucks.


----------



## RuneL (Apr 20, 2012)

> I hope I don't sound like a Mac Fanboy, because I've certainly looked at the PC market. But by the time I got done comparing comparable platforms it was all a basically a wash. Plus, like you, I was already heavily invested in the Mac software.
> 
> I do love my Macs though, but that's probably because I know how to keep them clean.
> 
> BTW - I have heard that Lion sucks.



OS X Lion does suck. I've used Mac laptops exclusively for 7 years now and they have consistently become worse, first with the intel CPU's and now OS X just losing steam. I reinstall every 6 months at least (like you had to with windows XP), reboot or force reboot several times a week. In the old days of the power pc my uptime was 45 days + on average, now?

```
7:44  up 5 days, 15:01, 2 users, load averages: 1.16 1.60 1.79
```
. Too weak for such an expensive machine. 
It's not a particularly good machine for editing, IMO, the memory management seems completely screwed, on my 2010 MBP 15" i7 2.66 ghz 8gb ram anti glare hi res machine I can bring it to a complete halt using photoshop and LR at the same time, as soon as I starte building files with more than 5 or 6 layers it gets these hiccups and will freeze for a while, I suspect that it is os x moving files from RAM to HD or the other way around, I could probably cure it with an SSD but I like inexpensive drives that I can change once or twice a year. This problem has gotten a LOT worse since lion. It was hardly noticable on Snow. The screen is ok but low res 1680 x 1050, I love the design of it and that it doesn't really make any noise and that it is quite slim and nice to look at, i love the keyboard and the trackpad and I love when I open it op how well organized and beautiful the black circuit board and everything is inside of it, but as a production machine? Nope, not really, it's just a turd in a pretty frock.
I don't know what the alternative should be, but OP should get something with a better screen, ESATA?, There aren't enough I/O-options either in the macs, IMO, I want esata, USB 3, Firewire and Thunderbolt at the same time and more ports. 
I have two stinking usb-ports, thunderbolt, firewire, that is it, they took the nice eSATA option away with the express port they somehow managed to exchange for a SD-card reader that doesn't work. What the hell. 

I have a dektop machine too, it has 6GB of ram (but better and faster ram than the mac), two graphics cards in sli, 1TB storage in RAID 0, external 2TB storage in RAID 1, 3.3 GHZ i7, two firewire ports, 14 usb ports (2 are usb 3.0 enabled, four are eSATA enabled) that cost a lost less than half of what the Laptop did. It's older but miles better. 

I've always fancied the Dell Studio 17, don't know if they are any good.


I took the liberty of making these two, the Dell has been top specced, every option chosen as "the best/most expensive", crap like software, anti virus, cables and mice I have not chosen. You decide.


_Dell XPS 17
8GB RAM
256GB SSD
Nvidia 555M 3GB 
17.3" 1920x1080 display
Dell Ultrasharp 24" widescreen 
i7 2860QM 2.5 ghz

2748 USD

Macbook Pro 17"
8GB RAM
256GB SSD
1920 x 1200 hi res low glow display
Apple Thunderbolt 27" display
i7 2.5 ghz

4498 USD_


----------



## gmrza (Apr 20, 2012)

7enderbender said:


> I know that lots of folks like the MBPs. I just can't get to understand why. They are big, the screen resolution is low, the keyboard is horrid and you can't even change your own battery or really anything.
> And for all that they are very expensive and not fully compatible with a lot of stuff. Not to speak of the fact that Adobe would charge me again to get a new CS5 version. That's not Apples fault but still. No way will I buy anything Apple anytime soon.



When I upgraded the RAM in my wife's 2010 unibody Core i7 MBP, it looked like it would not be a problem for me to replace the battery as well.

I have to admit my perception is that the MBP works well for her, including editing large jobs of hundreds, or even going into the thousands of images. The newer MBPs do however perform a lot better than the 2010 models.

The keyboard is a matter of taste.

The MBP is relatively easy to profile with a Spyder. I cannot say that for some of the more recent Lenovos.


----------



## expatinasia (Apr 20, 2012)

To choose a laptop forget brands, image and chit chat. Write down what you want and get the closest thing to that wish list. But, like with cameras, the best will cost you.

As you are dealing with images I would never personally go below 1920x1080 screen, I prefer matte, maybe you want to consider, toucscreens, IPS. Then you should consider the software you use, and which GPU works best with them (probably nvidia if you use Adobe products), get at least 16GB RAM but if you can expand it to 32 or more later that would be useful as well, 2 internal HDs is good for storage and speed. etc.

Once you decide all of the above there will be very few real options left.

And just to point you in the right direction. Look up Dell Precisions, a new one will come out soon the M6700. Doubt you can find anything better anywhere.


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 20, 2012)

I am getting a Lenovo X220 Tablet. Has a built in Wacom + Multitouch. I'll let you know how I like it after I test it out. There is a review of it by a photographer here:

Lenovo X220 Tablet X220t Review for Photography Professionals - Night and Day Photography Shop Talk


----------



## 7enderbender (Apr 20, 2012)

expatinasia said:


> To choose a laptop forget brands, image and chit chat. Write down what you want and get the closest thing to that wish list. But, like with cameras, the best will cost you.
> 
> As you are dealing with images I would never personally go below 1920x1080 screen, I prefer matte, maybe you want to consider, toucscreens, IPS. Then you should consider the software you use, and which GPU works best with them (probably nvidia if you use Adobe products), get at least 16GB RAM but if you can expand it to 32 or more later that would be useful as well, 2 internal HDs is good for storage and speed. etc.
> 
> ...



Thanks for that tip. I'll definitely look into that. As far as the specs go you totally nailed it. 1920x1080 on a 15" screen is the bare minimum - ideally it should be more, or rather denser- and with that you are already down to very few options. Everything else could be pretty standard specs as far as I'm concerned - whatever works well with regular productivity software plus Photoshop. That's pretty much all I need. No gaming, watching videoes, etc.
Lots of storage, 2 HDs ideally and a really good keyboard/point-and-click-device and Bob's your uncle. Only, this seems to be wishful thinking in the current laptop market.


