Mac Book Pro or Asus N55SF or something else for photo editing?

[ZeuZ]

Hey guys, what laptop would you buy for photo editing? Thx for the help

Mac Book Pro 15"
Asus N55SF 15"
or something else?

[wickidwombat]

i use the 15" macbook pro it has plenty of power for PS and lightroom
depends really if you prefer mac os or windows but I still dont think anyone else competes with apple on build quality yet

[dstppy]

If it's between the two, I vote for MBP, but if you can at all do post-processing on a desktop, I think you'd be better off.

From my last few years experience, I'd say stay away from any sort of small/slim form factor of PC (laptops included).    I've been living in a laptop/media center support nightmare (various family members, wife, etc.) -- google cs5111 asus problems as an example of what I've seen.

That said, do you NEED a laptop or just prefer one?  If you're going to spend a lot of time post-processing, you can get a 64-bit win7 box with an i7 from dell for under a grand, and it'll go a long way (I have three of these at work) for being usable for time to come.

Being that you said you wanted a laptop, I assume it's for other things and I can tell you the macs are a great user experience.  I highly recommend if you go with a Windows laptop that you try it out in person (at a store) to make sure the touchpad is to your liking as well as the keyboard.  Google around for support articles about the product before you buy as well -- in the case of the media pc I mentioned above, they tend to overheat and cook drives due to poor design; cost us a lot to rebuild, then it burned another HDD.

Good luck

[Picsfor]

What do you want?

The MBP is pretty much unrivaled in quality and screen quality, but often the price is an issue.
For the same price you could get a 27" iMac - which is a stunning piece of kit.

The question really needs some more meat, to give a better answer.

Is this gonna be your only computer? Do you need to the portability? Is photo editing all it's gonna do?

I find very people who go down the Apple route ever go back to Microsoft. But then i'm maybe biased. But then i suppose os are the other dozen or so people who saw my iMac at work and went out and bought their own iMac or MBP's and swear nether to darken Microsoft's doors again.

[jonathan7007]

I recently bought a Lenovo ThinkPad W520 for tethered shooting and editing when I cannot use my desktop for some reason. This has been a good machine so far (bought in late November). Purchase tip: much less expensive on TigerDirect than through Lenovo. TigerDirect had the configuration I wanted for around $1300. The motherboard I have can handle up to 16Gig RAM. This requires buying a four-core i7, however. I stopped at the installed 8Gig. Two slots remain for me to use.

This unit comes with a standard Photoshop-smart nVIDIA discrete graphics miniboard that speeds image processing (CUDA cores). Mine is the "1000" board and there is a "2000" with more cores. There's an active forum for questions and Lenovo is OK for support. I have had other ThinkPads. I don't know when a W530 will be released, but if you need one right now I say go for it.

Mine has a higher-gamut "FD" screen that's 1920x1080 and there is a visibly better gamut. Very bright, so can be used for editing in more environments than my last ThinkPad (an X61t tablet)

I made a worthwhile DIY upgrade by installing an mSATA 80Gig solid-state mini drive card in the internal PCI slot, which was empty in my model. (This is the slot used by a WLAN card for cell service.) I transferred the OS into this card and left the spinning hard drive in place as a data drive. (I actually swapped the stock drive for a Hitachi 750 HD during my DIY effort. Super easy.) Having the OS and Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. on the SSD is very fast. I do install some programs on the data drive to keep the mSATA from filling up, but there is some headroom left on this little SSD. This is a solution limited to a very few laptops, because the PCI slot has to be able to handle the drive. I don't know why there are few machines that have this architecture but I know it's the case.

Not a lightweight machine, and the 15.6" screen means it's bigger than that wonderful X61t. But it IS fast and the screen is wonderful. I just made my custom tripod-laptop-support platform out of nice birch plywood, which I enjoyed.

Here's the forum for this line of ThinkPads. Of course, those who have no problems never post, so keep that in mind. But if you are like me I like to look in such resources before a buying decision.

Hope this helps.

jonathan7007

[jonathan7007]

Ooooops, link didn't get copied into my last post above. Here's the location of the forum for the W-line of ThinkPads:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/bd-p/W_ThinkPads

One last thought. My wife has a 15" MBP and it doesn't seem to need less learning and Software maintenance than my Win7 machines. The OS is just as complex by now. You will be OK with either OS, I believe. I have owned Macs in the past. My 2 cents: Go with whichever OS you know best, which will save you time.

jonathan7007

[Fandongo]

My 2009 MBP still handles raw quite well. 

One thing to consider is Firewire800/Thunderbolt vs. USB 3.
Sandisk and Lexar used to make a FW800 CF reader, super fast (8gb of video/photos in under 3 minutes w/extreme IV 45MB/s)... Now it goes for $300 bucks most places, since it's illogically become extinct.

There's USB 3 card readers everwhere for cheap (though I can't confirm transfer speeds), which would add further value to the ASUS.  This is why I'm waiting for Ivy Bridge before I recommit to Apple or Windows.

