Laptop Specs

Clixphoto

I'm looking at buying a laptop and need some help deciding what features I need.

I will be using it mainly for photo editing with photo shop. I will also use it to upload photo's to my website.

What should I be looking for as far as hard drive and memory, screen resolution, processor....?

I'm have only basic computer skills but I'm not completely ignorant.

Thanks for any help,

Wes
Clix Photography
clix-photo.com

Bad spellers of the world, UNTIE!

catspaw

First off:

Mac or PC?

Clixphoto

catspaw wrote:

First off:

Mac or PC?

PC.

Newsy

Will you be doing most of your photo editing at home?

If you are, I'm going to suggest to you the following.

Buy any laptop that has at least a P8600 Intel Core Duo CPU, 4GB RAM, a 320GB Hard Drive, and preferably a discrete graphics card. If you can find one with a DVI output port, that is preferred. An eSATA port is a plus as you will likely need lots of external storage for images, both for originals and backups. You can probably buy something like this for around $1000.

I recently bought an ASUS N80v within that price range but there are good units from HP (the form factor of the ASUS looks a lot like the HP's so it would not surprise me if the same Taiwanese designer/OEM is behind both) and others.

Then, and this is the critical step, get an external monitor and connect it via the DVI port or VGA port if need be.

I strongly suggest you consider this monitor:

Dell 2209WA 22" 1680x1050 e-IPS panel TFT LCD
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Displays/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=04&sku=320-7825

It has a sale price at this writing of $229USD. If I was you, I'd buy this monitor today while it is on sale and then figure out what laptop to get.

It has an IPS panel which is the best TFT LCD panel you can use for image editing. Excellent viewing angles, true 8bit, calibrates well.

The reason I'm emphasizing this is that every current laptop screen is, imho, cr@p for image editing. There is not one laptop out there in production, to the best of my knowledge, that has a good quality screen in it.

If you're going to spend $600 plus on Photoshop software you should at least use a screen that will show the results to their best and the only way to do it is via an external monitor.

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Clixphoto

Thanks Newsy.

I will do most of my portrait editing and all final editing on my desk top. For this reason I don't think I need another monitor as I already have a wonderful 22" Dell monitor. I will put photo shop on the machine because it will be nice to have the option of working on a file away from home. However I will always use my calibrated desk top monitor for final prints.

Most of my work is in youth sports action. As a perfectionist, I torture myself by pre-cropping some 300-400 pictures before uploading to my website. I have toyed with the idea that the parents can do that themselves but I always feel better having this done the first time a perent sees their childs photo. I would like to be able to do these simple edits while traveling.

I have found an HP Pavilion DV6-1030US notebook. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor T6400 as well as the 320 GBdrive and 4GB memory you mentioned. How does this processor compare to your suggestion?


Thanks for your input,
Wes

http://www.clix-photo.com/

Newsy

Clixphoto wrote:

*snip*

I have found an HP Pavilion DV6-1030US notebook. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor T6400 as well as the 320 GBdrive and 4GB memory you mentioned. How does this processor compare to your suggestion

Looking back, I probably meant to suggest the P8400 as a minimum. This was to ensure you had enough horsepower but better power savings than the P8600 or P8700. This is as compared to the laptops I saw being discounted in stores a couple of months ago with T5750 and T2300 CPU's.

But there is a whole new generation of CPU's since December and the T6400 looks pretty good to eye.


http://processorfinder.intel.com/List.aspx?ProcFam=2643&sSpec=&OrdCode=

SLGJ4 2.00 GHz T6400 2 _800 MHz 45 nm R0 2 MB Micro-FCPGA N/A
SLB4M 2.26 GHz P8400 2 1066 MHz 45 nm M0 3 MB Micro-FCBGA N/A


Great benchmarks....
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/processors,6.html


There is a lot of good info at this site...
http://www.notebookreview.com/

My laptop with its' P8600 and 4G RAM is faster than my desktop which I built a year ago with an E6750 CPU and 4G RAM.

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Clixphoto

Lots of great information. I like the Dell XP16 in the review but I'm not sure if the extra $500 would be worth it for me. I'm fairly new at this professionally so I think it would be wiser for me to invest in higher grade glass and go with a cheaper (although slower) laptop. Do you think I'm way off base?

Wes
http://www.clix-photo.com/

Newsy

Clixphoto wrote:

Lots of great information. I like the Dell XP16 in the review but I'm not sure if the extra $500 would be worth it for me. I'm fairly new at this professionally so I think it would be wiser for me to invest in higher grade glass and go with a cheaper (although slower) laptop. Do you think I'm way off base?

Wes
http://www.clix-photo.com/

No, you're not off base imho. I'm a fan of getting the best glass within reason. You can always come back in a year or two to re-edit a top quality image with better editing software for your own personal enjoyment.

I don't use Adobe CS3/CS4 (though I have trialed LR2.3 on my system) so I can't say what the impact would be on PP time and if you are a pro, time is money. The Tom's Hardware site has a benchmark for Photoshop CS3 rendering.

I'd ensure you have the 4GB of RAM - don't go to 2GB to save $$$. Cut back on the CPU to save $$$. I think the RAM is more beneficial for convenient editing.

You may want to scrutinize your OS choice. WinXP and Vista 32bit will only see 3GB and a bit of that 4GB. Vista 64bit will see and use all of that 4GB. But 64bit Vista may not run some of your older software - particularly programs that use a older database engine. I have not found it an issue except with an old version of ACT! contact management software and Sony's Picture Motion Browser software (critical issues!).

The newest Adobe CS4 will take advantage of high end graphics chipsets to refresh images on the fly. For a laptop, you'd have to ensure you get a discrete GPU from Nvidia or ATi, not an on board built-in graphics chipset like an Intel GMA 900/950 or x3100/x4500.

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