Fried Laptop.. Talk me into another, or not...

BobbyMarshall

Ok, here is my dilemma.

for the past month my laptop (Toshiba, intel 1.73 dual core, 2gig ram, Nvida go7600.) has been glitching a bit, especially in the video. Getting slower, running hotter, etc..

A few days ago, I set up a program to stitch togather about 40.tiff fles, then went to bed. I woke up the next day only to notice that about 1/3 of my monitor was working. After a couple days of this, I knew it was time to operate. I took apart my laptop, looked around inside for the mouse that was eating away at the processor. after not finding anything, I put the laptop back togather, similar to how it was(see p.s. below)... Still, only 1/3 of the screen worked.

A laptop is very convinent, its nice to take from room to room, and to take outside on the deck in in the summer. But as far as raw processing power goes, I dont think there quite to the level of an equal aged desktop.

I am currently trying to decide what would be best to buy.. A macbook pro would be nice, there trendy i guess, and do OK in graphics. Another PC compatable laptop would be cheaper for equal or even greater specs. And lastly I could build a desktop that would stitch photos and process probably better than even the most upgraded version of a macbook pro, for a little over $1000.

My needs are amature photography, photochop CS4, lightroom, stitching photos. blending HDr, etc..

I dont want to get something that will just get me by... I want something that will last a few years. And eventually I would like to get paid to do photography, either portraits, weddings or whatever.

I will stop my rant now, I am tired and I am getting about 1 frame per second on the 1/3 of the screen I can see.

I guess my question is, shoud I go for a laptop or a desktop? :dunno

Id like to keep the cost around 1000-$1500 usd, any more than that I will have to sell my 17-55 2.8 and downgrade to a 50mm 1.4, which I have considered..

please excuse my cluttered thoughts posted here, I am just frustrated about this unexpected laptop failure...



p.s. all laptops come with extra parts, correct?:scratch

cdonovan

it's a million dollar question! I have a utilitarian laptop (which I bought to take on location for shoots, so I can upload photos from cards) I have ps on it and have attempted to take it room to room to edit, but I have always found it very awkward to do anything other than surf the net with! I've never been able to find a location that makes editing easy, not to mention dragging the hard drives with me! I really prefer a desk top because it forces me to set up a safe place to use a computer, with a 10 year old in the house, safe is a big issue! lol

I find I'm more productive and get a lot more accomplished when I'm comfortable sitting in my chair at the desk!
I don't know if I really gave you an answer, more so an opinion of what I would chose if I was in your shoes!

Art Scott

I have a HP desktop that I have used for a very long time (it is a mere Plll with 512 ram and a 1ghz processor).....here is one that should serve you well for upto 5 or 6 yrs............ link to TIGER DIRECT HERE ..........I did not replace mine with a ready made.....I chose to build mine and ordered all parts from Tiger Direct and got a $1200 machine for just over $300 and and now awaiting on rebates to lower the cost to under $300...................but I ould not be loking at a laptop for everyday hard use unless it was a desktop replacement and those are HEAVY and expensive ($2500 + )

WingsOfLovePhoto

My vote would be for a MAC 20 or 24 inch desktop. Great for editing photos. No virus's, popups, etc.... LOVE MY MAC!! I also have an external HD for backup. I Could never do editing or storing on my laptop. (a pc with vista ugh). It is good for other things but wouldn't rely on it for my photography. Good luck with your purchase!

BobbyMarshall

cdonovan, thanks for the input.. the laptop was/is my only computer for the last ~2 years. portability is mostly jsut like you say, makes it easier to surf the web.. i think acer makes $150 laptops that could be used for that now..

Art, thanks for the Tiger direct suggestion... I will have to look into them for pricing putting togather a PC, comparing them to newegg's parts on price/performance..


WingsofLove, a mac desktop is kinda out of my thoughts, for the same amount of money you can get wayy more in a PC, not to mention the RAM limitations with a mac. Unless it was one of the mac pro $4,000+ ones. but thats not within my budget. Also, I've used Vista (heavily/daily) since it launched, never had any problems with it..




I have 3TB of external storage already..


Over the past few months I decided that the laptop was going to last me a couple more years, SO I went ahead and spent quite a bit on other photography gear/ lighting etc... then, as murphys law would put it... my laptop dies..

yesterday I was 50/50 laptop mac/desktop pc...
today I am 30/70 laptop/pc desktop

thanks.

cmason

I have used 3 laptops and 2 desktops for various photo work. These include a P3 desktop with XP, a iMac 24", a Thinkpad with XP, an HP laptop with Vista, and a newer aluminum Macbook.