----------



## 7enderbender (Apr 20, 2012)

Jettatore said:


> I am getting a Lenovo X220 Tablet. Has a built in Wacom + Multitouch. I'll let you know how I like it after I test it out. There is a review of it by a photographer here:
> 
> Lenovo X220 Tablet X220t Review for Photography Professionals - Night and Day Photography Shop Talk



Another interesting idea. I'd actually have to play with this. Not a big fan of touch screens and 1366x768 just doesn't seem to cut it.


----------



## markIVantony (Apr 20, 2012)

I use a Lenovo W500 with the 1920x1200 screen upgrade and switchable graphics It's a tough laptop too.


----------



## ctmike (Apr 20, 2012)

Rumors swirling that the refreshed Ivy Bridge MacBook Pros will be more Air-like in their design and potentially have high-res screens- Apple has at least shown an interest in heading that way with their other products, so it's a reasonable rumor. MacBook screens tend to be pretty color accurate if I recall as well.

Memory and batteries are all replaceable if you are comfortable opening it up.

Personally, I've had no problems whatsoever moving from Leopard to Snow Leopard to Lion. 

Not trying to evangelize or anything. I've just had nothing but rock solid experiences with my MacBooks. I just hope they too move to higher-res screens.


----------



## 4jphotography (Apr 20, 2012)

We have multiple MBP's, a MB Air and two iMac's. With the exception of one Airport issue, have never had a problem, and our Mac relationship goes back 7 or 8 years. They're expensive, but they're dependable, just work and lack the BS that seems to come with PCs (viruses, etc). My brother is a software engineer for a major defense firm, has access to any machine, and choses to use an MBP for his photo editing. Same with just about every pro I know, photo or video. They're something of a creatives industry standard for a reason, I think.


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 20, 2012)

7enderbender said:


> Jettatore said:
> 
> 
> > I am getting a Lenovo X220 Tablet. Has a built in Wacom + Multitouch. I'll let you know how I like it after I test it out. There is a review of it by a photographer here:
> ...



I completely agree. I'd much prefer larger resolution as well as a dedicated graphics card. The machine that should be here today (possibly tomorrow) the aforementioned x220 doesn't have either. And as a rule, I would agree that those are two things I would never, ever want to skimp on. However the reason I chose this machine, and made those compromises, is battery life and portability while still being a very powerful machine. This thing is said to get well over 10+ hours on a full load, I've heard reports with some power saving options of 18 hours with the added slice battery with is already here with me waiting for the machine. The other major reason for why I am accepting the compromise is the small size and the built in wacom + multi-touch functionality. This is as close as I could find to having a full toolkit, with a lot of power (I7 + 8Gigs), that can last a full work day on a single charge, away from a power supply and still be small enough to be near the portability of a netbook. 

I am a dual monitor fan (have 2x 22" widescreens @1650 x 1080), recently one of my monitors died and I've been on only one but made it through fine, clearly it feels cluttered vs. two monitors but I don't feel like it's slowing me down. So now I am going to attempt to make this work with a reasonable hit to the resolution (about 300 pixels in both directions) and if it doesn't, I will let you know immediately. If I can make it work and work well, I will let you know how it stacks up to a custom built dual monitor desktop with a fast Geforce GTX dedicated desktop gaming card and a wide-screen Intuos tablet.


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 20, 2012)

ctmike said:


> MacBook screens tend to be pretty color accurate if I recall as well.



They aren't and have never been anything close to color accurate in comparison with industry standard color correct displays. (I have not checked this in about 5 months) In fact they usually have a hyper contrast and over driven vibrance that gives them an incredible 'pop' which throws off what your images will look like on other monitors and in print. It's like putting some cool effects on your images that will not show the same on anything other than very similar equipment, that isn't good for consistency.


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 20, 2012)

Jettatore said:


> I am getting a Lenovo X220 Tablet. Has a built in Wacom + Multitouch. I'll let you know how I like it after I test it out. There is a review of it by a photographer here:
> 
> Lenovo X220 Tablet X220t Review for Photography Professionals - Night and Day Photography Shop Talk


 
I have a lenovo X200s, plenty of computing power to edit images. It has the optional high resolution screen, which is very disappointing, colors are lousy, and even calibrating it does not make it into a good screen. Supposedly the X220 has a better screen, I'd want a backlighted led screen or IPS if I upgrade. Right now, I don't bother to even try editing with the X200s due to the poor screen.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Apr 20, 2012)

Mac user for many, many years.. How many? - One RAW image from my 5DII exceeds the capacity of the HDD in my first Mac  

Like camera brand (and I won't open that can of worms here), it comes down to personal choice. For me, Macs just work - better ergonomics, no hassles, etc. 

Are Macs more expensive? That's a oft-beaten horse. It's absolutely true that you can not get a 'cheap' Mac. The bottom of the line is more expensive than a lot of PCs. But on a spec for spec basis, they're not really different unless they aren't equally spec'd - RuneL's comparison is typical, and misleading - the Dell is almost 1" wider and taller, 0.5" thicker, over 1 lb heavier, has a tray loading optical drive like most PCs (ever snapped off a tray?), no backlit keyboard, etc., not to mention 24" vs 27" external display, no difference there, right?. How about total cost of ownership? My employer provides PC laptops - in a period of 5 years I went through 2 Compaqs, 3 HPs and a Lenovo (4 broke down, one was end-of-lifed), and for that whole 5 year period, I had one 17" MBP, and only the most recent Lenovo beat that on specification. So, which was cheaper, in the long run? That might be one reason why my company has recently given me a MacBook Air instead. 

As for things being locked down, in Mac OS X, yes - and that provides a good level of security as well, thanks to the Unix kernel. But if you need to, you can run Windows natively, or as a virtual machine (on my 2011 MBP, a Windows VM outperforms current corporate PC laptops).



Jettatore said:


> ctmike said:
> 
> 
> > MacBook screens tend to be pretty color accurate if I recall as well.
> ...



