Suffering editing withdrawal: laptop advice needed!

[Northstar]

Thanks to everyone who answered, especially those that stayed on topic

Apologies for not posting this earlier (I've been offline for over a week), but for anyone still reading, here is an update:

Based upon the advice here, availability in my local market and portability requirements, I have just purchased a new 15" Macbook Pro (base model). Whilst I am grateful for the many alternative suggestions, I simply couldn't find any available locally (importing isn't an easy option either).

Owning a Mac is a new experience for me, I've never used anything but Windows (unless one counts AmigaOS and Sinclair Basic, but we won't go there! ). I plumped for the 15" model because whilst I'm away from home, I'm not really travelling around. I don't want to commit to an external monitor, but nor do I need to carry the laptop around every day. 16GB of RAM should help in future proofing too.

Thanks again to everyone!

You made a great choice. I have the MBpro ret 13" and love it for it's small size, weight, and performance.

Also, it's a tough little SOB...I set it on the roof of my car and drove off forgetting that it was up there one day a few months ago. It was turned in to the police by a little old lady who found it on the pavement at the edge of a busy intersection a mile from my home. It was protected only by a soft and thin leather case that had been terribly scratched up from smashing onto the pavement and sliding across the intersection. (I concluded that it finally fell off as I made a turn)

At the police station I turned it on and it worked like nothing had happened to it....They just work! (Sorry rusty ;D)

 

[dstppy]

....the bloating software that goes with Windows......

There's a misconception.
Windows does not include bloatware, never has. If you were to install Windows from scratch, you'd see that there is very little software installed.
You'll get Paint, NotePad, WordPad, a photo viewer, Internet Explorer, some basic utilities and a few simple games.

Whatever bloatware you see on Windows boxes is installed by the device's manufacturer like HP, Dell, whoever, it's not Microsoft's doing or fault.

+1 --- Windows problem has always been that there is too much 3rd party software that tends to go out of support/is poorly written. Keep your installs lean and there's little issue.

Now Outlook, that's another story ;D

 

[dhr90]

Rather than start yet another which laptop thread, I thought it might be better to revive this one. How important is a graphics card for use with lightroom, maybe elements in the future and potentially a small amount of video editing? The cards below are the two I am looking at.

I've narrowed my choice down to two laptops, the PCSPECIALIST Ultranote II or CosmosII (both I have specced with a full HD IPS screen.
One has an Intel HD Graphics Media Accelerator 4600 graphics card, which I believe is built in graphics rather than separate?
The second has a choice of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 840M 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX11, or the 850M.
Otherwise the specs are identical between the two choices, but the second laptop will be more than £150 extra.

I've had a play with some Macbook Pro's, and whilst very nice, any with a retina screen and even approach the spec I desire completely smash my budget and are utterly unaffordable for me

Finally, has anyone had experience of PCSPECIALIST? Slightly wary of it as I haven't heard of it before, but they seem to be well received on the internet, and one of their machines is available from Curry's so should be legit (without the IPS screen or SSD and at a greatly increased price).

 

[RustyTheGeek]

Rather than start yet another which laptop thread, I thought it might be better to revive this one. How important is a graphics card for use with lightroom, maybe elements in the future and potentially a small amount of video editing? The cards below are the two I am looking at.

I've narrowed my choice down to two laptops, the PCSPECIALIST Ultranote II or CosmosII (both I have specced with a full HD IPS screen.
One has an Intel HD Graphics Media Accelerator 4600 graphics card, which I believe is built in graphics rather than separate?
The second has a choice of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 840M 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX11, or the 850M.
Otherwise the specs are identical between the two choices, but the second laptop will be more than £150 extra.

I've had a play with some Macbook Pro's, and whilst very nice, any with a retina screen and even approach the spec I desire completely smash my budget and are utterly unaffordable for me

Finally, has anyone had experience of PCSPECIALIST? Slightly wary of it as I haven't heard of it before, but they seem to be well received on the internet, and one of their machines is available from Curry's so should be legit (without the IPS screen or SSD and at a greatly increased price).

While there will be a variety of opinions, my IT experience wants to make these points....

