Good laptop

nikon90s · Jul 22, 2007

I am looking for a new computer laptop. I am not really keeping up with computers so I will ask you for some help. What should I look for? I would use it for my photography and maybe for some work (programing hometheater system remotes and home audio systems) . I know it I stay with mac that I will have to keep my old POS laptop for my work but it seems to be doing good for now. I now have a 2 year old iMac but am not set on mac, it seems to be easer to get free programs for windows or so I have been told

There are too many computers to pick from mac, dell, HP, sony so on and so forth. I just want something that is fast and that I can PS my photos.

Biest · Jul 22, 2007

It really greatly depends on how much PS you want to do and what type of photos you handle. Usually my recommendation would be a MacBook Pro (MBP) with 2 or 4 GBs of ram and maybe more VRAM if you use Aperture.

Iron Flatline · Jul 22, 2007

What operating system you use is a simple personal preference these days, as both Mac and Windows programs use the same kernel now that Mac has switched. The relevant programs will run equally well on both Mac and PC, it's just a question of what kind of interface you like.

That means that Biest is right when he points out that all that matters is how much Photoshop you actually want to do: get as much memory as possible, because imaging software is a huge memory hog. Also, get as fast a chip as possible, because imaging is actually rather processor-intensive. Finally, get a big fat hard-drive so you can store a lot of data, but (of course) have a good back-up strategy that you execute regularly and faithfully.

So, spend as much money as you possibly can. Sorry, there's no other way to dress that up for you.

I have a Sony Vaio, and I am constantly pleased and surprised by how well it works, and how fast. I think that Macs are over-priced, and are a premium item benefiting from a lot of marketing and blind faith. For years there used to be no alternative, but those days are definitely and officially over - Macs and PCs are equally good at photo and video... but PCs are 30% less than Macs.

Iron Flatline · Jul 22, 2007

By the way, there are a lot of Mac faithful here, and I don't want to start one of the Mac vs. PC threads. They're both perfectly fine systems.

deanimator · Jul 22, 2007

Something to think about with laptops...

How portable do you want to be? That has a bit to do with what size screen...15" or 17"? A big difference in size and weight!

Screen quality: Check it out....they range from very basic (you may hate it when in PS), to extremely high quality...and therefore a BIG difference in price.

With a new laptop now you will almost certainly have to use Vista...therefore 2 - 4 GB of RAM is important. If you can pick one up still with XP it´s a bit less of a RAM hog.

I use a Sony, with XP Pro SP2, 1.7 GHz Centrino, 1GB RAM, 120GB HD, 14" screen with 1400 x 1050 pixels.
It´s pretty good but at times I wish for a dual core 2 GHz + 2GB RAM...
BIG plus: it only weighs 2kg and goes in my backpack with me everywhere.

ANDS! · Jul 22, 2007

T61 Thinkpad. 14.1 inch widescreen. This one is next up on my to buy list.

Biest · Jul 22, 2007

Iron Flatline said:
By the way, there are a lot of Mac faithful here, and I don't want to start one of the Mac vs. PC threads. They're both perfectly fine systems.

I don't want to start anything here as well, but on the over-prized thing is an old thing that is not true anymore. The Dell vs. Apple comparison has shown that Apple is cheaper. I dunno about HP or others. Sony is usually expensive from my experience.

For photos i usually prefer the mac and i am switching back to it for the multimedia as well, as i am building a new multimedia setup at home

smyth · Jul 22, 2007

I have a Toshiba laptop right now, and I could not be more pleased. I think really, you'd want to get one with the Centrino Core 2 Duo processor, and probably 2GB of RAM for Photoshop work. I only have 1GB of RAM, and it is painful waiting for PS to start up. That's on Vista of course, which is a memory and graphics hog. If you formatted it and put XP on it, then 1GB of RAM would probably be enough.