So true. The default Apple LCD color calibration is like the Landscape Picture Style, or perhaps even like using Super Vivid setting on a PowerShot - contrast and saturation are ramped way up. But...my Macs play quite nicely with hardware calibrators (I use an xRite i1), and that results in an accurate display (so accurate it can _almost_ cope with the blown out magentas in Canon images  ).


----------



## ctmike (Apr 20, 2012)

Jettatore said:


> ctmike said:
> 
> 
> > MacBook screens tend to be pretty color accurate if I recall as well.
> ...



My bad. I was mixing it up with the reviews of the new iPad screen, which apparently is very color accurate.


----------



## AmbientLight (Apr 20, 2012)

As for PCs you can definitely not go by specs alone, because quality varies wildly. From my personal experience I can highly recommend both Lenovo and Sony laptops, with the latter being somewhat limited in battery live, but SONY VAIO F-Series actually being my favourites.


----------



## Jamesy (Apr 20, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> How about total cost of ownership? My employer provides PC laptops - in a period of 5 years I went through 2 Compaqs, 3 HPs and a Lenovo (4 broke down, one was end-of-lifed), and for that whole 5 year period, I had one 17" MBP, and only the most recent Lenovo beat that on specification. So, which was cheaper, in the long run?


I have been at the same company for twelve years and am on my 4th Lenovo, currently a T400, previously had a T60. They have all been decent and the only reason I have upgraded was opportunistic rather than catastrophic failure.
Six systems in five years is a bit of a stretch IMO, depending on the environment they run in. Most decent systems can run for years and years, it just comes down to whether or not you want to use an old video card, slow bus, slow drive, etc.
MBP's are great machines but in my case, it would require a retool of software, methodoligies, etc... Not something I am willing to do at this juncture in the road.


----------



## Drizzt321 (Apr 20, 2012)

markIVantony said:


> I use a Lenovo W500 with the 1920x1200 screen upgrade and switchable graphics It's a tough laptop too.



I've got the w520, great laptop, and you can even get it with a built-in colorimeter to calibrate the screen. Works like a charm, and I think it was only a $50 upgrade. Plus, you can go up to 16GB of memory which is crazy in a laptop, and it has a slot for an mSATA SSD instead of a WWAN card. All in all, a great machine, and I love it.


----------



## dafrank (Apr 20, 2012)

*Just so happens...*

Just so happens that my old HP DV laptop, with its 3000 updates of WinXPPro, finally bit the dust a couple of weeks ago. It served its purpose well - being able to download files by tether or card reader in order to store them and to just check out the files for basic fitness, and then, finally, to offload the files from the drive to my studio editing desktop. Never thought of editing them on a laptop, almost totally because of the greatest issue in laptop quality - the screens suck. Bad overall color, inconsistent color and brightness over the whole surface, and terrible viewing angles.

So, this time I decided to look for a laptop with some type of IPS screen to see if I could finally really judge my files for quality on the laptop screen and, in a pinch, edit with it as well. I tried to research the subject and had no real success - either the laptops were out of production, wildly expensive, not available in America, or had some other countervailing problems that made them bad choices.

Finally, I took a chance on a new HP again. This time, I got an new (2012 model) HP Envy 17. They never say if the screen (17.3", full HD resolution) is an IPS, but they do ballyhoo that the screen is superior with what I recall that they claim to be 72% Adobe RGB color space. Well, in practice I can only say one word - WOW. This screen kicks butt. It looks to my eyes to be capable, with calibration, of at least a 95% accurate portrayal of the SRGB colorspace, and would be perfectly suitable for very accurate file conversions and later retouching for any uses short of serious for-hire CMYK conversions. The laptop otherwise is also quite nice with beautiful and usefull industrial design, very high end specs overall and a great choice of memory, processors, and drive configurations. The price is surprisingly good (I got mine very nicely outfitted for about $1,400.00 with a good coupon), the support options look superior, it's not loaded with very much bloatware that you have to remove, and it comes with a couple of pieces of marginally useful (Adobe Elements Photo and Premiere 9, plus Office starter) software, plus 2 years of Norton AV, if you want it.

As far as I am concerned, this is the ideal laptop for me as a photographer - moderate price, excellent design and overall specs, very good connectivity with several USB3 and a myriad of other high-end ports, good to outstanding performance (depending on how you configure it) and the best screen I've personally ever seen on a laptop. If this machine lasts as long as my last one, I'll be one happy guy.

Highly recommended.

P.S. I do not work for HP or any company related to them, have no even remote association with them at all, except as a past paying customer.


----------



## 7enderbender (Apr 21, 2012)

markIVantony said:


> I use a Lenovo W500 with the 1920x1200 screen upgrade and switchable graphics It's a tough laptop too.



Hmm, didn't know this existed. Specs look like they fit the bill. How do you like the screen? 1920x1200 (WUXGA?) at 15" looks just like what I had in mind. How are brightness, color, sharpness on that one in your experience?


----------



## Drizzt321 (Apr 21, 2012)

7enderbender said:


> markIVantony said:
> 
> 
> > I use a Lenovo W500 with the 1920x1200 screen upgrade and switchable graphics It's a tough laptop too.
> ...



They have a newer version, the w520 which I have. Screen is 95% of NTSC color space, which I've found to be pretty good. Brightness is pretty good, although I wouldn't mind if it went up 1 or 2 notches, but I notice it most when I'm in a very bright room. It's matte (yay!), pretty good viewing angles, and has an optional built-in color calibration. Pretty darn nifty too, I open up the included software (reminds me weekly), close the screen, and a minute or two later it's all done.

The discrete graphics is a Quadro card, and frankly it's not much good in the way of games, I have to turn down pretty much everything on Civ5. Granted, that's running at the 1920x1080, but still. I kinda wish I had spend the $200 or so it'd have cost me to upgrade to the next one above it, but I didn't buy this primarily for games so I'm fine with it. You can use it for the Photoshop GPU acceleration fine, although I don't have much experience with that since I work almost completely in Lightroom. Does have USB3, which is amazing with my Transcend 400x cards. I can read from it at 80+ MB/sec, compared to pretty damn slow over USB2 from my camera. 

