Thread: Dell laptop for photo editing

Dell are ok. Not my first choice, but I would pick Dell over Acer. Mostly.

Used a Dell Latitude for work up to about a year ago. Hardware was great, but was crippled by corporate SOE 32 bit OS and security software. No fault of Dell.

Go for the fastest processor you can afford. You can always upgrade memory, hard drive, external 30" monitor, etc, later as funds become available. Uh. You drive a Land rover. Maybe not.

As with any laptop: post warranty, you are on borrowed time. Consider an extended warranty for laptops, about the only time I recommend such things.

... except for washing machines. I've had a run of bad luck there.

Then again, ACL has lowered the value (and importance) of extended warranties, so ... meh.

I don't need an external monitor I have a desk top

I have no intentions of upgrading memory etc...

I just want something that works, I mainly surf the net during the evening but I do on occasions want to do some photo editing in noting of the tv or a bit of vid editing that's (but not as often)

So that's why I wanted to get something that can handle Lightroom.

Help me out all you guys in the know

Tonight my laptop has basically crapped itself it will turn on and run then basically just turns off after about 5mins with no warning.

The USB ports are not running and it has tried to do its own disk check but clicks and turns off half way through.

So that's why I need to get a laptop sorted now

You make it a bit hard DB. For 'normal' internet surfing etc. you don't need much of a computer (power wise), for photo editing using a moderately useful program a more powerful computer with more memory (RAM) is necessary to do the job adequately, but still any reasonably good not poverty pack computer will do the job for you. For video editing an even more powerful machine is needed to do the job properly and even more memory (RAM) to hold the data being edited. A better quality video card is also required to adequately process and display the large volume of video data needed. A 64 bit operating system is also best here to manage the larger amount of RAM (>3 meg) required.

Another consideration is the resolution of the screen, the more dots that need to be processed and displayed the greater the video processing power required to do so in a timely manner. It's a bit like mega pixels in a camera, you don't need more than the source you're looking at, but definitely not less.

Also important here is the type of screen finish, some screens have a shiny finish some have a matt finish. A shiny finish (typical on HP laptops) gives a rich colour depth and gives excellent rendition of photos and videos but being shiny is next to useless in a sunny or brightly lit area (why do you think TV stores always have their wares displayed where there is no ambient light). On the other hand matt finished displays (typical on Toshiba laptops) work well in brightly lit areas but the colour rendition is not as 'vibrant' as a shiny finished screen.

Assuming you're looking at a new replacement, for my err ....................... your money, I'd go for a quality brand, Dell, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo (IBM) etc with a 64 bit Windows (not into Apple as IMO sexy but poor bang for buck value) operating system and a minimum 4 gig RAM with the ability to upgrade if you get more into video editing with a better than average video card. I'd be looking at spending >$1K.

My 2 bobs worth.

Deano

Deano you have kind of told me everything I already know..

But I guess I really didn't elaborate that much so I can see why you wrote what you did.

For what its worth

My Acer which is packing up has i5 with 4g ram, nivida 1g graphics card 500g hard drive. And has served me effortlessly for 5 years has up until recently happily processed HD video from my go pro using power director, processed photos easily form both my D80 and my D7100 using Lightroom and photoshop.

This laptop did cost me 1000bux 5 years ago though.

So I'm working on on the theory that if I better what I have it is going to suit my needs.

That's why I know that the specs I put up for the dell will work it was more that I hadn't heard good things about dell, and this was the only laptop I could find to better what I had with in my budget. I'm not really interested in getting the same specs as what I had because as tech gets upgraded it often becomes more demanding so I want to upgrade for future things not current

I have also been looking at this, its out of my budget but wondering if I can hold off a bit longer to buy whether it would be worth it.

ASUS N550JK FHD Notebook

I am using a Sony Vairo i7 processor with 8 gb of ram and it performs very well with PSCS5 and Nikon NX both open at the same time.

Dullbird, I noticed the Dell you listed is touch screen - did you specifically want a touch screen?

I'm a little out of touch with Dell quality now days as I've been running a macbook pro for a few years and all our corporate laptops are HP. (And the only ones there I would recommend are way outside your budget.)

