Laptop for photographers

Paul M · Aug 16, 2008

I agree that you should get what you are comfortable with. With that said, I am on my 4th Dell and I have found that the extra $250.00 for the "in-home-warranty" is worth it if you use it just once. I did on one of my laptops a few years ago and I won't get another computer unless I get this awesome service. I can fix desktops but laptops are a little more difficult.

Now, away from the "repair" thoughts. I thought I would stand up to the Vista bashers and describe what I use for my at home system as well as in the field. I have an Inspiron E1505 with Centrino Duo 1.83Ghz, DVD Burner, 2 gigs of memory, 80gig hard drive (500 gig external via USB), and Vista.

I backup all of my pictures to not only my 500gig external, but one of my desktop networked machines while at home. (1TB is soon to come). My personal preference for a good laptop for photography is at least 2gb of memory, a large hard drive, and chip speed, as well as a good graphics card. This is how I would go if you use your laptop for your main machine (which I do so when I get in the field, I don't "accidentally leave something important on my desktop").

Good luck with whatever you decide.

speed_dmon · Aug 16, 2008

elemental said:
I was curious, and the new entry level Macbook Pro comes with a dual-core 2.4ghz processor and 2gb of RAM. Now, the cheapest one is still $2,000, but that's a big upgrade from what mine was two years ago.

This is the one I just received yesterday actually (and im on right now). It is my first Mac and I love it. I used a student discount even though I'm not a student anymore. I just went to the website for the school I used to attend and there was a link to the discounted online Apple store. It was an amazing deal at $1799 plus they give you $299 towards an iPod of your choice. I am selling the iPod so the discount on the laptop equates to a bit more.

Parkerman · Aug 16, 2008

elemental said:
I was curious, and the new entry level Macbook Pro comes with a dual-core 2.4ghz processor and 2gb of RAM. Now, the cheapest one is still $2,000, but that's a big upgrade from what mine was two years ago.

I just recently bought an HP, 15.4 in monitor, 3 gigs of ram, dual core 2.2ghz processors, 250gig harddrive. $799. only sucky thing about it is the 128bit integrated graphics card, That only comes into effect though if i boot up wow on it or something.

manaheim · Aug 16, 2008

Overread said:
you don't need Vista unless you play games -- that is really the only big reason.
Most stores will happily "downgrade" a computer from vista to xp if you ask them - and the current edition of xp is well supported, balanced and not as big a system hog.

Well, if you want games that require DX10...

And TBH, Vista needs to burn a slow and painful death. Vista is the worst thing to come out of Redmond... since... well, ever...

chrisburke · Aug 16, 2008

i use mac, so obviously i'll say get a mac.. but if I can offer advice.. if you decide to stick with windows DONT BUY A DELL they are great for a year or 2, then they crap out... I'm the only staff member in my office who uses mac, the rest use dells, and every 2 years they have to buy new ones.. and I'm not exaggerating... and they arent noob computer users, they are graphic designers

danjchau · Aug 16, 2008

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manaheim · Aug 16, 2008

Dells are a little... flimsy.

I had one that I noticed was wobbling on the desktop. I literally picked it up, and twisted it from corner to corner. I put it back down and it wasn't wobbly anymore. Eek.

Their "business class" machines are a little better, but frankly I ain't impressed with them overall.

The Lenovo boxes are ugly as sin, but IMO they're really the best overall machine you can get. Very solid, good traveller features, very reliable, and... amazingly... very compatible. (this was a foreign concept to Thinkpad users back in the 90s.)

Easy_Target · Aug 16, 2008

From the looks of those specs, that thing must weigh about 10lbs. o.o;;

Personally I don't like Thinkpads in the slightest. They're great for business people, but for heavy usage (college student, art student), they're highly inadequate.

manaheim · Aug 16, 2008

Easy_Target said:
From the looks of those specs, that thing must weigh about 10lbs. o.o;;

Personally I don't like Thinkpads in the slightest. They're great for business people, but for heavy usage (college student, art student), they're highly inadequate.

That's an intriguing statement... how are college students heavier users than business folks? And how does a Thinkpad not hold up, exactly?

I'm genuinely curious what makes you say this.

icassell · Aug 16, 2008

I am a medical imaging user. Our Dells get heavy use -- desktops and laptops -- and function reliably.

JerryPH · Aug 17, 2008

Dells for reasonable price, poor performance and poorer customer support.

- Toshiba for the bells and whilstles.
- IBM for less bells and whistles but ROCK solid stability.
- HP for a few gimmicks, higher price, acceptable performance and stability.

