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

[Dianoda]

It should be noted that the MBP pro line is slated for a major redesign very soon. It's been pegged as Q2 2012, which could be as soon as two months. These will have the new line of Ivy Bridge processors. These are also strongly rumored to take their cues from the MBA in that they will switch to SSDs and a much thinner profile. Might be worth the wait.

I'm all for it as long as display quality does not suffer as a result of thinner design.  But as it stands the LCDs in the current MBAs aren't as impressive as those found in the current Macbook Pros.  While the current MBA displays are decent compared to the rest of the laptop market, compared to the Macbook Pros they have poorer contrast ratios and black levels as a result of backlight bleed and viewing angles are subject to noticeable vertical color shift, especially in the 11" model.

[keithfullermusic]

I have a 27" quad core iMac with 16gb of ram.  The ram I bought afterwards and it was only 100 bucks to get from 4 to 16.

Obviously, if you don't want a big arse computer, then don't get it.  But with a student discount I spent $2000 on mine and it completely punishes.  Also, my prints are nearly identical to what my screen shows.

Once you go 27" everything else looks like a toy.

[flanniganj]

It should be noted that the MBP pro line is slated for a major redesign very soon. It's been pegged as Q2 2012, which could be as soon as two months. These will have the new line of Ivy Bridge processors. These are also strongly rumored to take their cues from the MBA in that they will switch to SSDs and a much thinner profile. Might be worth the wait.

I'm all for it as long as display quality does not suffer as a result of thinner design.  But as it stands the LCDs in the current MBAs aren't as impressive as those found in the current Macbook Pros.  While the current MBA displays are decent compared to the rest of the laptop market, compared to the Macbook Pros they have poorer contrast ratios and black levels as a result of backlight bleed and viewing angles are subject to noticeable vertical color shift, especially in the 11" model.

The new ones will likely have "retina" displays from what I've read. Putting them at 2880x1800 for a resolution. This won't explain any color accuracy, but at least the definition is supposed to be there. This is all rumor of course. Lion and Windows 8 have/will have support for ultra-high resolution screens, so this lends credence to the rumor.

[Grigbar]

I have never understood people who willingly chose to use mobile devices as their primary editing stations. If your going to be editing photos or anything else get a real computer. For doing any real work a 30" 10bit display is pretty much a necessity.

I dont know of any laptop that comes with a 10bit display and its nearly pointless to edit your photos when your only seeing a small spectrum of the color in the image. Keep in mind that even an 8bit panel wont be able to show all the colors in the 8bit color depth. That means even if you are using an 8bit display your not seeing all of the colors even at JPEG level. The same goes for resolution, what exactly do you plan to do with all those 18-20+megapixles in your images with a 17inch display? I would sure hate to have to expand my image 1:1 or better on a display that small to edit my files  It seems like it would be a complete and needless waste of time.

Now of course I do have to use a laptop when im on the road for live updates. I work for a local website so i dont have choice. It sucks using one but when i can publish my photos within minutes its great! Two days ago i was at an event and i saw some guy editing his photos right there on the spot and i asked him if he was local. He told me he worked for the New York Times. Thats a great example of where a portable is perfect. But i sure wouldnt want to use it for more than a few quick updates to the web or of course for tethered shooting.
Im going to get a new one soon but im waiting for Ivy Bridge before i buy one. When i do it will be something with one of those Ivy Bridge quad core procs and other high end stats.

I sure as hell wont get a Mac, thats nothing but a waste of money. I build my own computers and i actually understand basic computer science. When ever i hear people talking about macs they always seem to use  ambiguous generic terms that dont actually mean anything to explain why their some how better. Well i live in the real world and i need real reasons to buy my hardware lol. And no, OSX is not any better than Windows. Even if it was those computers would STILL be a rip off. They use regular grade parts in their machines designed to keep you from upgrading outside of what they sell you for the most part. You cant over clock with them even tho you should be able to, you cant get one with a an AMD proc, you cant get one with a 6 core SB-E proc from intel if you want, your just stuck with the S___ they offer and then you pay to much for it. They usually get hardware updates months after parts are already available for Windows and major software vendors usually release updates for their products on Windows before Mac. I could go but i wont. Apple is a rip off, wake the h3\\ up  And no, I dont give a crap about your "Well I had a bad experiences on a 500$ used Dell but ive had nothing but bliss on my 2500$ Mac" story so dont bother!

So if i was you, i would wait for Ivy Bridge seeing as how its mostly an optimization for mobile computers in the first place, i wouldnt get a Mac at all and i would get a real computer to go with it or at least a good 30 inch panel to plug it in to. Ive Bridge is supposed to start appearing in a few months, it should save you some  battery life and has decent integrated graphics so it could save you some money on that to.

