I need help!

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strawberry

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Rachel
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Hi

I love photography however only do it as a hobbie, my youngest daughter is just taking her A levels and is seriously considering a career in the art/photography industry. She has asked all the family to club together (and is chipping in money herself) to get a good laptop for christmas. My problem is that I would like some advice on what would be the best to get to help her with her studies. I know that she will need a lot of memory and Im guessing she will be using photoshop but any advice on what would be suitable for her would be greatly appreciated.

many thanks
 
You should be able to get a midpriced laptop, processor around 2ghz and 3gig of RAM from many high street stores. I use an Acer dual core 2.1gig processor and 3gig of RAM and paid £350.
 
Do you have any particular budget in mind?

Generally you should be looking for a dual core processor and 3GB of ram and the largest hard drive you can find.

Something like a dell inspiron 15 could be ideal.
 
thanks all for the very quick replies!

our budget is around £600 - thats with her money too - so anything with relevant software would be great. The acer looks good - thanks

any other advice regarding software etc would be very much appreciated.

thanks
 
Photodiva said:
You obviously don't own one, then ;)
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nope but i work in an IT dept that supports a floor of them, satisfying would not be one of my best words to use ;) thats not to say i dont like the macs but to say they offer anything over a PC is twoddle. IN MY OPINION.

Well, then, its a matter of choice. Just threw that in for consideration.
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what choise? companys like adobe let you swap between platforms with their licences.. :thinking:
 
Taking it away from the PC V MAC for just a second- if the budget is £600, how is suggesting a solution @ £800 useful? Does she already have a film/digital camera- that won't need to be in the budget? Don't buy any software till she registers as a student, as you will be able to buy the student versions :)
 
Well, its always worth considering other options before making a decision. My daughter is at uni, doing a media degree, and any work they do at uni is on mac. Get your software from http://www.software4students.co.uk/

Neil-g: IT guys always say that, but I won't hold it against you :)
 
aligibbs said:
Taking it away from the PC V MAC for just a second- if the budget is £600, how is suggesting a solution @ £800 useful? Does she already have a film/digital camera- that won't need to be in the budget? Don't buy any software till she registers as a student, as you will be able to buy the student versions :)
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Good advice. I was sadly waiting for someone to pop up and say "buy a Mac". It's the same "I love mine so this will be perfect for you" attitude that offers nothing useful to the debate. It's the same nonsense you see in the gear threads where someone asks for advice on buying a camera to get them started and then after 5 or 6 sensible posts you get the one stating that a 5D Mk II is the only sensible option.

You have a limited but good budget and can afford to acquire a very good laptop. My advice would be to buy a Dell as suggested before but take the on-site warranty. Not cheap but HUGE peace of mind - especially if she is away at Uni. Also, given that Windows based machines occupy around 90% of the market, all the people she will want to share things with, will most likely be on the same platform so this makes sense on many levels. Once she is qualified and knows what her future holds, then she can specialise and a Mac may well be the best option.
 
Computer companies seem to be almost giving the kit away at the moment ( except Apple). I've had Dell's and Compaq over the years and they have worked well. You can probably pick up a decent model nowadays for about £400 or less.

Look at what she wants to do with the computer, this will help you decide on the spec. Most machines are around 250Gb hard drive with 3-4 Gb of Ram . That should be fine for most applications.

Buy a backup hard drive. £60 now saves a whole lot of grief latter.

Don't forget AV software . There are Free versions available but you need like all of them to keep them updated.

Spend an hour or so going round PC world or Currys, (without credit card) and see what's on the market, then make you decision
 
LemmingLover said:
Good advice. I was sadly waiting for someone to pop up and say "buy a Mac". It's the same "I love mine so this will be perfect for you" attitude that offers nothing useful to the debate.
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Oh, pardon me, Mister.
 
In light of your budget you could look at the dell studio 15 range, I bought one for exactly the usage you describe and it's been great so far.

I got mine off dells refurbished outlet and paid £450 for

p8600 2.4Ghz dual core processor
4GB RAM
320GB Hard drive
ATI 4570HD dedicated graphics

You could then use the rest of the budget to buy some decent software.
Photoshop CS4 student edition is around £140 I believe.
 
neil_g said:
personally id avoid the plastic fantastic acer/toshiba etc etc (see my recent thread about cheap laptops).

have a look at the dell latitude range, magnesium chassis. we're yet to have a breakage (that wasnt a proper insurance claim lol) due to wear and tear even on the older D series we still have in circulation..

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/bus...ct.aspx?refid=latit&s=bsd&cs=ukbsdt1&ref=lthp
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I would agree with this - at the budget you have, I would avoid Mac as to duplicate the spec of Dell will be more expensive.

Photoshop Elements is fine for most things - Gimp also is there - I use Open Office on my laptop and have very few issues opening documents either from or to MS Office.

Chris
 
Hi

thanks for everyones opinions - i have the abode collection so she will already have photoshop but I had fogotten about student discount - so thanks for the link :) I have a Dell machine myself and I am quite happy with that but wasnt too sure about what spec she would need.

I have a pretty good idea now and I think that the Dell or acer seem to be the general ones to go for.

I have a sony a200 which she will be using - if thats any help to anyones input!

If there is anything else anyone can suggest - so I can get her sorted for christmas - then she can look towards saving for her own decent camera.

:)
 
Tulipone said:
Photoshop Elements is fine for most things - Gimp also is there
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I agree that these are fine for most editing, however, if you are looking into jobs related to photography, many require experience in photoshop CS4 as its pretty much the industry standard platform. And having prior experience in photoshop is a great thing to put on your CV.
 
Can i just add my opinions. Im not going to suggest any computers as at the end of the day you will get what you think is good and nice, but just want to clear up if you do not already know, that alot of people are telling you to get dual core laptops and although i know there probably not meaning it in this way but "dual core" and "core 2 duo" (that are dual cores) are two different processors and if i was looking for a new laptop and had £600 budget then i would not waste time with a "dual core" or "AMD dual core" or "celeron dual core" i would get a "core 2 duo" or above (quad cores) but then thats start it all over again as alot of "core 2 duo's" are better than the quad cores... which likewise are not "core 2 duo's" :) And remember.... big pictures love RAM :)

And either Toshiba or dell and now acer do seem to have some good machines on the market.

Thanks
Andy
 
hi - saw your post - am thinking of dell studio, professional photographer, which 1 do you have? where from? (might not be dell, saw i in john lewis this week), not sure if i can/allowed to email people here directly? tom
 
Find out what her college uses it will almost certainly be a mac but if it's a pc stick to pc it's a lot cheaper , also bear in mind that I don't know many top pro's or design companies that don't use Macs.
 
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