I prefer the Toshiba Satellites because I am an advanced computer user and have access to hardware and software and I can get new Toshiba laptops at about 40% of retail when it is for personal use. My last Satellite I've owned now for 3 years (a P4 3.4 w/2gig and 17" screen) and have never had to reinstall XP on it. It is as stable and solid today as it was the day I originally installed the OS and the performance is excellent. I run several home applications on it such as Pinnacle Studio Pro, Adobe Flash, Photoshop CS3 and many more... often several at the same time. It has a builtin wireless adapter (nothing to break off that hangs from the side) and the screen is calibrated monthly with a Spyder 2 Pro for accurate picture rendition.

Works for me!

Arch · Aug 17, 2008

Well.. as general advice, as with anything in life you get what you pay for.

All the anti-Dell users should certainly edit thier posts and insert 'IMO' next to thier statements

You can not paint the entire Dell range and service with the same brush, thier machines perform completely different depending on which series and spec you go for... and thier customer service, like any major company, will vary depending on staff, location, type of enquiry... etc etc...

Just to prove a point.

I have a Dell... i bought a high end Dell XPS laptop. I use it for graphic design, photography, gaming, movie/music media and much more.

It is fast, it is powerful, it has a great screen, it does everything i want it to do and since buying it I have never looked back.

Last year i had a problem with my game graphics... i wasn't sure if it was updates or a hardware problem that was causing it.
After speaking to Dell (i only had the normal year warrenty not an extended service at this point) they sent a technician out within 2 days, he sat patiently and ran a series of tests, he was helpful and polite and went through all the possible problems with me. He finally decided it probably was the graphics card and so replaced it on the spot. There was of course no charge, all i had to do was the first phone call.

Overall I would give 9/10 for performance, value for money and service, but even this is of course IMO and your experiences may vary.

Easy_Target · Aug 17, 2008

manaheim said:
Easy_Target said:

Personally I don't like Thinkpads in the slightest. They're great for business people, but for heavy usage (college student, art student), they're highly inadequate.

Click to expand...

That's an intriguing statement... how are college students heavier users than business folks? And how does a Thinkpad not hold up, exactly?

I'm genuinely curious what makes you say this.

My university issues Thinkpad laptops (Models: R40, R50, R52, R60 and T60 for faculty) to both students and faculty (approx. 15,000 students, 1500 faculty). There is ALWAYS a line of at least 6 people waiting outside the repair shop to get their laptop repaired. This will be my fifth and final year there (thank god). Anectdotally, these things are piss poor in terms of performance.

Hard drive failures
Screens are too delicate
Inadequate cooling
Inadequate performance

To date, I've had to get the hard drive replaced on average 3-4 times a semester for drive failures. About three semesters ago, over the entire semester, I had to get the hard drive replaced a total of NINETEEN times.

Another common problem is cracked LCD screens. Those things crack ridiculously often. This is from just regular carrying from class to class. It results in numerous lines of dead pixels running vertically. I have a Compaq laptop that I got for $300 at Staples a year after I was issued the thinkpad. Not once have I ever had any issues on the Compaq, despite giving it the same treatment.

The built-in heatsinks don't do enough of a job to keep the laptops cool. A couple times I had it plugged in to write a paper in the library. It was hot to the touch almost to the point of being able to burn you. This was over the hard drive, keyboard and heatsink.

In terms of performance the lower end laptops are a joke. One of my classmates got it brand new, just issued. They installed AIM Triton on it and it immediately bogged down. Just several programs at one time and it makes the system slow to a crawl, so much for multi-tasking. For the art students this is a sticking point. I've installed CS2 on these things before and it takes FOREVER to do anything with regards to CS2.

The freshman and sophomores use their laptops in class, but the juniors and seniors stopped carrying them for the most part. The reason is because it's just not worth the effort.

Since I've been issued it, this is the list of things that have had to be replaced (since 2004) and the reason.

LCD screen x 1 (cracked)
RAM x 1 (failure because of cooling issues)
Motherboard x 1 (failure because of cooling issues)
Hard drive x 30+ (general drive failures)
Keyboard x 1 (key/trackpoint failure) **Will be replaced when semester starts**

When it comes to PCs, I'm a power user. I expect good performance and I'll tweak system settings to make it so. I did that for the thinkpad and it's still inadequate for the needs of a college student, much less an artist.

As much as I hate DELL computers for their substandard & proprietary parts, not to mention crappy customer service, I'd actually recommend a DELL laptop over a Thinkpad laptop for heavy usage.

Alpha · Aug 17, 2008

Dual core, 64 bit, 4gigs of ram, 250gig+ HD. That's what I'd go for.

I know Vista has it's problems but as far as I'm concerned, RAM is far more important and 32 bit OS's can't allocate more than 3.2 gigs.