laptops

I know this is a bit out of left field, but any suggestions on the best laptop

for viewing and working on digital shots (taken of course on a Nikon).

Preferably 17+ inch screens. What do you use? Cheers ;)

HP DV8309US

A laptop with a 17 inch screen is too big to use on your lap, especially in a plane or car. A 14 inch is much easier to carry and has a full-sized keyboard. If you need a bigger monitor, get a desktop unit. Calibration of laptop monitors is much less effective than calibration of desktop monitors.

 

Photoshop is much less crowded if you use a higher resolution screen. The XSGA screens, at 1200x1600 or so work well.

 

Personally, I'm leaning to a Thinkpad (Lenovo) T60 with a 7200, dual-core processor (1.8 GHz or more).

Of course, laptops are always going to be a compromise. My Dell inspiron 6400 with 15.x" screen (1600x1050) and 2GB ram is acceptible for running Photoshop CS2 and the various Nikon software. It really feels too small for photo editing, yet it's nearly too big on an airplane...and that's IF the person in front of me doesn't recline the 2" that coach seats move back these days.

 

When I'm at a desk I always connect a second monitor, which makes it much easier to manage.

 

Oh, get the largest hard drive they make too...80GB sounded like a lot a year ago but I'm always having to archive data now...

Oh that's simple... A Mac! I've used Photoshop a LOT over the past ten years on both Macs

and PCs. Macs are the bomb for anything creative...

 

I'd get a 14 or 15 inch model AND a big external monitor. Then you get two monitors for less

than the price of the 17" model AND trust me, the smaller ones are a LOT easier to move

around/travel with than the big ones. I had a 17" for a while. It was big and ungainly. I have a

15" now. I don't miss the extra real estate.

>>Personally, I'm leaning to a Thinkpad (Lenovo) T60 with a 7200, dual-core processor (1.8 GHz or more).

 

I use a Thinkpad T60- the 14.1" version. Best keyboard I've ever used. It's got a Core2 Duo 1.83GHz, 1GB of RAM, an ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 with 512MB of memory, and an 80GB HDD. Spec it up (more RAM and HDD space) and it's great - I've gotten 5 hours 43m minutes out of the included 6-cell battery on one occaision when I was very conservative.

It's well built to - steel hinges for the screen, magnesium rollcages, a shock-sensing hard disk. It's even got drain holes in the keyboard, but doesn't weigh much more than 2kg.

The screen runs at 1024x768 which I don't think is overly limiting, and you can always use an external monitor while you've got it parked.

I second the IBM T Series they are rugged and easy to self repair if an issue comes up. I've used MS windows and very used to it but my next computer upgrade will be a MacBook Pro.

Even though I'm a Mac fan, I will volunteer that the Thinkpad T-series are fantastic, rugged,

dependable computers. If I had to have a PC, that would be it...

I have to share Edward's skepticism of 17-inch laptops. For a while I avidly contemplated the

Mac 17-inch model. But these are too big for easy portability IMO, although I suppose an

occasional move would be OK (especially if you aren't lugging around a bunch of other stuff

as well). 14- and 15-inch machines are much easier to live with while traveling.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that a 17-inch laptop is too big for easy portability, and a waste of

money if you are going to park it on a desk all the time.

I use a 17" PowerBook. I'll never us anything smaller and I like the added real estate. It allows

me to have the tool pallets I like to remain open while still giving me a nice size image to

view. I don't take my laptop in the actual field, I edit later at my home, camp or in a hotel. It's

far more efficient to have a number of compact flash cards, load them up and edit after the

sun is gone. At $29 for a 2 gig card it's inexpensive to just toss in new a card and keep

shooting. The only draw back is there are some heavy editting sessions after filling up a few

cards. At 44 years of age, I appreciate the extra real estate of the 17" laptop, of course, your

mileage may very.

Help.

Ok whats the difference between RAM and memory?

I just want to be able to work on my pictures smootly without my computer taking FOREVER to do anything. Do i just get as much as possible of both? I dont have that much money, but my jobs are growing by the week..and i dont have a laptop, just a very slow desktop..should i upgrade my desktop or go for a laptop?

Sandra, RAM is memory (Random Access Memory). RAM is temporary storage, it only works while the computer is on. The more you have, the better the chances your CPU will find the data it needs in RAM instead of having to go to the hard disk. This is a good thing because the hard disk is a much slower memory device. The hard disk is where your programs and data reside, it retains the information written to it even when the computer is off.

 

Unless you need portability, get a new desktop. Usually, upgrading an old machine is not worth it.

I use Panasonic Toughbook CF-28 when out and about - it's totally kid and bomb proof and has served me well. I haven't tried to run PS on it as I don't use it, but it's good for the sofware I do use. But when home I prefer to use my PC with a nice IBM TFT screen.

James, you mentioned upgrading older machine not being worth the effort - I disagree a bit. My PC is 3 years old or so, Compaq Presario S5520 or something - nothing amazing and I was thinking about chaning it as it was suffering from buffer under-runs when running my music studio software. Any road up, I increased the RAM from 256MB to 768MB (cost UKPounds20), and bought an external 160GB hard-drive (UKPounds50) so I could free up space on the internal one - and now it flies. The good thing is the external hard drive gives me a good means to back stuf up and I can also use it with my laptop.

The September issue of Consumer Magazine has a good section on laptops, if you are interested.

Thanks James! :)

I ended up getting a Mac Book and an Imac!

Now im super Productive! I looove my Computers :)

Thank YOu!

RE <i> RAM is temporary storage, it only works while the computer is on</I><BR><BR> With old core memory; like the TC-1 used on Skylab its state is still kept after the computer is off. Earlier Space Shuttles used core memory in their computers, the B52 did; the F15 did too. One can go to a jet's crash site where the jets is in a zillion pieces and the avionics computer's cores still have their last 0 or 1 state readable; even if the memory board is pieces yards apart or buried in a crater; with only a few bones fragments of the pilot to be found. Some core memory is purposely reverted to state thats not data; it requires the cores state to be flopped back as the computer is shut off.