You can put in an mSATA SSD card (I'm waiting for a 180+GB one to come out) in place of the WWAN card, although it's limited to SATA2 speeds. Overall, my first Thinkpad, and the build quality & keyboard is everything I've heard about, and I love it. Oh, and the bundled software? Awesome! I actually use the Lenovo branded tools & such, cause they actually are useful and work well. I think there was an Anti-virus limited time demo installed, but I just uninstalled it and put my own on.


----------



## bbogetti (Apr 21, 2012)

Check out the Toshiba Qosmio series. I have an older model but works fine for the Adobe Suite of tools both for photography and movie editing. Here's the specs on their current top model:

Qosmio X775-3DV80 $1899.99
Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM processor (quad core)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
17.3" widescreen, 8GB DDR3 1333MHz memory
1.25TB: 500GB (7200rpm, Hybrid 4GB Serial ATA) + 750GB (5400rpm, Serial ATA)
1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M (3D Vision)
Additional features:
1GB Ethernet, 3D Technology, 7200 RPM Hard Drive, Advanced/Discrete Graphics, Blu-ray™, Bluetooth®, Eco Utility, Energy Star Compliant, EPEAT™ Gold Compliant, Face Recognition, Hard Drive Impact Sensor, harman/kardon® speakers, HDMI port, Hybrid Drive Technology, LED Backlit Display, LED Backlit Keyboard, Media Card Reader, Memory Card Reader, Numeric 10-key Pad, PC Health Monitor, Quad-core Processor, Resolution+®, Sleep-and-Music, Touch pad with Multi-touch, USB 3.0, USB Sleep-and-Charge, Webcam and Mic, Webcam with Face Recognition 

Here's the link to the Toshiba website:
http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/qosmio/X770/available-models#4294965746%204294965347%204294964287%204294964287%204294965697


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 22, 2012)

If anyone is out there simply looking for a powerful machine at very competitive prices check these guys out, 

http://www.ibuypower.com/IbpPages/Notebook.aspx 

They are just standard laptops, but they kill everyone else in prices and though a small outfit, they are well known in the computer building and gaming communities and are well regarded. If I don't have time to build a custom machine for a friend or family member, I send them there 9 times out of 10. 

Any machine they sell would be pretty powerful for 2D Graphics/Photo Retouching, some of their laptops in either size monitor go up to 16GB but if you are on a budget you can quite easily get away with 8GB, that's what I have on my desktop and I've been using it for nearly 6 years and it's still solid, 16GB would obviously be better. Also, graphics cards for use in Photoshop are fairly new. They just take advantage of openGL to draw the canvas and you don't need a super powerful card for this, when they switched to openGL it allowed them to start implementing features like being able to rotate the canvas, import 3D models for painting, etc.. Those Quadro's, they are CAD and 3D animation workstation cards and they are and always have been an utter rip-off. A new Quadro is usually the last generation of gaming cards, no more no less, with custom drivers and a much higher level of customer service/tech support for if something goes wrong, they have a staff of programmers at the ready to help out any facility using those model cards. The drivers are tweaked for CAD applications and often there are multiple driver options to choose from that may be more or less refined for any one specific application (3D Studio Max, Maya, Auto-Cad, etc.) I have a lot of experience in 3D animation and I can tell you that a good gaming graphics card works just fine for even the most intensive 3D tasks (sculpting and painting high-poly models in Mudbux for example). Also something to note, you can run Photoshop (dunno about the newest version) without OpenGL enabled and then not worry about having a decent graphics card at all, but you won't be able to do a few things like rotate canvas, import models and other features, however your base editing capabilities will be fully in tact. Those iBuy power machines all come with really good gaming cards so you wouldn't have to worry about it, but if you find a deal on a good machine with integrated graphics, you should still be able to run Photoshop and Lightroom without a problem, the majority of the work on those is done in system RAM and processing for things like filters via CPU but keep in mind, Adobe is relying more on OpenGL with every new release of PS.


----------



## RLPhoto (Apr 22, 2012)

I Must be the Last person here running an original copy of Windows XP pro 32-bit from 2009!


----------



## Jamesy (Apr 22, 2012)

RLPhoto said:


> I Must be the Last person here running an original copy of Windows XP pro 32-bit from 2009!


Nope - I am too. My main machine is a work provided laptop so I run LR 3.x on it. I have 64 bit machines at home but my main box is still XP Pro 32 bit and it needs to stay that way as there are legacy work related apps that still need to run on it. IP am hoping they change that in the coming year though...


----------



## AmbientLight (Apr 23, 2012)

I don't know, if you have ever tested this, but if not, you could actually try to run your older windows apps on Windows7. This operating system will run most apps designed for WindowsXP without any problems, so it may actually work fine for you. Testing this will at least open the door for potential hardware upgrades.

I don't know how this will continue with Windows 8, though. The prerelease versions almost give me a Sony Playstation feel, which for me is a bit scary . I am looking forward to purchase a new laptop next month running Windows 7.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Apr 23, 2012)

RLPhoto said:


> I Must be the Last person here running an original copy of Windows XP pro 32-bit from 2009!



Lol - right, just you and my entire company of >60,000 employees. : Office 2003 as well. But hey, we're updating to Win7 and Office 2010 this year, or so IT says...then we'll only be a few years behind the times.


----------



## Jamesy (Apr 24, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> Lol - right, just you and my entire company of >60,000 employees. : Office 2003 as well. But hey, we're updating to Win7 and Office 2010 this year, or so IT says...then we'll only be a few years behind the times.



That is the exact reason I am still running WinXP and Office 2003 and although I have various systems at home, I have had a unified desktop between work and home for over a dozen years, it would be hard to go back to two distinct desktops again.



AmbientLight said:


> I don't know, if you have ever tested this, but if not, you could actually try to run your older windows apps on Windows7. This operating system will run most apps designed for WindowsXP without any problems, so it may actually work fine for you. Testing this will at least open the door for potential hardware upgrades.
> 
> I don't know how this will continue with Windows 8, though. The prerelease versions almost give me a Sony Playstation feel, which for me is a bit scary . I am looking forward to purchase a new laptop next month running Windows 7.