- If you are on a budget, why are you trying to purchase a laptop for image/video editing? You can get a lot more bang for your buck and true performance with a desktop PC and high quality display. Trying to edit images/video on a laptop is ALWAYS a compromise and ALWAYS more expensive to get the compromise.
- With regard to the video systems you reference, it's a laptop. They are all in the same league as far as performance. And the video card performance is a moot point when editing images, it's just not the most important factor. RAM, CPU, even Drive Speed is more important. And since these are all laptop mobile chipsets, they are all going to be fairly limited on color space, etc so it's a really a moot point. I would be more concerned with stability and driver compatibility. And with that in mind, the Intel chipset will likely be the most trouble free with regard to drivers and maturity. (At least that is usually the case.) And I would definitely avoid an AMD CPU/Chipset which is what might be coming with the Nvidia graphics.

Get all the RAM you can without killing your budget (16GB should be enough) and at least a 240GB SSD for the OS, apps and scratch/working disk area. This applies to both a desktop or a laptop.

 

[Skirball]

Rather than start yet another which laptop thread, I thought it might be better to revive this one. How important is a graphics card for use with lightroom, maybe elements in the future and potentially a small amount of video editing? The cards below are the two I am looking at.

I have almost no experience with video, but for stills it doesn't matter - assuming you have a modern CPU with integrated GPU. I use the integrated GPU (Intel 4770k) in my desktop and it runs Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom smooth as butter. Based on the research I did at the time I built my PC, unless you get a really high end video card, it doesn't make a difference for stills editing. Even then, the difference was that the high end GPU would run such and such a filter 0.2 seconds faster than the integrated card. That kind of stuff doesn't bother me, so long as it can edit large documents smoothly without stutter and quickly select through photos.

And +1 to everything Rusty said above about the desktop vs. laptop. If you have no choice but to choose a laptop, then deal with what you can get. But as far as value, a laptop can't come close to competing with a desktop. And a desktop is much easier to upgrade down the line. I have to use my laptop, and I make it work. But when I have a lot of editing to do I wait until I'm at my desktop.

 

[dhr90]

While there will be a variety of opinions, my IT experience wants to make these points....

- If you are on a budget, why are you trying to purchase a laptop for image/video editing? You can get a lot more bang for your buck and true performance with a desktop PC and high quality display. Trying to edit images/video on a laptop is ALWAYS a compromise and ALWAYS more expensive to get the compromise.
- With regard to the video systems you reference, it's a laptop. They are all in the same league as far as performance. And the video card performance is a moot point when editing images, it's just not the most important factor. RAM, CPU, even Drive Speed is more important. And since these are all laptop mobile chipsets, they are all going to be fairly limited on color space, etc so it's a really a moot point. I would be more concerned with stability and driver compatibility. And with that in mind, the Intel chipset will likely be the most trouble free with regard to drivers and maturity. (At least that is usually the case.) And I would definitely avoid an AMD CPU/Chipset which is what might be coming with the Nvidia graphics.

Get all the RAM you can without killing your budget (16GB should be enough) and at least a 240GB SSD for the OS, apps and scratch/working disk area. This applies to both a desktop or a laptop.

- Space. I simply haven't the space for my own desktop while living with my parents (mine is boxed up and just goes on the dining table when I really need it). I currently use their desktop which is a decade old (it was cheap at the time, so a low spec and mine isn't much better), has a full HDD (no content is mine) thus forcing me to import and edit photos on an external drive via USB2.0. Plus the option to use a laptop from the sofa for general surfing etc would be nice. As for a screen, I have my own 23" monitor with a high resolution which is good enough for my needs for serious editing.

I'm looking at a 4th gen i5 4220M 2.6GHz with 1x 8GB RAM and windows 7 64bit.
I dislike how Windows 8 looks, unless that has some big advantages I've missed, they're the same price so I'm happy to be converted to the newer OS.
I intend to add another 8GB of RAM in a year or so, prices will hopefully have fallen, and it spreads the cost out.

As for SSD, I'm going to and fro between 120GB and 240GB, again for price. 240GB would be nice and I could keep 80% of my general files and music on it, with photos on 2 or 3 external drives once processed etc. The laptops I'm looking at have the option of replacing the disc drive with a second HDD caddy which is tempting given the OS is pre installed for me.

I have almost no experience with video, but for stills it doesn't matter - assuming you have a modern CPU with integrated GPU. I use the integrated GPU (Intel 4770k) in my desktop and it runs Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom smooth as butter. Based on the research I did at the time I built my PC, unless you get a really high end video card, it doesn't make a difference for stills editing. Even then, the difference was that the high end GPU would run such and such a filter 0.2 seconds faster than the integrated card. That kind of stuff doesn't bother me, so long as it can edit large documents smoothly without stutter and quickly select through photos.

