Laptop advice

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Patrickgoffin

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Patrick
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Hi looking to buy a new laptop under £1000 to run Lightroom classic any recommendations
 
13" MacBook Air M3 16GB RAM 512GB SSD perhaps?

2024 Apple MacBook Air 13.6", M3 Processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Buy 2024 Apple MacBook Air 13.6", M3 Processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD from our View All Laptops & MacBooks range at John Lewis & Partners. Free Delivery on orders over £50.
www.johnlewis.com www.johnlewis.com

Or an M4 for about 10% more spend.

Edit -
If you don’t have an external monitor and want a bigger screen. How about:

From Apple - refurbished 15 M3 with 16GB and 512 GB

www.apple.com

Refurbished 15-inch MacBook Air Apple M3 Chip with 8âCore CPU and 10âCore GPU - Space Grey

Originally released March 2024|15.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display with IPS technology;¹| 2880x1864 native resolution at 224 pixels per inch|16GB unified memory|512GB SSD²|Touch ID|1080p FaceTime HD camera|Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports
www.apple.com
 
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My vote would also be for a MacBook Air, ideally with 16GB RAM. There may be something suitable on the Apple Refurbished store.
 
I haven't bought a refurbished laptop, but I've bought several iPhones from backmarket.co.uk and they've all been excellent, even when I've gone for a lower graded item - a lot cheaper than buying new, too.
 
Hoxtons to used Macs. I bought a used Mac Mini for my office and it was like new and works perfectly, so worth a look there.

I'm another who has a M4 Air with 16Gb Ram but an M3, M2 or even an M1 works perfectly with LR. My Mac Minis and Studio are all M1 chips and they have no issues running LR and Photoshop. As others have said, 16Gb ram minimum.
 
MacBook Air. M3, 24G RAM, 512 SSD. Midnight colour from Currys.

£875.

I think it's sold out now but I think other places might also off loading these spec too, might be a little more money. I too thought about getting the M4 16/256 but for basically the same money, swapping the 10% increase in CPU for more RAM and storage is worth it.

Note that because it is old stock, after setting up, you don't get the initial 60 Day Apple Care (expired), but if you call up Apple Support and send them a receipt, they will then activate it on the system for you. It took about 10 mins and now I have the 60 Days Apple Care which at the end I will get a full one too.

So for around £900 (excluding the drive i had doing nothing), unbelievable value. I don't know what I would do with my 4 year old iPad Air now lol.

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I also add in one of these, £22 hub/nvme enclosure, add in a USB-A socket, SD/microSD card reader, 4k/60hz HDMI, USB-C and another audio jack. I put in a 1TB drive I had not being used (in the yellow SHARGE enclosure).

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For size comparison, iPhone 14 Pro. It also have MagSafe and can be put on the back of a phone.

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ecoleman said:
Hoxtons to used Macs. I bought a used Mac Mini for my office and it was like new and works perfectly, so worth a look there.

I'm another who has a M4 Air with 16Gb Ram but an M3, M2 or even an M1 works perfectly with LR. My Mac Minis and Studio are all M1 chips and they have no issues running LR and Photoshop. As others have said, 16Gb ram minimum.
Click to expand...
I do agree on the 16GB RAM as a minimum and so do Apple... now.
My 13" M2 MacBook Air only has 8GB (stupidly bought it before the 'free' upgrade by Apple, also just missed out on the M3). That said, it runs LrC and Photoshop with no issues and is by far the best laptop I've used to date. Same size as an A4 pad of paper, very convenient. The 15" is just that bit bigger and wasn't what I wanted.
 
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GeeJay57 said:
I do agree on the 16GB RAM as a minimum and so do Apple... now.
My 13" M2 MacBook Air only has 8GB (stupidly bought it before the 'free' upgrade by Apple, also just missed out on the M3). That said, it runs LrC and Photoshop with no issues and is by far the best laptop I've used to date. Same size as an A4 pad of paper, very convenient. The 15" is just that bit bigger and wasn't what I wanted.
Click to expand...

Oh 8Gb will run LR and PS just fine but you will find that swap is being used which means that the system is writing to the SSD a lot more. The thought is that constantly writing to the SSD will wear out the SSD prematurely.
 
ecoleman said:
Oh 8Gb will run LR and PS just fine but you will find that swap is being used which means that the system is writing to the SSD a lot more. The thought is that constantly writing to the SSD will wear out the SSD prematurely.
Click to expand...
Yep. I've currently stayed with Sonoma to avoid the additional overhead of Apple Intelligence that is foisted onto us in Sequoia (though I understand that it can be disabled). I am mildly annoyed with myself for jumping in when I did, but figured that feet have be wet at some point.