It have tested the 'problematic' app on Win7 to no avail. I am hopeful that this year will bring a solution to that issue and I will then upgrade.


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 24, 2012)

Finally got the Lenovo delivered today, was stuck in customs. I don't want to go into too much detail because I've only been using the machine for a few hours and I just now got Photoshop and Lightroom on here. My initial impressions are that this machine should be highly useable for Photographers, at least at first glance. Digital painting on this thing is superior to my Intuos 3 large widescreen tablet, but it's missing brush tilt which is standard in your normal Intuos Tablet pen, it also doesn't support brush rotation which only comes in the 4D Intuos Pen which I had to buy extra for my desktop's Intuos Tablet. I will miss brush rotation more than tilt, but both will be missed only a little, as the regular pressure sensitivity was the main thing I use a tablet for, the others were just nice features and it's sad to lose them, but I knew that going in. The thing has a small resolution, but it doesn't look it, it actually looks perfect for this small sized monitor. Photoshop and Lightroom both look great on the machine with no tweaks, and you have a lot of ways to interact with them. Pen + multi-touch on the screen, multi-touch trackpad, that obscene looking eraser mouse, and any external bluetooth mouse/device you might want. Very useable. But feel free to ask questions if anyone is interested, and I'll probably be back for some better detail once I spend more time on it.


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 24, 2012)

negatives I'm noticing right out of the gate/along the way.

-The main battery that sticks out, it's slightly a loose fit, so it shakes a little
-screen is not evently backlit, very noticable on a dark screen, the corners, especially top left have bight backlight spotting, whatever that is called.
-I think this thing could get broken fairly easily. It is well built, but I'm going to insure it just in case as I suspect it might not be capable of taking a fall.
-Was obviously not designed by artists for artists, however was obviously designed by engineers who tried their best to listen carefully to artists.

So far it's about what you would expect from a 2011-2012, highish end pro-sumer tech gizmo. It does what you thought it would do, and it does it pretty well, but there are some minor caveats. In some areas it outpreforms, like resolution/screen size, that parts actually fine. Pen input is very good, so long as the screen don't fall apart, and we shall see.... A stupid thing, but it has a function button for a thinklight, but it doesn't have the f'in thinklight. The non-tablet version has it, and they couldn't be bothered to change the paint on the key, or better yet, put the light in the machine.


----------



## Jamesy (Apr 24, 2012)

What model of x220t did you end up getting? There appear to be three or four versions: http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/webca/LenovoPortal/en_CA/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=A328080E436749CB4CEAE7C4428846A7


----------



## EELinneman (Apr 24, 2012)

One thing to try is in Win 7 right click on the app and select "Troubleshoot compatibility" and you will be presented a series of options for running the application with compatibility equal to the previous OS that it ran fine as. The other option is to download the Windows XP mode for Win 7. It can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

What you are downloading is a full copy of a virtual machine running XP mode.

Full disclosure - I am a consultant with Microsoft. I was a competitive technology hire 8 years ago and am typing this message out on a Mac Book Pro, so I feel I can be objective.

Recently, we bought my wife a new Samsung Series 7 laptop - 1 TB drive, 8GB of RAM, Core i5 cpu, but most importantly, an IPS screen. She does real estate appraisals and takes hundreds of photos each week. We bought it at the Microsoft store in Lone Tree, CO and I only identified myself as a MSFT employee after we purchased the laptop. It has no crapware and she is very happy with it.

Eric


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 24, 2012)

8GB RAM
Fastest i7 whatever that is
Digitizer + Multitouch {alternative would be no multitouch but outdoor viewing screen}
720Camera+Mic w/ 2x2 antenna {alternative would be no camera but 3x3 antenna}
and the fastest regular wireless card they got without 3G addon.
plus the slice battery

So far, complaints aside. I do like the machine. I just don't want to sit here saying about how great it is without pointing out what could be better, so if you go to buy one, you will know more than I did going in. Also, the keyboard is amazing, better than my desktop Logitech


----------



## Drizzt321 (Apr 24, 2012)

Jettatore said:


> Also, the keyboard is amazing, better than my desktop Logitech



That's what I thought when I got my Thinkpad. Keyboard is great, even if it was a full size desktop keyboard.


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 24, 2012)

Yeah, the keyboard is great, can use the eraser mouse or reach the trackpad with your thumbs, all the touch/pen stuff. I'm already half-way decent with it and it is a great experience, makes having no regular external mouse/keyboard 1000x more viable to me than a regular laptop, and I do use all of the various input options.

One thing that became immediately obvious to me only after I bought the laptop, is that you will probably, for photo-editing, be using this thing in Laptop mode while still drawing on and interacting with the screen, even better if the laptop is lower than you are, like sitting on the floor/bed. This is because Photoshop/Lightroom, etc., are not designed around touch/tablet experience, so anything other than a well thought out sketchbook setup, and using it in tablet mode means you are going to spend a lot of time digging around in menus until you create you own pallets and probably could use help from some custom overlay software buttons (alt, space, ctrl, etc. custom macro functions). It's just a software issue, but as it is, the standard photo editing softwares we are used to are oldschool interface wise and prefer keyboard shortcuts, etc.. There are no programmable function buttons/switches/touch strips on the monitor hardware like there are on an intuos screen to help rid you of the keyboard. 

I wish that there was a software quick panel that gave you access to every button/function etc. of the device in one spot and let you program it as you wish. So far I have not made any customizations, but the middle mouse button under the space bar, is actually a dedicated scroll or zoom button, and there are no options that I can see to easily change it to a regular MMB. It seems customization might be a bit of a chore in this regard, but I can say the defaults aren't half-bad at all. Middle button set to zoom is by far the more useful of the two default options, as scroll is already easy enough on the trackpad or swiping the screen or using arrow keys, etc., and I actually will use the zoom, helps for clicking on really small text links, etc.., still would like to be able to customize what the button does, especially on a per-application basis.

Extra 4GB RAM was pretty easy to install, watched someone do it on youtube before I tried it.


