Laptop

NI

nikonron

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2015
Messages
591
Location
owensboro,ky
Always been a film shooter but I just recently bought a Nikon D810. So now I'm needing to get a dedicated travel laptop for storage management, processing and running Photoshop and Lightroom. Don't want to break the bank either, so what do I need? Thanks in advance, Ron
 
Can't help you with not breaking the bank, but I travel with a 15" MBP Retina and an external 1TB GDrive for storage. Runs LR and PS great and the GDrive is fast enough that it doesn't slow me down processing. When I get home I just plug the drive into my iMac and import the files into my main LR catalog.
 
Stalking Light said:
Can't help you with not breaking the bank, but I travel with a 15" MBP Retina and an external 1TB GDrive for storage. Runs LR and PS great and the GDrive is fast enough that it doesn't slow me down processing. When I get home I just plug the drive into my iMac and import the files into my main LR catalog.
Click to expand...
Do you set up a temp catalog to save your edit info along with the photos?
 
Ditto on Dells...

If you get an account with Dell (sign up on line, I think), they will send you (email & snailmail) Specials every now and then.
I purchased my $500 Dell laptop when they let me know it was on sale for $250.

You'll probably need something more powerful than a $500 laptop for photo stuff, however, they have those go on sale every now and then, too.
 
nikonron said:
Yes, I'll look into Dells. Don't know how much speed and memory that I need. Ron
Click to expand...
Kind of Apple's to oranges (pun intended) but my MBP has 16G RAM and a 2.8 GHz Core i7. An SSD makes a huge difference as well, and you'll probably want a decent graphics processor.

Mainly, though, you'll want as much RAM and as fast a hard drive as fits in your budget for running PS and LR.
 
Asus also makes a good laptop.

I stay away from HP since I got screwed years back by a model (there were several) that had graphic processor problems and they knew of it. Instead of a recall they gave an extended warranty..... wasn't long enough. I work in an ET shop and we got dozens of those in from people trying to get them fixed without breaking the bank..... I was 1 month out of the "extended" warranty when mine died. They would not fix it.... We got it working but I could never trust it again......

Had 2 Dells, had problems with both but they did fix them. I would buy a Dell again.

Running a 2012 MBP which I upgraded the Ram and HD on. It works okay but not getting a new one because you can't work on them anymore.... way of the future but I am sticking to things that I can get into for now....
 
That looks like the perfect computer......drat now you have me thinking of a new one....lol

I don't know that model but am guessing it's not user repairable. Should be okay. Most problems with computers happen in the 1st 30-90 days. You get through that you are probably good. I'd get it.... if I was in the market..... Truck shopping right now :)
 
While that looks like a fast laptap, there's a lot of extra expense for the gaming GPU that you'll never use. For Lightroom and Photoshop a fast processor, as much RAM as you can get, and an SSD drive are the best money spent. Gaming laptops/PCs are typically built around the GPU for refresh rates for games.

Don't be afraid of adding RAM to a Laptop, you can probably buy bigger/better RAM a lot cheaper and it's easy to install. Just make sure of what the motherboard/BIOS can handle.

Photo editing on a 15" screen can be done (if you're young and still have good eyes). Typically the color rendition on laptop screens is horrible and will need to be calibrated (here's another rabbit hole to jump down...). A bigger screen is better, but then you have a bigger device to deal with, trade-offs..

I have had good luck with ASUS, and ACER and when I was doing the IT for my company would prefer them much more than Dell, Lenovo, HP etc. They always stood up better and longer. Any laptop can fail at anytime, or they can last forever. Ideally you should wipe the thing clean of all the bloatware and unneeded crap they put on them these days but that can be a real chore tracking down and reloading the correct drivers. Not recommended unless you are real comfortable with PCs.

Storage is storage, get as much as you can and as many different types (on board hard drive, external hard drive, web storage -i,e. Dropbox, Google Drive etc.) It too will fail at the worst time and if you haven't protected yourself, it's a pretty lousy feeling realizing you just lost everything.

JR
 
nikonron said:
JR , if it were you what would you purchase? Ron
Click to expand...
The problem with asking me that is that I loath trying to do anything on a laptop other than using one to get by while I travel. I am very much desktop with multi-monitor based so I'm a fish out of water when I use a laptop. Because I live off of my desktops, I think of laptops as not quite expendable, but do have limited expectations of their lifespan and don't end up entrusting much to them that's critical (Dropbox)

The first thing to consider is screen size, if you're going to use it for photo editing, 15" is a bare minimum, 17" is better but now you have a bigger device to lug around. If you have a dedicated place to use it at home, maybe think of getting a separate monitor for it for normal use, then travel without it. Got to big box store and get a feel for how big and bulky they are. The cool little hipster convertible tablets look nice and are great for web consumption, but really suck at any kind of content creation.

Another thing about most laptops, most have very lousy screen resolutions. This is another area where a separate monitor can help, deal with the lower resolution on the screen when you travel and then have a good screen at home.

Considering you're just getting into digital photo developing, I wouldn't get too hung up with the fastest and greatest, you'll probably have to replace the laptop before you start pushing the boundaries of a good solid mid grade device.

Something along the lines I would be thinking
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834234175

(while it started out as a Canon site, it's about all photography and camera makes. Great resource on learning skills, software, everything related to photography. It has members and contributors that are hacks (i.e. me) up to National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, etc pro photographers. Over 375,000 members so there's a lot of info available. It's also a great way to learn how to spend even more of your money on photography gear...
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/index.php
The guy who runs the site actually wrote the entire forum software from scratch. It's got a different feel but once you get used to it, it really is pretty slick)
 
I like the price much better. Just wanting to make sure that I have something that will handle photoshop ok. I am considering getting a separate monitor for at home. Ron
 
Been doing sports and event photography semi-seriously for 5 years now (shoot for MaxPreps and a local HS network). This Summer I picked up a Dell XPS 15 9550 refurbished as my old desktop was just too slow running Lightroom for me. The Dell has a UHD screen and drives an external UHD monitor fine with decent dedicated video card, 16GB RAM and 512PCIe SSD.

Basically I use it as a desktop at home with monitor, keyboard, and external raid drives for storage and take it on the road when needed.

Does run a little hot when pushing my larger (28") UHD monitor so I have it on a cooling pad on my desk. Otherwise I run it 24/7 and it holds up very well.
 
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