A couple of years ago I bought my daughter a little Asus laptop that has been bulletproof and I have quite a lot of other Asus equipment.... so my personal experiences with Asus have been great.

I think you have the fundamental components of what you want basically right

Screen size - is a very personal thing and often depends on how good your eyes are. I agree 17 is too big and heavy to be mobile and for me..anything smaller than 15" is useless as my eyes are crap. Also check what resolution it supports.

Ram - 8 gigs should be fine, unless you are planning on Lightroom and Photoshop open at the same time with lots of images you are unlikely to need more.

Processor - i7 , Yes - possibly.
This is an area the marketing people make it really hard to be sure what you are getting. i7 is not necessarily going to be better for you than an i5. There are multiple different i7 and i5 processors of different speeds - they also differ in the number of processor cores. Lightroom and Photoshop do like additional cores, so a high end i5 quadcore can give you more than a low end i7 dualcore in some instances.
This might help: ARK | Your Source for Intel? Product Information ( Or confuse you more )

The Dell processors are both dual cores, while the Asus i7 is a quad.

Also you may want to think about how often you will run on battery only...how important is battery life to you? As the processor and screen size have a fair impact on that.

Video While your older laptop has a dedicated video card, you may not need that in a new machine. It certainly wont hurt to have, but the on board graphics built into the latest Intel processors is pretty impressive - so unless you are planning on rendering video or something on it.... you can probably get away without dedicated video to help keep the price down.

Hard drive - It will probably not work on your budget, but now days, I would try and get a machine with an SSD rather than HDD - the access speed differences is crazy - but I've been a little spoiled being on my 3rd laptop running SSD.

Some other silly stuff to think about -stupid stuff that can be frustrating if you don't think about it until after you purchase:
Do you use your DVD drive often?.. quite a lot of laptops now don't have them - easy to use usb external though.
Does it have enough USB ports etc for you?
If your camera uses SD.. a built in SD reader is handy.
Many commercial models come with a 3 year warranty while the consumer versions are 12 months - The Asus I bought my daughter came in 2 versions - basically cost the same and the biggest difference was the 3 year warranty.

Another brand worth possibly looking at is Lenovo - I know they are really trying to push into the Australian market for consumers now and have some good pricing around. Lenovo used to make the IBM Thinkpads which were great laptops.... they make good equipment generally.

I'll chat to the guys at work on Monday and let you know if I have any good suggestions for you....

If you need to eek a bit more life out of the sick Acer: My first guess at the issue would be a cooling fan clogged with dust is causing it to overheat and thus shut down after 5 min of operation.

This is not too hard to address and if successfully cleaned, may extend the life of the old laptop significantly.

1. If possible, back up data - but you have already done so before it got sick, I'm sure.

2. switch off and unplug power cord.

3. Think of it as a very small Land Rover that is allergic to static charge, stray metal bits left inside and fluid of any kind. With this in mind, carefully remove the bottom cover and, using tweezers, carefully remove all dust bunnies found. Avoid touching internal electronic components (see allergies) Re-assemble cover, accounting for all screws (see allergies) and see how it goes.

Yes I thought too it was over heating so attempted to blow out the fan vent.

However it will not stay on any longer if its hot or cold.

The fact my USB is not working as well I thought perhaps the mother board is starting to give up the ghost. I'm wondering whether the power supply took a spike in the last storm or something.

Either way I have been clinging on to this laptop getting slower and slower and more and more issues arising

Before the power turning off problem I started getting the whole "windows did not shut down properly" message when shutting my screen, which is supposed to put it in to hibernation

So all in all I don't really want the hassle and I think its time to get something fresh and fast to replace it.

I have been looking at SSDs I know they are a lot quicker and I believe less susceptible to corruption??

However I don't think I could afford one I'm assuming especially due to the large photographic file sizes I use I would need a fairly sizeable one.

And yes I wouldn't of opted for a touch screen on the Dell when its an option in not out for a touch screen...however. I have also read that the touch screens are much improved these days and are not as bad as they used to be for working on photo stuff...although still not ideal if you can avoid to do so, but not the end of the world if you cant