----------



## Jamesy (Apr 24, 2012)

Jettatore said:


> Extra 4GB RAM was pretty easy to install, watched someone do it on youtube before I tried it.


By my limited research on this, it looks like it maxes out at 8GB, correct? I love ThinkPads and this one looks intriguing as an upgrade for me at some point later this year.


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 24, 2012)

That is correct. 8GB max on this model. So far, I think I can safely reccomend the machine for photo-editing away from a workstation or as a complete workstation replacement/solution for those that would find that much more convenient/mobile. If you have a permanent home and a desk, I would set up a dock (monitor, speakers, some sort of easel to use this in tablet mode, DIY ViDock/EGPU for gaming/3D work, etc.) but I'm not going to have that for a while, on the go for now.


----------



## Marsu42 (Apr 24, 2012)

AmbientLight said:


> As for PCs you can definitely not go by specs alone, because quality varies wildly.



My advice for using Lightroom: Get a laptop with sufficient cooling (like a gamer-model without the highest end gpu), because rendering in LR maxes out all cpu cores and generates heat only games would do otherwise. My business-oriented laptop sometimes just shuts down when a little dust is stuck in the cpu exhaust because the designers made it flat and stylish but neglected cooling.

In fact, in Germany there were a couple of trials about this and manufacturers tried to argue that when using a laptop with maxed out cpu for extended periods of time you're voiding your warranty... they didn't succeed, but this tells you something about the usage profile they have in mind.


----------



## AmbientLight (Apr 27, 2012)

The recommendation for gaming laptops is quite valid. The only laptops I know of, which have been optimized for image processing are Sony's VAIO F-Series, but in comparison with something like an Alienware laptop the latter may still be more effective. Has anyone tried such a beast for image processing?


----------



## gngan (Apr 28, 2012)

There are reasons to why so many photographers use Mac. Are they all fanboy? Probably not. 
Most of OP's point of not wanting a Mac can be argue. 

Can't change the battery? Why would you need to change the battery if the battery holds its charges more than any other brand out there? If your battery dies, it's not rocket science to change the battery.

Trackpad with proper buttons? MBP are known to have one of the best or the best trackpad laptop can offer in the market. I think you just need time to get use to it.

One point I agree is if you want a better screen then what Apple currently offer than it's not for you. If Apple releases a retina display then it meets your needs.


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 28, 2012)

One major reason mac is used heavily in the design world is history and familiarity due to history. Way back in the day, PC's could not offer a full color range, so editing software, something akin to Photoshop or Quark or Illustrator or some such, simply couldn't be used to it's fuller potential as you did not have access to as many colors, it was a real hardware limitation and was not usable professionally. This gap in time lead every last design firm/retouching studio straight to Mac, and they didn't just simply switch when PC's got the full range of colors as a standard. Now there is no such special difference between the two comparative systems, but that history has left it's mark.


----------



## briansquibb (Apr 28, 2012)

Jettatore said:


> One major reason mac is used heavily in the design world is history and familiarity due to history. Way back in the day, PC's could not offer a full color range, so editing software, something akin to Photoshop or Quark or Illustrator or some such, simply couldn't be used to it's fuller potential as you did not have access to as many colors, it was a real hardware limitation and was not usable professionally. This gap in time lead every last design firm/retouching studio straight to Mac, and they didn't just simply switch when PC's got the full range of colors as a standard. Now there is no such special difference between the two comparative systems, but that history has left it's mark.



And the colleges/universities push the Macs at their students because the acedemics dont know how to use anything else. I went round a University a year ago and PCs were everywhere - except in the media dept where the professor proudly anounced that they only used Macs in his dept. So everyone that goes there will be indoctrinated and so continue the media industries obsession for Macs. I decided not to go back to uni based on the narrow mindedness and blinkered views of the acedemics which would blind them to different (and possibly progressive) points of view in a subject that is VERY subjective

A personal computer is a box on the desktop with input and output devices. What is important is that it does the function that you want - what is not important is how it does the processing, just that it does.


----------



## Marsu42 (Apr 28, 2012)

Jettatore said:


> One major reason mac is used heavily in the design world is history and familiarity due to history.



The other reason was that the Macs had another font system and print shops were set on that - if you wanted to print something from QuarkXPress on your PC, it was your own risk if they did it at all. Nowadays, as far as I see it there's no difference when using the usual Adobe stuff, they are compatible on Mac and PC, so I'd get the latter. Unless I wanted to impress someone (having a Mac is a good business decision if you're a designer) or get a large student discount: Apple is set on pushing their product to kids and in universities, there are unbelievable price cuts for first users from time to time.


----------



## expatinasia (Apr 28, 2012)

AmbientLight said:


> The recommendation for gaming laptops is quite valid. The only laptops I know of, which have been optimized for image processing are Sony's VAIO F-Series, but in comparison with something like an Alienware laptop the latter may still be more effective. Has anyone tried such a beast for image processing?



The Alienware is good but it is a gaming laptop. 

If you look at the Dell Precision M6600, you will find it a much more formidable "beast". It is probably the best laptop for image editing, HD video editing, and other serious applications on the market.

Of course that very much depends on how you configure it, but there is very little that can beat it.

Unfortunately it is not a "pretty" laptop, nor does it come with any fashion accessories, or in different colours. In fact it is quite large and I often get funny looks in press centres. Not my problem, I know with the config I have it is faster than pretty much anything in the building for what I want it to do.


----------



## RLPhoto (Apr 28, 2012)

Macs are over-rated. I've seen terrible designers use macs and I've seen awesome designers who use PCs and vice versa. 

It's a tool, if you have no vision that tool will never produce anything good either Mac or PC. Adobe products run on either OS and both OS's are stable as long as you know what your doing. Software has come along way too. 

I prefer PC's because it gets me the same results as a Mac but at the fraction of the cost and snobbery. ;D


----------



## Jamesy (Apr 28, 2012)

expatinasia said:


> If you look at the Dell Precision M6600, you will find it a much more formidable "beast". It is probably the best laptop for image editing, HD video editing, and other serious applications on the market.