And +1 to everything Rusty said above about the desktop vs. laptop. If you have no choice but to choose a laptop, then deal with what you can get. But as far as value, a laptop can't come close to competing with a desktop. And a desktop is much easier to upgrade down the line. I have to use my laptop, and I make it work. But when I have a lot of editing to do I wait until I'm at my desktop.

Thanks. Just the sort of advice I was looking for about the GPU.

 

[RustyTheGeek]

dhr90, based on the situation that you describe, save a little money and just get a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad T420 or T430. The T420 is a little older but probably one of the best laptops Lenovo ever made. The T430 (slightly more expensive due to being a bit newer) will lose you the classic style IBM keyboard but gain you integrated USB3 and one gen newer CPU/graphics. But you could add USB3 to the T420 with an inexpensive PCIe card. Add a mSATA 240GB SSD drive and then you will have a spot for a large internal secondary SATA hard drive. Don't worry so much about which generation the i5 CPU is. In your situation, it won't make much of a difference for the amount of money it will cost. You could get a high quality enterprise level laptop and SSD drive for less than $1000 easily. And both have DisplayPort digital external monitor connectors and support a variety of docks if you want to make it easy to use it at the table with the better display, mouse, etc. If you want more info on this, feel free to PM me. I set these up for folks all the time at a fraction of the cost of new ones.

And if you want a true powerhouse, get a W520. It has a 15" IPS high resolution display with i7 CPU and supports up to 32GB of DDR3 RAM with 4 modules + USB3. After the same 240GB mSATA SSD drive you will probably still slightly less than $1000.

http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/lenovo-thinkpad-t420-review-the-best-business-laptop/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithcombs/archive/2011/03/27/lenovo-thinkpad-w520-mini-review.aspx

 

[Skirball]

I dislike how Windows 8 looks, unless that has some big advantages I've missed, they're the same price so I'm happy to be converted to the newer OS.

I stuck with Win 7 for my desktop for similar reasons. There are some minor advantages to 8, but in my opinion they're not significant. The biggest reason I considered 8 was that the base version can go over 16 gigs of RAM, but that's not going to be an issue on your laptop. Win 8 can start up a bit faster, but I find Win 7 with an SSD to be plenty fast enough. Win 8 claims to have minor performance gains, but I can't imagine it's significant, otherwise there'd be a lot more hoopla over it.


I intend to add another 8GB of RAM in a year or so, prices will hopefully have fallen, and it spreads the cost out.

If you're putting your own RAM in it shouldn't be that expensive. But you can get by with 8 for awhile (but make sure you have the 240 gb for scratch).

As for SSD, I'm going to and fro between 120GB and 240GB, again for price.

I would save until I could afford the 240. I just can't imagine dealing with a 120. Just your OS, programs, and some music, photos, and a few movies can fill that up pretty quick. And that doesn't leave any room for Scratch or work in progress.

 

[dstppy]

You're better off with Windows 7 (64-bit).

I just got my kid an office-grade desktop (SSD, i7, 32GB RAM) and Windows 8.1 takes a LOT of getting used to; it's frustrating because I can set up a Win7 box so an XP user can find everything in 20 minutes.

 

[RustyTheGeek]

You're better off with Windows 7 (64-bit).

I just got my kid an office-grade desktop (SSD, i7, 32GB RAM) and Windows 8.1 takes a LOT of getting used to; it's frustrating because I can set up a Win7 box so an XP user can find everything in 20 minutes.

Yep. Very true. (Based on my exp with sooo many ex-XP users over the last couple years.)

 

[Skirball]

I just got my kid an office-grade desktop (SSD, i7, 32GB RAM) and Windows 8.1 takes a LOT of getting used to; it's frustrating because I can set up a Win7 box so an XP user can find everything in 20 minutes.

Agreed, but the key word there is office grade. Windows still dominates the work place, and will most likely continue to do so. So unless Microsoft gives up on the new interface style, or decides to maintain two styles, one for personal/tablets and one for professional use, you're going to have to learn it sooner or later.

 

[Don Haines]

I just got my kid an office-grade desktop (SSD, i7, 32GB RAM) and Windows 8.1 takes a LOT of getting used to; it's frustrating because I can set up a Win7 box so an XP user can find everything in 20 minutes.