I don't use Lr and PS very often, so hopefully I won't exhaust the SSD too quickly, but for sure it may be the life limiting factor.

Still the best laptop I've used to date and I've had more than a few.
 
GeeJay57 said:
Yep. I've currently stayed with Sonoma to avoid the additional overhead of Apple Intelligence that is foisted onto us in Sequoia (though I understand that it can be disabled). I am mildly annoyed with myself for jumping in when I did, but figured that feet have be wet at some point.

I don't use Lr and PS very often, so hopefully I won't exhaust the SSD too quickly, but for sure it may be the life limiting factor.

Still the best laptop I've used to date and I've had more than a few.
Click to expand...

I make sure Apple UnIntelligence is off in all my devices, it just takes up unnecessary resources.
 
woof woof said:
I'd find 13" small. Go as big as possible.
Click to expand...

Depends on use case. For a split home and occsaional travel (in the car) then 15".

For pure travel and never use at home...13".

I have a Mac mini set up at home, I use my laptop only for out of the house now. so 15" is a bit too big for that. It's too awkward to use on the plane, it is too big to fit into the bags I already have. All my messenger and backpacks have a lot for a 13" laptop, not 15".

Up to you really. I find 13" much travelling friendly. If I want more screen estate, I can get a 13" OLED 1920 x 1080p screen that is about 3mm thick for less than £100. Then run dual monitor on the go when you get to the hotel.

www.aliexpress.com

Bimawen 13.3inch OLED Portable Monitor with FHD Screen Response Time 1ms 10bit 100% DCI-P3 Monitor W/Adaptive Sunc Game HoR Mode - AliExpress 7

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com
www.aliexpress.com www.aliexpress.com
 
Raymond Lin said:
Depends on use case. For a split home and occsaional travel (in the car) then 15".
Click to expand...

Mine is 17" as was the one before it and the one before that.

I'm not interested in taking a lap top away with me but even if I was I think I'd struggle to accept anything smaller. This is after all a visual hobby and 13" for me would just be completely unacceptable. To each their own and I'm sure a 13" Apple is a nice thing but for me it's a non starter for photography. Good luck to those who think it is.
 
woof woof said:
Mine is 17" as was the one before it and the one before that.

I'm not interested in taking a lap top away with me but even if I was I think I'd struggle to accept anything smaller. This is after all a visual hobby and 13" for me would just be completely unacceptable. To each their own and I'm sure a 13" Apple is a nice thing but for me it's a non starter for photography. Good luck to those who think it is.
Click to expand...

If I never take a laptop out of the house then that would defeat the purpose of having a laptop for me. Unless you live in a tiny flat with no place for a monitor.

Each to their own.

The last time I had a laptop larger than 13" I found the weight to be too annoying....as I did actually take it with me to places. Speaking from experience from someone who actually have travelled with a laptop....13" is just much nicer to travel. You will forgive the 2" screen estate to the much better portability quickly and fast. Your shoulders will tell you that quick enough.

The largest would be the 14" MBP, which really only about half an inch bigger than the MBA.
 
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GeeJay57 said:
Yep. I've currently stayed with Sonoma...
Click to expand...
Call me Mr Cranky of the Cranky people but I'm sticking with Ventura and that only on one laptop, because there's a programme I find useful that needs it.

Everything else is stuck on High Sierra, on account of that works, without added aggravation! My wife has much later kit than me, so she's using Sonoma on both her laptop and her Mini. I get the pleasure of working round the "features" as she discovers them... :(
 
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Raymond Lin said:
If I never take a laptop out of the house then that would defeat the purpose of having a laptop for me. Unless you live in a tiny flat with no place for a monitor.

Each to their own.

The last time I had a laptop larger than 13" I found the weight to be too annoying....as I did actually take it with me to places. Speaking from experience from someone who actually have travelled with a laptop....13" is just much nicer to travel. You will forgive the 2" screen estate to the much better portability quickly and fast. Your shoulders will tell you that quick enough.

The largest would be the 14" MBP, which really only about half an inch bigger than the MBA.
Click to expand...