Wow - crazy specs on the M6600. I used to do the capital budget for a good sized company and the budget for a laptop 15 years ago was 6k and a desktop was 4k. A quick stroll through Dell's site and adding 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD with a second 750GB drive has it up around 6k too. If I had the ca$h I might be tempted but I am poor after buying my 5D3


----------



## 1nsanity (Apr 28, 2012)

The Mac vs PC is an endless debate.

That being said, the following is based on personal experience.

Last year I moved to New Zealand for graduate studies, and purchased a maxed out Lenovo T510. At the time there weren't any quad core, but that model was offered with a 1920x1080 screen. In addition, Lenovo has a 45% discount special (circa September 2010). At the time the equivalent Apple computer was more than double the price I paid(with discount factored in). 

I also purchased an ultra bay HDD rack to replace the dvd-rom and install a secondary HDD. I've used this setup for the past 18 months, used it in New Zealand as well as in Europe where I currently am. The laptop is still solid. I've dropped it a few times, I've even spilled tea twice on the keyboard..... Its solid, its built like a tank and as far as using for photo editing it's been performing beautifully since day one. It's also great to easily swap drives from the HDD ultra bay. 

There are better laptops out there spec wise and I don't know it lenovo runs deals like it did when I purchased mine, but for the money, I still think at the time it was the wises investment, especially that beautiful 1920x1080 95% gamut screen, simply stunning.

If I was to replace my laptop I would certainly get Lenovo's latest T5XX model.


----------



## gabriele (Apr 28, 2012)

The Dell Precision M6600 is quite a nice beast, but money and spec wise for my portable workstation I've chosen a Lenovo Thinkpad W520.
It is completely customizable, you can replace everything and add a second SSD via mSATA port, you can also replace the DVD drive with a bluray drive, with another battery or with another HDD.
It has an awesome FHD wide gamut Adobe RGB 98% screen and about 8-9h of battery life.
Graphic card is Nvidia Quadro, and RAM memory up to 32GB.
It's my personal suggestion. I installed on it Windows, Linux and have Mac OS X running from and external HDD as hackintosh ;-)



Drizzt321 said:


> markIVantony said:
> 
> 
> > I use a Lenovo W500 with the 1920x1200 screen upgrade and switchable graphics It's a tough laptop too.
> ...



Actually I can personally confirm you since I have upgraded mine to 16GB and a friend of mine with exactly the same Lenovo W520 expanded to 32GB I can tell you 32GB is perfectly working but you need to get 8GB sticks.


----------



## expatinasia (Apr 28, 2012)

Jamesy said:


> Wow - crazy specs on the M6600. I used to do the capital budget for a good sized company and the budget for a laptop 15 years ago was 6k and a desktop was 4k. A quick stroll through Dell's site and adding 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD with a second 750GB drive has it up around 6k too. If I had the ca$h I might be tempted but I am poor after buying my 5D3



Whenever you buy a M6600 or any other Dell I would recommend you to buy the minimum RAM and then buy the RAM you want elsewhere as they charge so much. 32GB (4x8GB) is very expensive no matter where you buy it, but 16GB is very affordable now. Plus, if you are on a budget there are Dell Outlets that sell refurbished models etc.


----------



## Jettatore (Apr 29, 2012)

expatinasia said:


> Jamesy said:
> 
> 
> > Wow - crazy specs on the M6600. I used to do the capital budget for a good sized company and the budget for a laptop 15 years ago was 6k and a desktop was 4k. A quick stroll through Dell's site and adding 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD with a second 750GB drive has it up around 6k too. If I had the ca$h I might be tempted but I am poor after buying my 5D3
> ...



That is true for almost every vendor, from Dell to Apple, right on down the line. The only one I know that gives reasonable RAM upgrade pricing is iBuyPower.com and I would recommend checking them out. That said, I'm very happy so far with the Lenovo w/built in Wacom I just got and described earlier, fingers crossed. I got the RAM upgrade directly from them because I haggled with them on the phone and got it for a normal price, which would normally be unusual from a vendor.


----------



## Drizzt321 (Apr 29, 2012)

gabriele said:


> Drizzt321 said:
> 
> 
> > markIVantony said:
> ...



Holy crap! I didn't realize it would support 8GB sticks!


----------



## Michael_pfh (Apr 29, 2012)

I love my MacBook Pro. It's super fast and converting from Windows to Apple was one of the best decisions I ever made.


----------



## steveclix (Apr 30, 2012)

Running the* ASUS G74SX* -* 2Gb Video, 16Gb RAM, 2 HDD bays *- Gaming Beast - never played a game in my life!

Photoshop (CS5 x64) Loads in 1.5 seconds. CorelDraw (x32) loads in less - For the first time in years, I can't keep up with it.

It has super sized fans, which rarely kick in, USB 3 and all the toys to load my RAW and Print ready TIFs really fast.

I usually edit with 2 external 2.5" 1.5Tb USB 3.0 drives attached as all my 'worked files' are kept externally. Loves it... just eats my previous Alienware toybox.

I use an external monitor- K/board sometimes, but the built in screen calibrates easily - what a steal at under $2000 !!!


----------



## xtaski (Apr 30, 2012)

Have you looked at the new Samsung's? The Series 7 and Series 9 laptops are pretty impressive.


----------



## TCull (Apr 30, 2012)

I use a Dell XPS 15.

Intel i7, 8gb DDR3, 1 GB Video Card, 1080p screen. 899.99 from Dell.ca right now, pretty sweet laptop with LR4.


----------



## Chewy734 (Apr 30, 2012)

I have a 13" MBP with 512gb SSD, 16gb RAM. I use LR4, it works great, and I highly recommend it. Here's my review of it:
http://blog.ashuc.com/apple-macbook-pro-ssd-ram-ultimate-laptop/


----------



## kballweg (May 3, 2012)

Know there is a lot of religion in the Mac v. PC wars, but at this particular juncture, unless you really, really need to replace your unit now, I'd wait until June to see what the next jump in screen technology yields. While still totally rumor, the MacBook Pros are probably going to be refreshed with the new intel processors, which is of some value, but from a photographer's point of view new screen technology is looking probable as well. Best guess is an announcement on or near the Apple developer's event in June. 

