Laptop recommendation

Looking for ideas on a good laptop for photo editing that doesn't break the bank. Something that is pretty fast with good display color.

Good luck!

 

Mine can only give around 50% sRGB and has a strong blue cast when uncorrected.

 

Whatever you get, don't forget to budget for a display calibration tool as well.

Laptop screens are not well suited for photography. They often have a narrow field of view, for privacy and economy, and their brightness is often subject to power saving features and may adjust automatically according to ambient conditions. They are no substitute for a good, calibrated desktop system.

 

You would not be disappointed with a MacBookPro. I've owned many sorts of laptops, and the MBP is the best of the lot. Since I use Lightroom, any adjustments I make on the road have no effect on the original image.

Ed, mainly i want a laptop for on the go editing. I would like to be able to edit outside the confines of my house, when im on vacation or away from home and need to get work done.

aaron,

Things you need to look for to make sure your lap top is future proof include separate graphics processor with 2-4 G of internal memory,

A late generation Intel i7 or i9 processor,

M.2 PCIe NVMe storage.

24 GB or larger DDR4 memory

For speeds sake avoid the older SATA interface.

Many of todays SLRs are producing 70-120 MB or larger files that you need some power to handle.

The current MAC books are very up-to-date and pricey.

My current photo editing tool is a PC desk top that is a very powerful i7 but uses SATA interface with a large SSD that I changed to several years ago.

I am in the process of updating between business trips with my own build.

I think SSDs are the current standard for editing purposes though I use large 8 T spinning drives for archiving.

I know professionals who use their Macbook or PC laptop for editing and have a calibrated monitor they plug into at home.

With my laptop on the road is an HP i7 with SATA interface SSD and 20GB of older DDR3 memory I triple back up everything with peripheral SSDs and if I am shooting events that require massive space I carry a third drive and use the lap top as a way point rather than a primary storage site.

Check out The Ultimate PC Build for Photography Needs by Nasim Mansurov. Every year he goes into the details of a good photo editing PC. I believe the same rules apply these days to laps tops. You should not have to compromise because its a lap top.

Good hunting.

Arron, I was in Best Buy a few days ago and was impressed with the number of affordable lap tops that use M.2 PCIe NVMe technology.

When you start looking at late generation i7 and i9 processors is when you see a bump in prices. I like the price point on HP but they are not the only company.

Newegg carries some nice gear for under $2000 with i7 processors, dedicated GPUs, M.2 PCIe/NVMe storage and lots and lots of RAM to handle 300GB panoramic images taken with a D850. Good luck.

I’m a fan of the Dell XPS 15. Mine is a couple years old and I have the 4K display. It’s fast, reasonably sized and priced and has a great display with a good gamut. The keyboard is particularly good. It does have one flaw - they did a terrible job on the thermal paste which causes excessive fan and thermal throttle under sustained CPU load. I followed the instructions here: How to Fix Throttling on the Dell XPS 15 9570 / 9560 to replace the thermal paste and it runs 10-15C cooler! That’s my only complaint.