I'd stay away from HP, I've heard a lot of bad experiences with their laptops, having to be sent back and what not. From what I understand the battery door on the HPs are prone to breaking, and they cannot be replaced, so first thing you know you've got duct tape holding the battery in on your shiny new laptop.

usayit · Jul 22, 2007

My personal experience is that Laptop displays are horrible for photoshop. I personally would plan on a budget to include a good quality flat panel display to attach to the laptop while at home. You should also load up on as much memory as possible. Photoshop is more memory intensive than CPU.

BTW... I'm a Mac person but thats a personal preference and leave it at that.

DSLR noob · Jul 22, 2007

Wait till October an OS X Leopard comes out, then I'd get the 15 inch Macbook Pro. It comes out of the box with 2GB ram, 120GB HD space, intel Core 2 Duo 2.2Ghz for $1,999.99 USD

smyth · Jul 22, 2007

usayit said:
Photoshop is more memory intensive than CPU.

Sorry, but what you said here makes no sense at all.... how could photoshop be more memory intensive than the CPU (aka the Processor) which is a part of the computer?

I'm just going to assume you meant OS.

Biest · Jul 22, 2007

smyth said:
Sorry, but what you said here makes no sense at all.... how could photoshop be more memory intensive than the CPU (aka the Processor) which is a part of the computer?

I'm just going to assume you meant OS.

Basically the statement is that you can have a slower processor as long as you have a ton of RAM. I mean there is reason why a graphic workstation packs anything above 4GB usually. Photoshop CS2 uses up to 3.5 GB of RAM under a full load, I haven't heard anything about CS3 yet.

There is another question to be answered. If the iMAc G4 is the current machine you will need to buy a license of Photoshop, as the ones that runs on the G4 most probably is a PPC only version and that runs SLOW under Rosetta or the switch to PC is made.

As posted before, I would personally go with a ThinkPad if the PC route is wished. The quality went down a little since they were sold by Big Blue, but in general they are still some of the best laptops out there.

DSLR noob · Jul 23, 2007

CS3 is universal. It will run fine on a Mac or a PC no rosetta no slowness.

ANDS! · Jul 23, 2007

Photoshop CS2 uses up to 3.5 GB of RAM under a full load, I haven't heard anything about CS3 yet.

Assuming the person hasn't set a limit for how much memory CS3 uses - what workflow could possibly create this kind of resource hogging in PS?

usayit · Jul 23, 2007

Not a resource hog.... A resource hog is a process or thread that is allocating memory space but not releasing it properly. I've never seen such behavior in photoshop BUT the more layers, multiple opened photos, the larger files (from a high megapixel camera) all result in a large amount of memory used. If you use several applications (noise ninja and PS for example), you are also memory bound. At some point, the O/S will start to hit swap (reading/writting memory allocations to physical disk) space on your hard drive when it runs low. You want to avoid this as much as possible if you want your experience behind the computer to be pleasant.
My scanner also seems to be bound by memory as well. I'm on a dual G5 1.8 with 4GB of memory and dual displays. Scanner is Epson V700.. scanning large negatives at a decently high resolution EATS memory. I also have a big tendancy to multitask with several applications open at the same time. If I could have 16GB loaded in my machine, I would.

Now if you are using 3D rendering for some short film, you will be increasingly more CPU bound due to the calculations that must be computed for each and every frame. Each ray of light in the scene requires thousands of mathematical calculations in order to determine how it will strike the various surfaces in the scene.

9/10 the typical consumer doesn't realize that their CPU is idle MOST of the time. The perceived "speed" of their computer is greatly influenced by memory, bus speed, hard drive speed.... getting data from one point to another as quickly as possible. Yeh.. its not as simple as I make it seeem as the CPU is required to even do those tasks... Its amazing how much more life you can get out of an old computer by cleaning up the O/S and increasing the memory.

Windows people.. bring up the task manager and watch CPU resources while browsing the web or other "regular" tasks (checking email, writing word docs etc..) You'll see CPU is almost at under 10% utilization MOST of the time. Open up a lot of applications including phtoshop (open a few photos). You'll see memory usage increase and stay allocated. It won't be released until you start closing stuff... thats behavior typical of memory bound.