New laptop for Lightroom (and possibly Photoshop)

[NGH]

I've been using an HP Envy 17inch for a number of years and been very happy with it. But it is showing signs of age (battery life and performance) and it's time to replace.
I have never used a Mac and so don't really see that as an option for me (too stuck in my ways).
I am currently looking at just buying another Envy but wanted to know if anyone has any other recommendations for a Windows laptop?
I thought about the Surface Pro but they are probably above my budget trying to keep it at under the $1k area.
This is my only/Primary photo editing device at home; portability is not that important. I only really use Lightroom but thinking about starting to use Photoshop in the future so need to take that into consideration.

Any thoughts appreciated

 

[ronlane]

Just check the recommendations for LR and PS. (Which are similar) The biggest thing is the RAM, make sure to get plenty of it.

 

[Derrel]

You have never used a Mac. That's kind of like saying, " I have never eaten a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. " but not really. LOL.

I would encourage you to buy as much RAM as you can possibly stuff into the machine.

 

[NGH]

You have never used a Mac. That's kind of like saying, " I have never eaten a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. " but not really. LOL.

Well I have tried clicking around on a few a few times but it didn't fit with me and so never owned one and never actually 'used' for anything real. Kinda like the BLT, I've had one but certain elements didn't really work for me and I prefer a club sandwich instead

 

[bratkinson]

For what it's worth, I finally bit the bullet and bought my first Windows 10 computer...an Asus F510UA laptop. While I use my laptop only when I'm traveling, I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a 'strong' laptop.

In particular, the computer comes with a Intel quad processor I5-8250U which, coupled with Windows 10 64 bit Home, boots incredibly fast and runs the various applications I put on it as quickly as my 8-processor desktop Win 7 computer. However...to get that kind of performance, the first thing I did was to replace the 1TB hard drive with an SSD more suited to my purposes. I also bought an identical 8GB stick of RAM to add to it bringing it up to 16GB. Of note is that some factory configurations of the F510UA come with a 128GB SSD and the 1TB hard drive. I believe that the computer can handle 32GB of RAM, but with only 2 slots available, the 8GB it comes with would have to be replaced and supplanted by 16GB sticks of RAM. Note that Amazon has a feature to verify if the RAM you are buying is compatible with the computer you'll be putting it in. That's where I bought the RAM I put in. Oh...I almost forgot...the quad processor will run as fast as 3.2 ghz when needed! A far cry from the 2.2 ghz dual processor in my old Win 7 laptop.

Perhaps the biggest 'problem' with the laptop is opening it up to access the hard drive and RAM bays. There are 11 screws of 3 different lengths to be removed, 2 of which are underneath the rearmost rubber foot pads! As soon as I realized the screws were different lengths, I drew a 'map' of which holes get a long screws, medium screws, etc. Then it's necessary to use a thin screwdriver or other blade to pop off the back(bottom) panel. Luckily, I found a video on Youtube showing how to open the thing.

I should note, too, that there is no CD/DVD player/burner in the laptop making it thin and lightweight to carry. Also, there's no VGA port, so any external monitors would have to be HDMI compatible. I found a USB3 external CD/DVD player/burner on ebay that I've successfully used a couple of times.

Having the quad processor rather than a dual processor laptop can make a significant difference when using multi-processor-aware software, which includes Photoshop and Lightroom. I use both. In particular, while exporting a group of images in Lightroom, the monitoring software on my desktop computer shows all 8 processors running near 100% utilization, and the CPU temperature(s) rising as well but controlled by the multiple fans in my computer. The laptop has one very small fan that is barely audible. I think I'd be hesitant to export more than 10 photos at a time from Lightroom as a result.

New, I've seen prices for the F510UA vary from $500 to $800 online. I've also seen refurbs going for $4-500. I managed to find mine as 'used' on ebay, but if it had been used, it wasn't for very long, as it looked brand new and came in all the original packaging. The seller had a 40K+ rating so I was not worried about getting junk or not getting it at all with my $315 winning bid. I just checked, the same seller has a couple for sale right now.

 

[NGH]

For what it's worth, I finally bit the bullet and bought my first Windows 10 computer...an Asus F510UA laptop. While I use my laptop only when I'm traveling, I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a 'strong' laptop.

In particular, the computer comes with a Intel quad processor I5-8250U which, coupled with Windows 10 64 bit Home, boots incredibly fast and runs the various applications I put on it as quickly as my 8-processor desktop Win 7 computer. However...to get that kind of performance, the first thing I did was to replace the 1TB hard drive with an SSD more suited to my purposes. I also bought an identical 8GB stick of RAM to add to it bringing it up to 16GB. Of note is that some factory configurations of the F510UA come with a 128GB SSD and the 1TB hard drive. I believe that the computer can handle 32GB of RAM, but with only 2 slots available, the 8GB it comes with would have to be replaced and supplanted by 16GB sticks of RAM. Note that Amazon has a feature to verify if the RAM you are buying is compatible with the computer you'll be putting it in. That's where I bought the RAM I put in. Oh...I almost forgot...the quad processor will run as fast as 3.2 ghz when needed! A far cry from the 2.2 ghz dual processor in my old Win 7 laptop.

Perhaps the biggest 'problem' with the laptop is opening it up to access the hard drive and RAM bays. There are 11 screws of 3 different lengths to be removed, 2 of which are underneath the rearmost rubber foot pads! As soon as I realized the screws were different lengths, I drew a 'map' of which holes get a long screws, medium screws, etc. Then it's necessary to use a thin screwdriver or other blade to pop off the back(bottom) panel. Luckily, I found a video on Youtube showing how to open the thing.

I should note, too, that there is no CD/DVD player/burner in the laptop making it thin and lightweight to carry. Also, there's no VGA port, so any external monitors would have to be HDMI compatible. I found a USB3 external CD/DVD player/burner on ebay that I've successfully used a couple of times.

Having the quad processor rather than a dual processor laptop can make a significant difference when using multi-processor-aware software, which includes Photoshop and Lightroom. I use both. In particular, while exporting a group of images in Lightroom, the monitoring software on my desktop computer shows all 8 processors running near 100% utilization, and the CPU temperature(s) rising as well but controlled by the multiple fans in my computer. The laptop has one very small fan that is barely audible. I think I'd be hesitant to export more than 10 photos at a time from Lightroom as a result.

New, I've seen prices for the F510UA vary from $500 to $800 online. I've also seen refurbs going for $4-500. I managed to find mine as 'used' on ebay, but if it had been used, it wasn't for very long, as it looked brand new and came in all the original packaging. The seller had a 40K+ rating so I was not worried about getting junk or not getting it at all with my $315 winning bid. I just checked, the same seller has a couple for sale right now.

Thanks. I decided on getting another HP Envy; it comes with 16GB RAM, SSD, Graphics card and DVD drive