[kubelik]

Grigbar, when Ivy Bridge releases in Q2, I'm pretty sure the Macs will be getting them too.  After all, Apple was the most excited when the Sandy Bridge processors released with a not-horrible integrated graphics component and immediately decided to cut out Nvidia GPUs.

Also, I don't know why you'd need to OC a machine which is being used to edit photos.  That's a bit of overkill.  By the time you have a system with components robust enough to handle serious overclocking, you've probably already got components that are good enough to get a job done without having to add multipliers.

I agree that if you're going to do laptop photo editing, you should invest in a good monitor to plug it into.  That way, at least when you're working out of the home, you've got an ideal work scenario.  While laptops are more expensive for the performance they provide, you can nowadays get a very strong i5 or i7 mobile processor in a laptop for $500-$700, which is very respectable.  you just can't beat the mobility.  there are times in my house where I want to work downstairs with family rather than alone in the study, and heaven forbid I have to haul around a 30 pound Coolermaster Storm Trooper to do so.

[bonedaddy.p7]

I haven't used one extensively but you can get the lenovo Thinkpad W series with a calibrated display and they are still built to the IBM quality for the most part on the thinkpad line. so that may be an option (the integrated Quaddro graphics are pretty nice so long as you aren't a gamers, and I'm not an NVidia fan).

I do most of my editing for web use on the laptop because I can do it on the couch or right after I shoot. Most of my photos are from when I travel and I like to post them up as soon as I can or to kill time in the hotel room. so the usefulness of a portable machine is without question in my book, but for print I prefer to use a dedicated, calibrated monitor. I'm not sure that a 10 bit display is a requirement, but it does help, but even a matte 8 bit IPS display is really nice to work with.

[jonathan7007]

I'm glad someone else finally came back to the Lenovo W-series laptops. Bought primarily for tethered shooting, mine has a 1920x1080 higher-gamut screen. No. I don't have color science-based comparison for this unit (I have a w520) but I can see colors on this screen that my last laptop and other current units won't show. I plan to calibrate it.

I posted again because some of the mentions about Lenovo laptop suitability referenced older units or an  inappropriate series of machine. The W-series has CUDA core discrete graphics cards. The W also allows a small SSD on its internal PCI slot on which the user loads the OS and the key programs. Then you still have your "normal" HD for lots of storage and scratch disk. I swapped the supplied 500 for a Hitachi 750. These little SSDs are called "mSATA" drives. Look it up. Great combination. There are 4 RAM slots that allow up to 16Gig.

The screen is wonderful.

jonathan7007

[7enderbender]

I'm glad someone else finally came back to the Lenovo W-series laptops. Bought primarily for tethered shooting, mine has a 1920x1080 higher-gamut screen. No. I don't have color science-based comparison for this unit (I have a w520) but I can see colors on this screen that my last laptop and other current units won't show. I plan to calibrate it.

I posted again because some of the mentions about Lenovo laptop suitability referenced older units or an  inappropriate series of machine. The W-series has CUDA core discrete graphics cards. The W also allows a small SSD on its internal PCI slot on which the user loads the OS and the key programs. Then you still have your "normal" HD for lots of storage and scratch disk. I swapped the supplied 500 for a Hitachi 750. These little SSDs are called "mSATA" drives. Look it up. Great combination. There are 4 RAM slots that allow up to 16Gig.

The screen is wonderful.

jonathan7007

Thanks for posting this. I have to look into those. I just looked at Mac Book pros again and also at the Dell XPS series. Somebody recently mentioned to me that part of the problem with the decreasing effective resolution is that most mass market screens are now geared towards "high def" TV so a lot of the stuff that used to be available is going away. Plus the Mac Books are just to big I find. The 13" might be ok but then their screens are horrid I find.

[bonedaddy.p7]

yes, you correct on both counts. Most modern screens are geared towards video playback and have screens that are more tuned for enhanced contrast and less towards accurate reproduction. And you're right that a small, good quality screen is hard to find. I do not know of any small screens that have either adequate resolution or anything beyond ordinary display quality, I wish you the best of luck finding something.

I really do like the lenovo W series, if the current models were available when I was in the market, I most likely would have bought that instead of my asus (which I still love)

[keithfullermusic]

I have never understood people who willingly chose to use mobile devices as their primary editing stations. If your going to be editing photos or anything else get a real computer. For doing any real work a 30" 10bit display is pretty much a necessity.

