Help buying laptop

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CanonGal

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Tricia
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Ive had a looksie in previous threads but none seem to help me! Need a new laptop to run LR and PS as a secondary to my desktop. I am no techie on specs. What should I be looking for? Gaming Laptops? What graphics card? what processor? I have no idea what make/type is better

All these techie things send me into a heap in the corner! My budget is preferably up to £1k to £1250 but could go a bit further if worth it.

Any advice gratefully received!
 
What I bought for pretty similar requirements was a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro with an AMD Ryzen CPU & GTX 3060 GPU. The 16" WQXGA screen (an option) is a gem. There's 25% off at the moment and the spec I'd go for is about £1500.

I have to say the Asus that John linked to looks a very good price for the spec.
 
your budget should easily get a laptop with the latest specs, minimum i7/i9 or equivalent and at least 32Gb of Ram, I've just replaced my desktop i3 /6 Gb of RAM to i9 with 32Gb - difference is like night and day. Wouldn't worry too much about graphics card to be honest. RAM is probably the crucial factor. Also 512Bg/1Tb of SSD storage as well, as some programmes are now very storage hungry.

As for brand, I use HP, but most of the internals are fairly generic anyway.
 
Are you open to getting a Mac laptop? All models are capable of running LR and PS.
 
If it's a secondary device why not consider an iPad? I've been iPad Pro only for over 3 years. Paired with the Apple Pencil they are wonderful devices for photo editing, to the point that I never sit at a desk to edit images anymore.
 
Some good advice so far.

SSD - try for the largest size you can afford. Your op system and apps load onto the SSD, and so it fills up quickly. If you can, try and leave space to load your apps and have your photo processing folder structure on there too. Once edited you can then move the pics to a folder structure on the HDD

I have a gaming laptop but, although it has no probs with Luminar NEO and other resource-hungry apps I use, it's bloody noisy! The fans kick off when there is very little going on. It might be a fault on my laptop, though, so maybe not applicable to all. I've had it for a few years now, and it's still going strong after Win 10, 11 and a lot of updates

Good luck
 
I'd look at the Macbooks, maybe the new Macbook Air or a used Macbook Pro.
 
RichardC27 said:
If it's a secondary device why not consider an iPad? I've been iPad Pro only for over 3 years. Paired with the Apple Pencil they are wonderful devices for photo editing, to the point that I never sit at a desk to edit images anymore.
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Expense for an apple product plus the re-learning
 
Awfers said:
I use my Macs for editing photos in Affinity. If you are getting a PC, likely a gaming laptop will have a decent enough graphics card and processor to be able to push the pixels without frustrating you.. I have a not so inexpensive Acer laptop with an i5-8250U with 8 cores and 20GB of RAM, but a built-in generic Intel graphics adapter, it has trouble with large files from time to time. So I would avoid a "cheapo" laptop.
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Definitely avoiding cheap - buy cheap, but twice my dad used to say:)
 
Thank you all for your advice, food for thought and very helpful:)
 
Things to perhaps consider:
  • CPU designations Intel use such as i5 and i7 don't mean that an i7 on a laptop is equivalent to i7 on a desktop - it may be closer to an desktop i5.
  • Laptop RAM is not always upgradeable. I would be inclined to go for a machine that can be upgraded.
  • Screen quality varies - for photo work you can get sRGB and AdobeRGB screens if you look hard enough (and can pay).
  • Not all touch screens are the same - some high end touch screens also have digitiser layers that will work nicely with a pen. These are not common - and sometimes the feature isn't well publicised.
  • Internal NVME SSD storage is sometimes upgradable or there may be a spare slot - this is a 'nice' to have if you wanted to say add a second 2TB NVME at some point.
  • USB-C external SSD drives are very fast these days - so even if you have say 256GB or 512GB in the laptop you can augment this and keep your images on an external SSD drive.
  • Screen size isn't always a good indcator of the practical size of a 15" laptop. Some of the slimmer high end models will fit more conveniently into a bag than might be expected from the headline size. (I have a Crumpler bag that has a section rated to take a 13" laptop. It's not a good fit for a large 15" laptops - but will take the slimmer high end Dell 15" and Lenovo 14" laptops.
When I was looking a couple of years ago Lenovo did some nice 14" machines around the £1000 to £1200 mark - and sRGB displays were available on some models.