Mac rumors are a dime per 12, but the screens on the new iPad and reports of supplier ramp ups of new tech, high-res displays in Asia are giving a lot of credence to a major jump in color gamut and resolution that could be significant. Once Macs have it, then PC manufacturers should come along shortly with similar offerings. Know waiting for tomorrow's technology is a bit of fool's errand, but this one is looking like a potential game changer for folks who edit on laptops.


----------



## nesarajah (May 3, 2012)

+1 for the MBP . 8gb of RAM is the magic number.


----------



## Jamesy (May 3, 2012)

nesarajah said:


> +1 for the MBP . 8gb of RAM is the magic number.


Magic for LR or PS or both?


----------



## RichATL (May 3, 2012)

I use an i7MBP (8gb ram and SSD)
and it works well as my every day workhorse.

I have seen some screaming windows machines that are entirely dedicated to running Imaging software...
some are way better performers than the top of the line MBP's...
But the downside (MAJOR downside) is you still have to deal with Windows...


----------



## Marsu42 (May 3, 2012)

Jamesy said:


> nesarajah said:
> 
> 
> > +1 for the MBP . 8gb of RAM is the magic number.
> ...



I'm using LR on a 4GB laptop and it's working fine unless I try to batch-update metatags on 50k+ pictures in one go. The limit doesn't seem to be the ram, but the cpu power because rendering 100% previews with denoising and esp. sharpening is very cpu intensive. PS is another matter, when using multiple layers you cannot have enough ram.


----------



## RunAndGun (May 3, 2012)

I'm a pretty neutral, even keeled guy and the Apple/PC fanatics crack me up. That being said, I have a 2009 17" MBP and I love it. I had PC laptops for 11 years prior(a Gateway and two Dell's) and this is by far my best and favorite computer. My last Dell was a smokin' machine on paper(heck, it had a Blu-ray burner/player built-in in 2007), it just took 12-18 months of Windows updates to make it really useable(it couldn't even automatically load drivers in the beginning, using a USB thumb drive took 10 minutes to "set-up". Lol) I have my gripes with Apple and hate the way they do some things, but for the most part, as has probably been said 10,000 times, they just work. And to the OP, the trackpad is just about the best thing about a MBP. Just make sure you turn OFF the push-to-click in the menu so you just have to tap it(like my Synaptic touchpad (and most others) on my Gateway back in '98). FWIW, most of the pro still guys I know seem to either have Macs or Dells.


----------



## briansquibb (May 4, 2012)

RichATL said:


> I use an i7MBP (8gb ram and SSD)
> and it works well as my every day workhorse.
> 
> I have seen some screaming windows machines that are entirely dedicated to running Imaging software...
> ...



Thank goodness for Windows and its ability to be easily programmed


----------



## nicku (May 4, 2012)

I currently use a HP workstation ( desktop) quad core processor, 8GB ram and Nvidia Quadro graphics attached to a pretty good monitor. Personally i don't like laptops for editing photos.


----------



## briansquibb (May 4, 2012)

nicku said:


> I currently use a HP workstation ( desktop) quad core processor, 8GB ram and Nvidia Quadro graphics attached to a pretty good monitor. Personally i don't like laptops for editing photos.



I agree - I only use mine for tethered shooting


----------



## deliouslily (Jun 16, 2012)

I suggest you choose a desktop to process image because it is more satisfactied than notebook.But if you really do need one,you can find A43EI243SJ-SL or AS4750G-2432G50Mnkk from surbatteries.com


----------



## Jamesy (Jun 16, 2012)

Any thoughts on the new Ultra Books (Mac Book Air knockoff) verses heavier duty laptops talked about here? Most (possibly) all of the ones I have seen have integrated graphics via Intel 3000 or 4000 graphics chip. With the latest ones having i7-gen 3 CPU's they are starting to look mighty appealing.
Essentially it is the Mac Book Air verses Pro debate. I did not want to open this up to a Mac vs PC question


----------



## briansquibb (Jun 16, 2012)

Jamesy said:


> I did not want to open this up to a Mac vs PC question



Whilst I am a PC person, both platforms support our cameras very well - it really is a question of personal choice.


----------



## Jamesy (Jun 16, 2012)

briansquibb said:


> Jamesy said:
> 
> 
> > I did not want to open this up to a Mac vs PC question
> ...



My real question was regarding the latest PC Ultra Books which are very similar to the Mac Book Air in terms of form factor. They are powerful but are they powerful enough to run LR4, CS6 and Adobe Premiere or is that better left for heavier lifting systems?


----------



## briansquibb (Jun 16, 2012)

Jamesy said:


> briansquibb said:
> 
> 
> > Jamesy said:
> ...



I have a one year old Core i5 running at 2.66mhz with 6gb which runs PSE10 and Nik filters without problem. Bit slow on the disk access - but that will apply to MACs as well I assume unless SSDs are installed


----------



## Jamesy (Jun 16, 2012)

For my next machine I am considering one of the latest i7-Gen3 CPU's, at least 8GB and a 250SSD. This is available on the Ultra Book formats but they all have integrated graphics cards, I am wondering if I would be better served by a full blown laptop with separate graphics card for PS CS6 and Premiere.


----------



## Marsu42 (Jun 16, 2012)

Jamesy said:


> They are powerful but are they powerful enough to run LR4, CS6 and Adobe Premiere or is that better left for heavier lifting systems?



For some still shots in Lightroom, any current computer system is adequate. The problems show when having larger series of burst shots, and having to render/compare them - rendering times add up and slow your workflow to a crawl.

For Photoshop, it depends if you are working with lots of layers which eat up memory, but for simple retouching it's not that much different from Lightroom. On the other hand, if anyone buys PS, he/she should have money for a fast box, too.

For video, you want the latest and greatest desktop with fast raid0 disc drives and 4/8 multi-core cpus, don't bother with any laptop system that would just burn through your desk when running at 100% for an extended time.


----------



## nirmamalik (Jul 27, 2012)

View all information about computers and laptops http://www.247mobilenews.com/computers-2/laptops


----------