I use the desktops as my primary photo workstation. This is more due to the fact that the laptops were used for other purposes, so were not dedicated to photos. My images are in a network attached hard drive, so switching is fairly easy for me. I use Lightroom and CS2/CS3 on these machines (not at same time of course).

Here is my view:

The Pentium 3 desktop was struggling with Lightroom, but CS2 was fine. It was time to replace it. A Core2Duo chip, any Core2Duo chip, has PLENTY of power to do any photo editting you throw at it. Do not get an AMD machine.

A laptop is SUPER convenient, as it can be taken on travel, shoots and grandma's house. All these laptops are Core2Duo, and only the HP does not have dedicated graphics. They handle Lightroom and CS2 just fine. Faster machines are better for Lightroom. It makes a difference if you are powered via battery vs powercord, as depending on setting, these laptops power down the processor on battery. The only downside for a laptop has been the monitor.


The monitor is the biggest issue with a laptop. It just simply is not good for photo editing. Colors shift depending on angle of the screen and your head, and aside from the Mac, they just aren't that bright. (The HP and Macbook have glossy screens, but that hasn't been that big a deal with a laptop...since they easily move away from glare).

On the other hand, the iMac 24" has a tremendous, IPS monitor, that is absolutely beautiful, holds a calibration perfectly and does not color shift on angle or my head (it is non-glossy, btw). IMHO, this should be what you spend your money on: processors, memory, harddrives are generic and don't impact your images that much. Monitors do. (the iMac is a great deal if you consider what a desktop/laptop + IPS monitor will cost)

Another note: the HP laptop is crap. Software wise, it is fine, but stuff is falling off, the plastic bezel around the screen is falling off, the CD drive drawer pops out 10billion times a day, etc. I will not buy another one.

The Thinkpad is built like a tank. It is an extremely competent travel laptop, but the price point is just too high for someone who just needs a laptop for home use. ( I have this for business purposes).

The Macbook is built like a tank, and is a wonderful machine. It is very very sturdy, there is no CD tray that pops out. The build quality is incredible, and reminds me of the Thinkpad. However, the reason I am switching to Mac's at home and with family, is because they are easier to maintain for me, and the mess with antivirus, spam,etc is something I don't want to mess with any longer. For those who are not computer people, which is everyone but me in my family, with the Mac, I find they do not get into trouble like they do with the Windows PC. (OK everyone who has had to remove the spyware from the TV add for FinallyFaster.com raise their hand) Thats my opinion, but I do much less 'support' for the Macs today. The Macbook is $1100, compared to the HP laptop (DV6000) which cost $900, so the difference is not much.

Another plus is that the Mac OS, IMHO, is much better at memory handling than I have experienced with XP. I find I can run much more software without any impact to perceived performance, that I can with XP. I have no problem running VMWare Fusion with Windows XP, Photoshop CS3, Lightroom, Mail, Firefox and MS Word on my iMac, all in different Spaces desktops. Lightroom doesn't slow down at all, doesn't seem to notice. Also of note is that I run XP on this machine as I indicated, thus I keep all my windows only apps like S*E, and PaintshopPro, etc.


So, my vote is for an iMac, or Macbook (not Pro, don't see an advantage). If you choose a Dell or something, no matter what, I recommend a really good monitor ('free' with the iMac). Check out the Dell 24" and 30".

Richard

Things to keep in mind:

• Laptops all give less bang for the buck than desktops.
• You can't build your own laptop
• Laptops are a lot more convenient than desktops but are more fragile.
• Aside from adding memory, laptops have limited upgrade possibilities.
• Macs cost more than Windows machines of similar hardware power, but are widely believed to be more user friendly.

In your price range and with your experience, I would seriously look at rolling your own desktop machine. If you don't go too hog wild on the monitor, you could even have enough left over in your budget to pick up a netbook for photo storage when you are on the road.

Just my .02 €.

pathfinder

You can buy a 24 in iMac for $1499 with 4 Gb memory - that is within your budget, and you get a newer monitor to boot!

I like my MBP, but I do not edit images on it, for that I prefer the carefully calibrated screen real estate of my desk top computer.

Elliot

Hi, it's a dilemma. I would second the choice of a large screen iMac. I say this as someone who would get one if were in the market, not as an owner. I have a hi-ish res dualcore 2.2ghz Thinkpad, which I'm beginning to detest.