It's also worth taking a look through the Dell outlet. On a good day you might find a decent spec 15" XPS laptop close to your budget. They often offer discount codes.
 
Dryce said:
Things to perhaps consider:
  • CPU designations Intel use such as i5 and i7 don't mean that an i7 on a laptop is equivalent to i7 on a desktop - it may be closer to an desktop i5.
  • Laptop RAM is not always upgradeable. I would be inclined to go for a machine that can be upgraded.
  • Screen quality varies - for photo work you can get sRGB and AdobeRGB screens if you look hard enough (and can pay).
  • Not all touch screens are the same - some high end touch screens also have digitiser layers that will work nicely with a pen. These are not common - and sometimes the feature isn't well publicised.
  • Internal NVME SSD storage is sometimes upgradable or there may be a spare slot - this is a 'nice' to have if you wanted to say add a second 2TB NVME at some point.
  • USB-C external SSD drives are very fast these days - so even if you have say 256GB or 512GB in the laptop you can augment this and keep your images on an external SSD drive.
  • Screen size isn't always a good indcator of the practical size of a 15" laptop. Some of the slimmer high end models will fit more conveniently into a bag than might be expected from the headline size. (I have a Crumpler bag that has a section rated to take a 13" laptop. It's not a good fit for a large 15" laptops - but will take the slimmer high end Dell 15" and Lenovo 14" laptops.
When I was looking a couple of years ago Lenovo did some nice 14" machines around the £1000 to £1200 mark - and sRGB displays were available on some models.

It's also worth taking a look through the Dell outlet. On a good day you might find a decent spec 15" XPS laptop close to your budget. They often offer discount codes.
Click to expand...
Or simply buying a Mac.
 
wornish said:
Or simply buying a Mac.
Click to expand...

I know some people would suggest a Macbook is the answer to all the world's problems. But I'm not so sure.

My generic comments apply to Macbooks as well - but clearly there is more variety on the Windows laptops.

My main concern with Macbooks these days is that I think they are over priced and I find them hard to recommend unless somebody specifically wants the MacOS experience.

If Apple had doubled the memory on them - which I suspect would hardly shave anything off their underlyng margins - then I'd be substantially happier and more likely to own one myself.
 
Overpriced is such a great phrase. And why none of us ever buy expensive lenses or camera bodies. Leica, white Canon lenses, Nikon full frame etc. oh no. Expensive.

We buy cheap.
 
Pound Coin said:
Overpriced is such a great phrase. And why none of us ever buy expensive lenses or camera bodies.
Click to expand...

The term overpriced is not the equivalent of 'expensive'.

As an example OP is looking for a laptop in a price range that would be seen by some as expensive - and by others as mid range. That doesn't mean laptops higher than the OP's suggested range are overpriced. It doesn't mean that those lower than the suggested range are not overpriced.
 
Dryce said:
I know some people would suggest a Macbook is the answer to all the world's problems. But I'm not so sure.

My generic comments apply to Macbooks as well - but clearly there is more variety on the Windows laptops.

My main concern with Macbooks these days is that I think they are over priced and I find them hard to recommend unless somebody specifically wants the MacOS experience.

If Apple had doubled the memory on them - which I suspect would hardly shave anything off their underlyng margins - then I'd be substantially happier and more likely to own one myself.
Click to expand...

With the new Apple silicon some of your generic comments aren't as applicable as they might have been before.

I too do find apple computer hardware overpriced. But they are less complicated in terms of end user experience when it comes to buying. Pick the amount of RAM you think you'll need for your applications and the rest just falls into place.
The new Apple silicon is more efficient with its memory usage and as such you can't compare it like for like with Intel based laptops (even apple ones).
Having said that if OP intends on using RAM heavy applications and do RAM heavy processing like massive stacks or panos or something then they'll need more RAM regardless of the architecture.

I have all the combinations - M1 MBP (16GB RAM), older Intel MBP (from work) and a windows laptop (mostly for games).
Personally I prefer the M1 MacBook Pro for all general use and photo processing. For the most part the experience is seamless and actually smoother than windows laptop with twice as much RAM, beefy processor and graphics.
Not to mention battery lasts forever on M1 Macs.

OP should be able to get the original M1 MBP with 16GB RAM under budget and that would be my suggestion. Not sure what camera they have but I used to have Sony A7RIV and A1 which have massive RAW files. Had no issues for most part but does slow down when I try to do massive stacks or panos because it hits the 16GB RAM limitation as mentioned above.
 
