Getting new laptop. Need something for editing...

The OP asked about a new laptop, which I tried to answer. Although I didn't talk about tablets, because I personally have never used a tablet (I've used a few from HP, Panasonic, Sony) that was worth it. The current full PC tablets with a swivel screens are a gimmick in my opinion.

The only three things the MBP hardware has on that machine is price, size, and weight; the Alienware trumps the 17" i7 MBP every other way.

Hence, I said that the Macbook Pro hardware beats everything you can get in the Windows world. I don't know about you, but nearly everyone I know that uses a notebook cares a great deal about size, weight, and battery life.

Yes, you can get a more powerful laptop from Alienware, HP, Asus, or Dell. But you won't get:

1. A slim form factor
2. Relatively light weight compared to the Windows based offerings
3. ****ty battery

Congratulations, you have an i7 with 8GB of RAM and a 750GB hard drive. And 3 hours of battery life in real world scenarios, max.

When I'm shooting in the field or taking audio samples in the field, I like knowing my laptop will go 7+ hours on a single charge.

And I'm going to be out shooting while you're still waiting for your batch of photos to be converted from RAW to JPEG.

I never said the form factor wasn't an issue, I'm just stating that you can definitely find wintel notebooks with superior hardware.
 
I looked at the requirements for CS5 photoshop and they are pretty low. But typically what they tell you in terms of a system you need is misguiding to say the least.

I bet any PC that has at least 2gigs of ram with multiple cores to process on can run photoshop smoothly. But that probably wouldn't multitask well.

As for what to buy look at consumer reports on what models work the best, and browse some forums for user opinions. I personally recommend Sony and IBM laptops I have had good luck with those.

I have a 3 ghz processer, 4 gigs of RAM, SATA drives, and a dedicated 512MB DDR3 ATI card and Photoshop still gets a little slow at times. I would recommend maxing out as much as you can if you plan on using photoshop a lot. ( of course I don't have dual cores and am running 32bit, so you may be not too far from the truth on your statement ) :mrgreen:
 
The best advice, IMHO, are the threads about monitor calibration. Most laptops won't calibrate very well. Your finished prints will only look as good as your monitor calibration.
 
You only need three things. Fast processor, high memory, and a good monitor. Done. I had a really fast Mac, but in terms of price:performance, PC will always win.
 
I am a PC and a Mac user. I pretty much stay with Mac now. The hardware debate can go one for ages but one thing is undeniable:

The second you go on the web for the first time with the PC, you will get flooded with spyware, adware and viruses. Anti-virus software will at best protect you from less than 50% of whats out there. For every virus thats killed, 1000 more are created. With my PC, top-end security suite and behind a router, I had to purge my system every other week.

While I cannot speak much about windows 7 since I haven't used it, I can say that windows is always running tons of background services that eat RAM. Windows 7 may have addressed that to a degree but I guarantee when you look at your task manager and look at all processes running, you would be dumbfounded.

Macs are more elegant and trimmed down to the basics. Its the user who decides how things run. The file system is straight forward and easy to navigate. It is more customizable than windows. Preferences are easy to understand and making changes is a snap. Viruses are a non-issue. I have no antivirus on any of my Macs and I have no problems with viruses. It's very liberating.

Only thing I would ever use a PC for is gaming and that's all I do with mine. Mac is better for everything else. There is a reason it is the most used platform in the creative and music industries. A lot of companies that I have freelanced in were switching to Macbooks or iMacs for their office staff. They are simply more dependable.
 
I looked at the requirements for CS5 photoshop and they are pretty low. But typically what they tell you in terms of a system you need is misguiding to say the least.

I bet any PC that has at least 2gigs of ram with multiple cores to process on can run photoshop smoothly. But that probably wouldn't multitask well.

As for what to buy look at consumer reports on what models work the best, and browse some forums for user opinions. I personally recommend Sony and IBM laptops I have had good luck with those.

I have a 3 ghz processer, 4 gigs of RAM, SATA drives, and a dedicated 512MB DDR3 ATI card and Photoshop still gets a little slow at times. I would recommend maxing out as much as you can if you plan on using photoshop a lot. ( of course I don't have dual cores and am running 32bit, so you may be not too far from the truth on your statement ) :mrgreen:

The reason photoshop might be slightly lagging is you have a single core processor. Soon as you go dual core you will see an immediate improvement. Your RAM might be DDR1 (just because I'm thinking you have an old system with the single core, socket 478) that alone is a huge bottle neck. And as for the graphics card, it may help but it isn't a huge factor in photoshop performance.
 
The best advice, IMHO, are the threads about monitor calibration. Most laptops won't calibrate very well. Your finished prints will only look as good as your monitor calibration.

:thumbup: +1 I have absolutely no problem calibrating the monitor on my 17" MBP. But the minute I leave it and come back the I am not viewing it at the same angle as when I calibrated it. An external monitor solves these problems.
 
I just give you fully loaded computer description over here for you.

Hard disk: 160 GB Enough
Processor: core to due
Monitor: Flatron or LCD
RAM: 4 GB enough
 

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