Just to explain and give an alternative view. I spend years working in tech and now avoid a lot of it, my life has moved on. I hate to see a computer in a home, I think they dominate rooms so when mine is not in use it's shut and out of sight and that's not easy to do with a desk top unless you shut the door and avoid the room. Hence the switch to laptops. Walk into my home and unless I'm using it there wont be a computer is sight... apart from maybe a small tablet with the CCTV cameras showing.

I'm not interested in processing pictures when I'm away from home as I have better things to do. I'll check that I haven't messed the picture up but that's the limit of my non picture taking evf/screen time, processing will wait until I get home. I/we've just had a three day break in the lakes and there wasn't a spare xhours to process pictures and there wont be when I go to Thailand later this year. As you say, each to their own but on a short break or even a holiday I wont be sat at a computer processing pictures.
 
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I've not read all the arguments and counter arguments.

1. Windows or Mac? Some people detest one or the other (some just hate both). Some don't mind the foibles of the other OS. When Windows Vista came out I made the switch to Mac OS (Leopard?). I've you've not tried MacOS go to an Apple shop and arrange an extended demo in store. You don't need a lesson on Lightroom, but you may need a lesson on how MacOS works.

2. Size. I've had 13", 14" and 15" laptops, and for editing, I much prefer the 15". The 14" was one step smaller and I disliked it.

3. New/Used/Refurb. My current laptop is a 15" Dell XPS from their refub page. It was immaculate and the cost saving was good.

If I didn't need to run PC only software, I'd have a 15" Mac Mx based laptop for both the speed and power consumption. Alas I need to run software which can't be emulated on a Mac, so I went for the Dell XPS. I had an Asus before that but the customer service was terrible.
 
andrewc said:
I've not read all the arguments and counter arguments.

1. Windows or Mac? Some people detest one or the other (some just hate both).
Click to expand...

Indeed. I work with Macs and PCs and Linux. I can get very annoyed with them all.

andrewc said:
2. Size. I've had 13", 14" and 15" laptops, and for editing, I much prefer the 15". The 14" was one step smaller and I disliked it.

3. New/Used/Refurb. My current laptop is a 15" Dell XPS from their refub page. It was immaculate and the cost saving was good.
Click to expand...
I also have used the Dell Outlet and the best XPS I had was a 9575 which had the a Adobe RGB 4K display with a pen digitiser.

But they don't seem to do them any more and I find the OLED screens on the current office one quite 'harsh'. Also I don't think they are as expandable either these days.

I currently have a Yoga Book 9 which is a 13" dual screen thing. It's not perfect. Lower battery life because of the dual screens and a bit quirky at times and the pen isn't as good as my old XPS. And the keyboard is separate which is good when using it as a desktop but a faff when using it as a laptop. The dual screens work really well at times - but when somebodfy next to me just flips open a Macbook Air and starts work - I'm still sorting out my keyboard. OTOH when I'm working in a hotel or library or where there is space such an empty train table seat - then it's brilliant.

andrewc said:
If I didn't need to run PC only software, I'd have a 15" Mac Mx based laptop for both the speed and power consumption. Alas I need to run software which can't be emulated on a Mac, so I went for the Dell XPS. I had an Asus before that but the customer service was terrible.
Click to expand...

I've looked repeatedly at Macbook Air models. The 16GB isn't enough IMO. 24GB is marginal but a bit safer. The prices are a bit high. No touch screen. Annoying user interface with that menu bar. But I still keep looking. As a well presented mid range laptop with just enough and not too much they easily hit the spot for a lot of stuff. The 15" is the logical choice but the 13" ones seem a more natural choice - most of the ones I see amongst colleagues are the 13".
 
I was able to expand my XPS 15 from 32 to 64Gb main memory (useful when 3D scanning).

Dryce said:
I've looked repeatedly at Macbook Air models. The 16GB isn't enough IMO. 24GB is marginal but a bit safer. The prices are a bit high. No touch screen. Annoying user interface with that menu bar. But I still keep looking. As a well presented mid range laptop with just enough and not too much they easily hit the spot for a lot of stuff. The 15" is the logical choice but the 13" ones seem a more natural choice - most of the ones I see amongst colleagues are the 13".
Click to expand...

Are you're colleages falling into the 'trendy laptop trap' and have to smile it out? They do look good and are probably fine for many people. Unless you are regularly tethered to a bigger screen, a 13" isn't ideal for photography purposes (IMO)
 
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