Agreed, but the key word there is office grade. Windows still dominates the work place, and will most likely continue to do so. So unless Microsoft gives up on the new interface style, or decides to maintain two styles, one for personal/tablets and one for professional use, you're going to have to learn it sooner or later.

Microsoft is getting ready to roll out Windows 10 later on this year... reviews from Beta testers are quite favorable... If you can wait a few months, I would...

P.S. I have windows 8.1 on my laptop. The day Windows 10 comes out is the day it gets wiped and a new OS put in place. My plan is to install a new OS on a new HD.

 

[Neutral]

I would suggest to have a look at this :
http://www.originpc.com/workstation/laptops/eon15-s-pro/
http://www.originpc.com/workstation/laptops/eon17-s-pro/

ORIGIN PC is US based PC manufacturer/vendor for professional top level grade laptops and desktops which are fully customizable - could be ordered in any required for customer configuration.
You just need to select laptop , select required configuration, place order and you will get best for your budget.

I ordered one in my own configuration one year ago and I am extremely pleased with that since I received that.

I spent quite amount of time evaluating different options from different vendors and found that ORIGIN PC is the best way to go - best investment for available money - you get exactly what you want and need .
It is not very well known brand - as they specialize not in mass production but in providing custom made system with top performance

Regards.

 

[lvanzijl]

I just got my kid an office-grade desktop (SSD, i7, 32GB RAM) and Windows 8.1 takes a LOT of getting used to; it's frustrating because I can set up a Win7 box so an XP user can find everything in 20 minutes.

Agreed, but the key word there is office grade. Windows still dominates the work place, and will most likely continue to do so. So unless Microsoft gives up on the new interface style, or decides to maintain two styles, one for personal/tablets and one for professional use, you're going to have to learn it sooner or later.

Microsoft is getting ready to roll out Windows 10 later on this year... reviews from Beta testers are quite favorable... If you can wait a few months, I would...

P.S. I have windows 8.1 on my laptop. The day Windows 10 comes out is the day it gets wiped and a new OS put in place. My plan is to install a new OS on a new HD.

Lots of rumors that windows 10 will be a free upgrade for windows 8/8.1 owners.

 

[dhr90]

Should have mentioned this earlier, my top budget is £700, the UltranoteII is about £620 (about $1000 if my maths is right?) which I am much more comfortable with paying, I'd only go to £700 if it was a high end Macbook Pro sort of spec, which I know won't happen hence my looking to spend a bit less.

dhr90, based on the situation that you describe, save a little money and just get a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad T420 or T430. The T420 is a little older but probably one of the best laptops Lenovo ever made. The T430 (slightly more expensive due to being a bit newer) will lose you the classic style IBM keyboard but gain you integrated USB3 and one gen newer CPU/graphics. But you could add USB3 to the T420 with an inexpensive PCIe card. Add a mSATA 240GB SSD drive and then you will have a spot for a large internal secondary SATA hard drive. Don't worry so much about which generation the i5 CPU is. In your situation, it won't make much of a difference for the amount of money it will cost. You could get a high quality enterprise level laptop and SSD drive for less than $1000 easily. And both have DisplayPort digital external monitor connectors and support a variety of docks if you want to make it easy to use it at the table with the better display, mouse, etc. If you want more info on this, feel free to PM me. I set these up for folks all the time at a fraction of the cost of new ones.

And if you want a true powerhouse, get a W520. It has a 15" IPS high resolution display with i7 CPU and supports up to 32GB of DDR3 RAM with 4 modules + USB3. After the same 240GB mSATA SSD drive you will probably still slightly less than $1000.

http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/lenovo-thinkpad-t420-review-the-best-business-laptop/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithcombs/archive/2011/03/27/lenovo-thinkpad-w520-mini-review.aspx

I'm intrigued by those thinkpads, and the w520. But I am VERY hesitant about preowned, even if they are refurbished. The workstation part thought for use with an external screen does sound good, my plan had been to just have them side by side and to use a proper mouse for editing work. I'll think about refurbished and get back to you. Thanks for the offer though!

I dislike how Windows 8 looks, unless that has some big advantages I've missed, they're the same price so I'm happy to be converted to the newer OS.