Dryce said:
The term overpriced is not the equivalent of 'expensive'.

As an example OP is looking for a laptop in a price range that would be seen by some as expensive - and by others as mid range. That doesn't mean laptops higher than the OP's suggested range are overpriced. It doesn't mean that those lower than the suggested range are not overpriced.
Click to expand...
Well, the first definition of overpriced that pops up is “too expensive, costing more than it is worth”.

What you have described sounds more like “out of my price range”.
 
Dryce said:
Things to perhaps consider:
  • CPU designations Intel use such as i5 and i7 don't mean that an i7 on a laptop is equivalent to i7 on a desktop - it may be closer to an desktop i5.
  • Laptop RAM is not always upgradeable. I would be inclined to go for a machine that can be upgraded.
  • Screen quality varies - for photo work you can get sRGB and AdobeRGB screens if you look hard enough (and can pay).
  • Not all touch screens are the same - some high end touch screens also have digitiser layers that will work nicely with a pen. These are not common - and sometimes the feature isn't well publicised.
  • Internal NVME SSD storage is sometimes upgradable or there may be a spare slot - this is a 'nice' to have if you wanted to say add a second 2TB NVME at some point.
  • USB-C external SSD drives are very fast these days - so even if you have say 256GB or 512GB in the laptop you can augment this and keep your images on an external SSD drive.
  • Screen size isn't always a good indcator of the practical size of a 15" laptop. Some of the slimmer high end models will fit more conveniently into a bag than might be expected from the headline size. (I have a Crumpler bag that has a section rated to take a 13" laptop. It's not a good fit for a large 15" laptops - but will take the slimmer high end Dell 15" and Lenovo 14" laptops.
When I was looking a couple of years ago Lenovo did some nice 14" machines around the £1000 to £1200 mark - and sRGB displays were available on some models.

It's also worth taking a look through the Dell outlet. On a good day you might find a decent spec 15" XPS laptop close to your budget. They often offer discount codes.
Click to expand...
Thank you - very helpful
 
You say it is secondary laptop - is it going to be occasional use when travelling? Or more frequent? A big powerful (gaming) laptop may not be ideal if you are carrying it around a lot. You also need to consider how much storage you need - will you be offloading images back to your main computer regularly? FWIW I found it a pain running Lightroom Classic on my desktop and also having a smaller laptop for travelling, as it involved a fair bit of manual work to get everything back into the file structure on my main computer. I now run a bigger laptop for everything, and have an external screen and NAS at home.
 
Awfers said:
This is exactly why I am no longer going to be an Apple user after my 2018 Mini, we are back in the "bad old days" of Apple after they kicked out Jobs, nothing is compatible, must by Apple accessories, can't upgrade RAM etc... Outside of two models, the M1 and M2 chip devices are impossible to upgrade (unless you invest an incredible amount of money in their Mac Pro or a Studio, but that is hard to upgrade, to say the least). I am at a loss to understand their logic here other than "planned obsolescence" (aka more money for Apple). So, just like back in the 90s, if you want power and flexibility, a PC tower is about all you can do. I already have one in my stable of computers, and man is it FAST... and almost infinitely upgrade-able for a lot less money. I just wish Affinity ran on Linux, then I would not need Windows or Mac...
Click to expand...
You can't upgrade the RAM in the M1 and M2 Macs as it's an ARM based System On a Chip (SoC), like your phone. The CPU, GPU and RAM are integrated as one single chip, rather than being upgradeable components. The Mac Pro has not made the transition to the M series chips as yet, hence why it's upgradeable. Whilst this means Apple can charge crazy money for RAM upgrades, it's also the reason M series Macs have amazing battery life and use so little power. I'm far from an Apple fan, my iPad is my only Apple device and I think some of the decisions they make and products they sell are insane, but the M series was a genuine leap forward for personal computing power and efficiency.
 
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CanonGal said:
Expense for an apple product plus the re-learning
Click to expand...
An iPad Pro is well within your budget, and if you can use LR on your desktop it works exactly the same on the iPad. This assumes you're a Creative Cloud subscriber as the iPad workflow is heavily reliant on Adobe Cloud Storage. I couldn't go back to being tied to a desk and hard drives anymore but it does take an adjustment to your mindset and workflow.
 
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