Dell Inspiron 14 usable for basic photo editing? Any other suggestions around £300

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brman

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My (16 yo) daughter has been saving up for a laptop and can afford around £300. The problem is she has just announced she wants to do photo editing on it.
I've done a quick trawl around and come up with a factory refurb: http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/....aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dfh&cs=ukdfh1&puid=5c60490a

Has anyone got any comments on this?
How good are the displays? (thinking colour accuracy over different viewing angles rather than resolution here)
Will she get away with the basic spec? (i5-4210U, 4GB)

At the moment she is using an old version of Elements, I might give her copy of Lightroom 4 I have but there is little chance of her having full photoshop so I am hoping she will get away with a relatively low power machine without being too frustrated with it. Comments?

btw. I am happy to stick a SSD drive in it and possibly upgrade it to 8GB but only if I think that is cost effective over getting a better machine in the first place. On the other hand, money is tight so I can't let costs get out of control......
 
Can't comment directly on the laptop you suggest - I get an error when I try to follow the link, but if it helps I'm running Elements 11 on an old desktop (Core2Duo E7300 2.66GHz with 2Gig of DDR2 RAM). It is not quick but it runs so I'd guess with a much later processor and 4Gig of RAM it would be at least OK.

Dave
 
Hi,

I am guessing it ones of the below?

If so - it should be ok for photo editing - SSD will make the world of the difference on it.

Does your duaghter need 14" for a reason? Portability? Might be worth looking at the 15" ones below too.

View attachment 34022



Given the choice, for little bit more there this i7 on there - better CPU, RAM and bigger screen.



View attachment 34023
 
odd, not sure what happened to that link and now I can't find the one I was looking at. :(
but it was roughly the same spec as the inspiron 14 shown by sphinx.

Anyway, thanks for the comments. There is no particular reason why I went for the 14" one other than portability and, while the 15 has a bigger screen it doesn't actually have any more pixels on it.

It sounds like processing power etc will be good enough so I think my main concern is now the screen quality. I am cautions because I have an acer netbook with a cheap screen and there is no way it can be used for photo editing. Ditto my wifes old 11" dell netbook and her current 14" acer laptop. Based on that I am suspicions of displays on cheap laptops........
 
I have the Dell inspiron 15", with the standard screen, and to be honest, it fine for photo editing.

The 14" screen is a lot squarer and smaller, not sure though if a higher res on small screen would be that noticible.

I would definitely go with a ssd drive, but they are a real challenge to fit, as my Dell didn't have a access panel for the hdd, and had to dismantle the whole thing to change it.
 
I5 is fine. You can upgrade the ram later, 4gb will do. So long as the screen res is enough for you then I'm sure it'll be fine, and you can always use an external monitor as well.
 
thanks all, good to here the basic spec and screen is ok.

Sounds like I need to find out exactly how much she can spend and hope she isn't hankering after a touch screen or anything silly ;)
 
No one needs a touch screen laptop (as opposed to a tablet or a convertible). I've had one for years and it's f all use if you have a mouse and keyboard
 
I've never seen anyone use the touch screen on a laptop which given my employer is kind of heresy, but it's true...!
 
I use the touchscreen all the time.

Brilliant with onenote,visio,project,and lightroom especially. I'm loving it on my hidpi screen. Come guys embrace change or be property stuck in the past and handcode your postscript :p
 
I like touch screens for things like reading emails a bit of browsing or playing games but then I use a tablet for that. My wife uses her laptop for that sort of stuff so uses the touchscreen a lot so fair enough (although why she didn't just get a decent tablet I don't know...)

I've tried to use touchscreens for stuff like excel, word, coding etc and found it a pain in the backside but then for that sort of stuff half the mouse pads on laptops are useless too imho.

Whether my daughter gets one or not is down to cost and her prioirities.

RIR, is that asus one you have used? Does it have a decent screen?
 
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