I stuck with Win 7 for my desktop for similar reasons. There are some minor advantages to 8, but in my opinion they're not significant. The biggest reason I considered 8 was that the base version can go over 16 gigs of RAM, but that's not going to be an issue on your laptop. Win 8 can start up a bit faster, but I find Win 7 with an SSD to be plenty fast enough. Win 8 claims to have minor performance gains, but I can't imagine it's significant, otherwise there'd be a lot more hoopla over it.


I intend to add another 8GB of RAM in a year or so, prices will hopefully have fallen, and it spreads the cost out.

If you're putting your own RAM in it shouldn't be that expensive. But you can get by with 8 for awhile (but make sure you have the 240 gb for scratch).

As for SSD, I'm going to and fro between 120GB and 240GB, again for price.

I would save until I could afford the 240. I just can't imagine dealing with a 120. Just your OS, programs, and some music, photos, and a few movies can fill that up pretty quick. And that doesn't leave any room for Scratch or work in progress.

Sold on Win7 and 240GB SSD after mulling it over at work.

I just got my kid an office-grade desktop (SSD, i7, 32GB RAM) and Windows 8.1 takes a LOT of getting used to; it's frustrating because I can set up a Win7 box so an XP user can find everything in 20 minutes.

Agreed, but the key word there is office grade. Windows still dominates the work place, and will most likely continue to do so. So unless Microsoft gives up on the new interface style, or decides to maintain two styles, one for personal/tablets and one for professional use, you're going to have to learn it sooner or later.

Microsoft is getting ready to roll out Windows 10 later on this year... reviews from Beta testers are quite favorable... If you can wait a few months, I would...

P.S. I have windows 8.1 on my laptop. The day Windows 10 comes out is the day it gets wiped and a new OS put in place. My plan is to install a new OS on a new HD.

Having waited this long, I can wait a bit longer to see what Windows 10 is like. I just don't understand why they would put a touch screen looking interface, on an OS going on non touch screen machines

Thank you for everyones advice, I look forward to using a machine which I can use within a minute or two of turning on. Currently I switch this machine on and then go to make and eat dinner before this one is ready to use ;D

 

[RustyTheGeek]

Should have mentioned this earlier, my top budget is £700, the UltranoteII is about £620 (about $1000 if my maths is right?) which I am much more comfortable with paying, I'd only go to £700 if it was a high end Macbook Pro sort of spec, which I know won't happen hence my looking to spend a bit less.

I'm intrigued by those thinkpads, and the w520. But I am VERY hesitant about preowned, even if they are refurbished. The workstation part thought for use with an external screen does sound good, my plan had been to just have them side by side and to use a proper mouse for editing work. I'll think about refurbished and get back to you. Thanks for the offer though!

dhr90, you're going to have to decide how far you will compromise to stay within your budget. You say you want to save money but then you compare what you prefer to a Macbook Pro and are not comfortable buying used. (And IMO, Macbooks are about the most expensive and worst value/ROI there is. I know many will disagree but I've never considered Macbooks as being that great. Mid range at best as far as performance and usefulness, at least with regard to the hardware. But hey, the marketing is top notch!) I agree that buying a cheap consumer grade plastic laptop used is risky and probably would be a disappointment. However, buying an enterprise grade Thinkpad W520 is akin to buying an L lens. It's built like a tank and assuming it wasn't just totally beat to heck, it will be a great used system and work great for as long as you want to keep it.

Most folks don't realize that the major laptop brands have two lines. One is retail you see in stores. The other is business/enterprise that are only available through specific channels. The enterprise lines are more expensive, better built and last longer. It's not that the retail lines totally suck, they just aren't built to the same standards or consistency. Kind of like L Lens vs EF and EF-S lenses. These include some of the following...

Brand Enterprise vs Retail
Lenovo Thinkpad vs Lenovo (various models)
Toshiba Tecra/Portege vs Satellite etc.
HP Elitebook vs Pavillion
DELL Latitude vs Inspiron

 

[dstppy]

Most folks don't realize that the major laptop brands have two lines. One is retail you see in stores. The other is business/enterprise that are only available through specific channels. The enterprise lines are more expensive, better built and last longer. It's not that the retail lines totally suck, they just aren't built to the same standards or consistency. Kind of like L Lens vs EF and EF-S lenses.

I can't stress that enough for longevity. In desktops, the price-to-reward makes it a no-brainer. Every time someone says they spent $500 on a computer, I raise an eyebrow and am very glad they don't have my number.