Laptop for photographers

[manaheim]

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.

I've been a bit more brief in this thread than I should be, in part because I'm wary of the whole "MAC SUCKS!!! AMIGA RULZ!!!" foolishness that comes up so much in these threads.

You are, however, totally right... I should toss IMOs everywhere.

That being said, I also re-read my post on Dell and I didn't give them enough credit where credit is due. They absolutely can be flimsy, though the XPS machines are pretty much their "sexy" line, so probably not the same as the more typical home or business series machines. (did you have the uber XPS or the entry point model?)

Dell is a good workhorse of a machine, backed by a company that knows how to support and service their models. They have a line of uber stuff for those so inclined. All in all, you really can't go wrong with a good Dell. Of course, buy the cheapest of the cheap, and as Arch said... you get what you pay for.

Apologize for sounding like I was bashing them. TBH, I was actually kind of amused by my flex-o-Dell. As much as I abused it and had to re-bend it back into shape, it always worked. It still works... it's like 6? 8? years old... it's my 6 year-old daughter's computer now and she loves it.

 

[Parkerman]

There's a big jump from "most users won't get much use out of a quad core" to "quad cores are useless". Quad cores are absolutely not useless, though it's certainly possible that they may be overkill. I'm just starting to work with my dual quad core machine now, so I'll have some first hand experience on that in the coming weeks.

As far as Vista is concerned... it's a horrible piece of junk, seriously. Everyone in the industry is up in arms about it, and not just in the usual way that people complain about new OSes (everyone complained about XP as well)

Vista is bloated beyond bloat, it is ridiculously and annoyingly overprotective to a fault, it spends more time worrying about DRM and whether or not you're allowed to use your content, than it does actually allowing you to view it, etc.

The only thing good about it is that it's pretty and it handles multi-core procs better than XP does.

Turn of the User Account Control and the whole "are you sure you want to do this" goes away.

 

[manaheim]

Turn of the User Account Control and the whole "are you sure you want to do this" goes away.

Reducing the list of horrifying offenses by a total of 1.

 

[Rosie.]

I don't know if someone's already said this, but definitely don't go vista. Worst choice ever, I've had mine for a couple of months, and I've had to system restore 4 or 5 times, which wipes the computer of all the files you created.

 

[Overread]

I would say if you go vista pay extra and get Vista Ultimate - it seems to be far more stable and smooth than the home editions

 

[Parkerman]

I don't know if someone's already said this, but definitely don't go vista. Worst choice ever, I've had mine for a couple of months, and I've had to system restore 4 or 5 times, which wipes the computer of all the files you created.

I've had my current computer for a year now, which has vista on it. Not once have I had a problem out of it. And if you do a system restore correctly, It will just restore it back to when there were no problems.

After changing the User Account Control I've had no problems at all with vista... other than it likes to use about a gig of ram.

 

[Village Idiot]

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...

I've been using Ultimate since launch. Works fine for me.

Nothing less than a Macbook. Buy a PC if you want to save a bunch of amazing pictures to your computer, only to have it infected with a crippling virus and lose everything.

Macbooks also suck because of the tiny screen. There's no way you'd catch me trying to use something like that for editing photos.

I would say if you go vista pay extra and get Vista Ultimate - it seems to be far more stable and smooth than the home editions

I think business is the next step up from home. The only difference between business and ultimate is the bit locker drive encryption.

 

[photo28]

Are Dells any good?

 

[tkaat]

I've had my current computer for a year now, which has vista on it. Not once have I had a problem out of it. And if you do a system restore correctly, It will just restore it back to when there were no problems.

I had to, after deleting a program wrongly (had my for a year now 2, and it was really easily and I didn't lose any data but did get the program back but uninstalling it again worked

I was thinking of getting a new laptop myself in a while - a sony FW which most people say is good for the price, $1200 ( I know amazing for sony), but still can't decide if i should get it or if a macbook pro is really worth the extra $800 (which i could have to go for photoshop CS3 and Lightroom2 acedemic)

 

[Raze]

Macbooks also suck because of the tiny screen. There's no way you'd catch me trying to use something like that for editing photos.

There's no way i'd by ANY laptop for photo editing, the screens just don't cut it (but you could get a monitor to plug into it when you are at home and the mac studio monitors are great).
Photoshop is very memory hungry - both kinds of memory, thinking and storing, as it uses the hard drive as a scratch disk, so make sure you have plenty of both.
I use mac at work (oh I love my brand new 24" imac ) and a great PC at home (my hubby's in IT so has built it from scratch) but for graphic work I prefer the mac.

 

[chrisburke]

I've never used anything but my macbook for photography and I have no complaints at all.. i grab my macbook, go to starbucks grab a coffee and edit away... i've never had anything buy good results.

2 things.. someone complained about photoshop on a macbook.. i think they were saying its slow.. I use photoshop every day, for a lot of stuff (i'm a graphic designer in my spare time) and photoshop runs just fine on my macbook.. obviously it runs better on macbook pro, but i've never had any issues with my macbook running it.

also someone complained about no right click.. if you know anything about macs, you know that the macbooks do have a right click.. if you have it set up properly all you do is place 2 fingers on the track pad and click the mouse button... i have no issues with this.. and if you cant figure that out, buy the mighty mouse, or any usb mouse with a right click, but the macbook does have it..

 

[chrisburke]

Are Dells any good?

not at all

 

[usayit]

if you know anything about macs, you know that the macbooks do have a right click.. if you have it set up properly all you do is place 2 fingers on the track pad and click the mouse button... i have no issues with this.. and if you cant figure that out, buy the mighty mouse, or any usb mouse with a right click, but the macbook does have it..

It is really funny how so little people know about that feature...

My vote is for a Mac and those that have been around here a while know why. I'm also in the camp that editing should be done with a nice monitor rather than on the laptop display.

 

[usayit]

Are Dells any good?

At my work, we've had quality issues with Dells but nothing too major. Unfortunately, my mother-in-law has already exchanged her laptop 3 times and is currently trying to work up the food chain at Dell to get her issues resolved. She would have an even sharper opinion of Dell.

 

[manaheim]

I've never used anything but my macbook for photography and I have no complaints at all.. i grab my macbook, go to starbucks grab a coffee and edit away... i've never had anything buy good results.

2 things.. someone complained about photoshop on a macbook.. i think they were saying its slow.. I use photoshop every day, for a lot of stuff (i'm a graphic designer in my spare time) and photoshop runs just fine on my macbook.. obviously it runs better on macbook pro, but i've never had any issues with my macbook running it.

also someone complained about no right click.. if you know anything about macs, you know that the macbooks do have a right click.. if you have it set up properly all you do is place 2 fingers on the track pad and click the mouse button... i have no issues with this.. and if you cant figure that out, buy the mighty mouse, or any usb mouse with a right click, but the macbook does have it..

Doesn't that strike you as a little silly? This is the kind of thing that really burns my biscuits with Apple. "We're different, we're special, we don't need or want your silly right mouse button!"... and then jump through hoops for the same functionality that having such a button would provide.

Doofy.

not at all

You are a professed Mac user and have "never used anything but my macbook for photography"... don't you think, maybe, you are a little biased?

Dells as a whole are "fine", but there is also a wide range of "Dells" from the Alienware and XPS devices down to the clunkiest cheapest consumer-grade notebook you can get. They all work and are pretty reliable and reasonably well designed, but some are better suited to certain situations than others.

Personally, I like Lenovo machines better, but Dells are "fine".

You get what you pay for, and you need to choose carefully.