I dont know of any laptop that comes with a 10bit display and its nearly pointless to edit your photos when your only seeing a small spectrum of the color in the image. Keep in mind that even an 8bit panel wont be able to show all the colors in the 8bit color depth. That means even if you are using an 8bit display your not seeing all of the colors even at JPEG level. The same goes for resolution, what exactly do you plan to do with all those 18-20+megapixles in your images with a 17inch display? I would sure hate to have to expand my image 1:1 or better on a display that small to edit my files  It seems like it would be a complete and needless waste of time.

Now of course I do have to use a laptop when im on the road for live updates. I work for a local website so i dont have choice. It sucks using one but when i can publish my photos within minutes its great! Two days ago i was at an event and i saw some guy editing his photos right there on the spot and i asked him if he was local. He told me he worked for the New York Times. Thats a great example of where a portable is perfect. But i sure wouldnt want to use it for more than a few quick updates to the web or of course for tethered shooting.
Im going to get a new one soon but im waiting for Ivy Bridge before i buy one. When i do it will be something with one of those Ivy Bridge quad core procs and other high end stats.

I sure as hell wont get a Mac, thats nothing but a waste of money. I build my own computers and i actually understand basic computer science. When ever i hear people talking about macs they always seem to use  ambiguous generic terms that dont actually mean anything to explain why their some how better. Well i live in the real world and i need real reasons to buy my hardware lol. And no, OSX is not any better than Windows. Even if it was those computers would STILL be a rip off. They use regular grade parts in their machines designed to keep you from upgrading outside of what they sell you for the most part. You cant over clock with them even tho you should be able to, you cant get one with a an AMD proc, you cant get one with a 6 core SB-E proc from intel if you want, your just stuck with the S___ they offer and then you pay to much for it. They usually get hardware updates months after parts are already available for Windows and major software vendors usually release updates for their products on Windows before Mac. I could go but i wont. Apple is a rip off, wake the h3\\ up  And no, I dont give a crap about your "Well I had a bad experiences on a 500$ used Dell but ive had nothing but bliss on my 2500$ Mac" story so dont bother!

So if i was you, i would wait for Ivy Bridge seeing as how its mostly an optimization for mobile computers in the first place, i wouldnt get a Mac at all and i would get a real computer to go with it or at least a good 30 inch panel to plug it in to. Ive Bridge is supposed to start appearing in a few months, it should save you some  battery life and has decent integrated graphics so it could save you some money on that to.

I think you find Windows easy because you understand computer science.

For people who do not give a crap about how computers work and how they are programmed Macs work wonderfully.  I'm not hating on Windows - if you prefer them, then you prefer them.  To say that my 27" better than HD screen on my iMac with 12GB of RAM and amazing wireless mouth and keyboard is a waste of $2,000 is absurd.

I bet I could get a Windows machine with similar specs for half, but I don't want to build it.  I don't want to research how it works and order parts.  I also don't want to run Windows.  For a computer that absolutely punishes and is great and easy to use $2,000 is nothing.

[well_dunno]

I vote for MBP as per display. Otherwise, any well-configured Linux outperforms Windows on any hardware. Macs run on Linux-based operative systems too and I do not have any first hand experience on how they compare to Linux-based  GPL operative systems like Open SUSE or ubuntu. GIMP and its derivates are the main options for photoediting on Linux though... At least to my knowledge...

[papa-razzi]

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.

Agreed.  I have a 17" MBPro (2.53 GHz Core i5, 8 GB RAM) and a 13" MBAir (1.8 GHz Core i7, 4 GB RAM), and the Air is very fast thanks to the 256 GB SSD instead of an HDD. 

I can edit images on the 17" MBP, but the 13" display is too small, needs to be connected to my 24" display.

I got a MBP 13" last May, and opted for the SSD drive vs the standard drive.  It is very fast, booting up, etc. Well worth it.  Only problem is the SSD drives have a much smaller capacity vs standard drives.  So you pay in cost, and size of drive.  I push my photos on to an external storage unless I am working on them.

[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...

I changed my mind and got a MBP instead... ;-)

[ippikiokami]

If you have the extra money and are used to macs. Get a Macbook. For people who say windows 7 is harder to use. Are you serious? Like a poster said earlier. Most of the people who have problems with Windows pcs are buying the door buster bottom line models that you just have to realize you get what you paid for.

Other than money the top of the line pcs vs macs you really won't see performance differences that really make a dent in your life. Things like a SSD and a nice large monitor that you can calibrate will reap you huge benefits in everything you do.

[ZeuZ]

Oki finally decided on MacBook Pro 15" with SSD and demirrored display. Very happy now with my Mac THX GUYS!