Thunderbolt... I think Sonnet announced something for 2124... But i doubt it will be out before August 2200.

[ZeuZ]

Thx Guys for the info 'till now!

The extra meat:
- I am not looking for the desktop versions (iMac etc.) because I need the mobility, plus in real need I can always use this iMac (otherwise I couldn't discuss it with you guys)
- I had a MacBook Pro, but it crashed a few days ago (the motherboard went RIP), the I like about Mac is the screen and the speed (which I need for CS5 and sometimes Final Cut)
- I don't like the price of the MacBook Pro

but so far I didn't find any real competitors (maybe the HP envy 17")

[dstppy]

Thx Guys for the info 'till now!

The extra meat:
- I am not looking for the desktop versions (iMac etc.) because I need the mobility, plus in real need I can always use this iMac (otherwise I couldn't discuss it with you guys)
- I had a MacBook Pro, but it crashed a few days ago (the motherboard went RIP), the I like about Mac is the screen and the speed (which I need for CS5 and sometimes Final Cut)
- I don't like the price of the MacBook Pro

but so far I didn't find any real competitors (maybe the HP envy 17")

If you're already a mac user, MBP hands down.  And get it a little-brother MBA just for good measure

I just added an air and it's been quite the gem.

[jonathan7007]

My college-age daughter has a HP EliteBook 2470 tablet and I have found HP logistics and support to be worse than Lenovo's. Especially handling shipping and repairs. True Keystone Cops style antics. So I would cross off an HP Envy. The EliteBooks are the better-built business machines. OK features but Lenovo still ahead of them for tank-like construction.

If you like the MBP maybe that's the machine. My screen better than my wife's MBP at same size. My graphics processor, mSATA-based OS, and 4-core i7 (second generation) make this W520 MUCH faster than her machine (Lion). Air machines must be nice, though, for weight.

Bottom line is that in most cases the time spent taking care of software updates, every day stuff, etc., way outstrips the differences in editing images unless you spend a lot of time on deadline.  I am not trying to start a Mac vs. Win7 argument here. I just think the differences have narrowed considerably.

Good luck. Sorry to hear your motherboard got fried.

jonathan7007

[jcns]

it really depends on your objective/intended use
travel
heavy processing
do you need a DVD/CD writer built-in?
do you need a big screen?

In my case, I bought a netbook for trips because I am not going to process anything mid-trip.  Just needed something to dump the pictures on to.
For processing, I have 15.6'' laptop and even that's not a big enough screen sometimes so I use my 24in monitor.
Netbook does not have a dvd/cd writer
I love Apple products but some of their stuff is just too much for me to rationalize. MBP 15'' start at $1,799.  Bought my netbook, PC laptop(windows 7 8gb of ram, 1gb of video, i7, 15.6"), and 24'' monitor for less than that.

[gmrza]

i use the 15" macbook pro it has plenty of power for PS and lightroom
depends really if you prefer mac os or windows but I still dont think anyone else competes with apple on build quality yet

My wife has processed jobs where she has shot 6000 frames on her 15" MBP.  We just moved the files to a Mac Mini Server (core i7) to run the export jobs in order to create proofs.
From my perspective, the support overhead on Mac OS is lower.  The big deal-breaker on a Windows platform for me is that I am still not convinced by Windows 7's colour management.  Even though I have profiled the monitor of my work laptop with a Spyder, often, when I lock the console and unlock it again, Windows starts by bringing up the display unprofiled, and then takes up to a minute to restore the correct profile.  - Something is not right there.  On Mac OS, on the other hand, I am far more comfortable with the maturity of colour management.  - That said, some people may be happy with the colour management on Windows, but I am not.

[Michael_pfh]

Hey guys, what laptop would you buy for photo editing? Thx for the help

Mac Book Pro 15"
Asus N55SF 15"
or something else?

Since you don't seem to be on a very tight budget you may also want to look at the Sony Z series laptop which is a nicely designed and reasonably powerful laptop by itself but what makes it an excellent choice for photo editing is the docking station that contains an external GPU.

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/sony-vaio-z/4505-3121_7-34845466.html#reviewPage1

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-VPC-Z216GX-13-1-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B0059095Z2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1327130315&sr=8-2

I haven't tested it yet but it's most likely going to be my next laptop (combo) since I have been very satisfied with Sony's laptops over the past 5 years...

[Caps18]

I have been doing grat with my MacBook Pro 2010.  If I were to buy another one today with $1500 it would be the MacBook Air 13".  The SSD makes more of a difference than the CPU probably when compared to the MacBook Pro with the 5400 rpm drive.

[sjprg]

Take a look at the HP Elitebook 17 (HP8760W). The Nvidia 5010M video option is a CUDA board and with an SSD and a Seagate 750 GB Momentous XT hybrid. This thing outperforms any laptop available except the $5800.00 Alienware laptop.
Paul