Laptop for travelling? (Photo editing)

Daymouse

Daymouse

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Hey

Right ive just been made redundant but coming out with a nice sum! As i have no debts or commitments im off travelling for a few months.

I will be taking alot of photos so wanted to have a laptop to take along for some editing.

Ive not looked into laptops for a long time so havent a clue whats out there and so wanted to see what you lot recommend.

I think the key things are

a decent high res screen
decent battery
thin a poss (ie no dvd drive needed)

So what you think would be best??
 
13" macbook pros are really, really nice.

Or there's doubtless similar windows equivalents... business dells and HPs, asus and sonys are pretty good...
 
A bit more than your price range, but I got myself one of these for editing my photos on the move, in full photoshop. It can shoot tethered, and is small, light. Downsides are cost, and battery is 3 hours of use (sleep/suspend can extend this a lot)

No keyboard required (but one supplied)
http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Slate_EP121/
 
I picked a new Dell M101z from one of their outlet resellers for £360 and it's perfect for field editing.

Spec came as
dual core AMD Neo K325 (ie 1300Mhz)
4Gb RAM
320Gb HD
11" screen with a 1366 x768 res.

All up weight 2Kg (inc adaptor) or 1.5 by itself.

The slight downside is the battery life of just over 3½ hrs in the real world, although that's easily fixed with a spare battery if vital.

It's basically a souped up Netbook which can run LR3 & PS CS5 really quite smoothly.
 
Hi, I use an Acer Aspire Timeline, the 5810 comes in various prices and spec's. It weighs 2,4kg and has a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 ( WXGA ). Lovely PC, nice and light and slim, no problem with photoshop. You should be able to pick this spec up for about £600.
:thumbs:
 
ndwilson said:
Hi, I use an Acer Aspire Timeline, the 5810 comes in various prices and spec's. It weighs 2,4kg and has a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 ( WXGA ). Lovely PC, nice and light and slim, no problem with photoshop. You should be able to pick this spec up for about £600.
:thumbs:
Click to expand...

You'd be better off with the 4820T from Argos @ £399.

Slightly less screen real estate, but same resolution and a better processor (unless you meant the 5820?).

I use one as my home laptop attached to a 24" monitor and they're excellent.
 
Daymouse said:
Would love a macbook but i think that will be out of my price range for now looking to spend max about £500.

any models you can think of?
Click to expand...
Don't know ifd you can stretch to £580, but if I were buying at that price point, I'd be going for the Acer 5750 such as: http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/Acer_As...ll_Cam_b-g-n__Win7_H_LX.RGK02.013/version.asp
(you may be able to get it cheaper elsewhere).

An i7-sandybridge quad core (as is in that) will destroy pretty much any other laptop you can find for photoshop.

Unfortunately, any quad core i7 with hi-res screen is £850+
 
PS. for the last 5 years or so, AMD have trailed Intel with power management features. They may make decent mid-range desktop processors, but I wouldn't buy an AMD based laptop...
 
Cheers for the advice guys, really dont want to be spending so much on a laptop for travelling with, once back from travelling a will probs invest in some form of Mac but there no way i would take one travelling!!

I have found this one that seems a really good spec for the price especially as it seems to have a about 7 hours battery life!

HP Pavilion dm1-3100sa Entertainment Notebook PC

http://h40059.www4.hp.com/uk/homelaptops/index.php

I can also get it for £319 direct from HP with the discount website through work.

What do you think?

Cheers
 
Daymouse said:
What do you think?

Cheers
Click to expand...
If you're happy to wait 10 minutes for it to do anything, you'll be happy ;) CPUbenchmark.net rates that processor at 732. The i7 in the machine I linked to is rated at 6296. In the benchmarks, higher is better. Whilst I wouldn't go as far as to say the i7 will be 10x as quick, it will be an awful lot quicker.

BTW, the i7 laptop I linked to will be as powerful and speedy as the entry 15" MBP, just costs ~1/3 the price. Also, what did I say about buying an AMD based laptop ;)
 
arad85 said:
If you're happy to wait 10 minutes for it to do anything, you'll be happy ;) CPUbenchmark.net rates that processor at 732. The i7 in the machine I linked to is rated at 6296. In the benchmarks, higher is better. Whilst I wouldn't go as far as to say the i7 will be 10x as quick, it will be an awful lot quicker.

BTW, the i7 laptop I linked to will be as powerful and speedy as the entry 15" MBP, just costs ~1/3 the price. Also, what did I say about buying an AMD based laptop ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks but i went to have a look at the HP in pc world and its the ideal size and weight so looking for somthing around 1.6kgs and about 11-12" screen.

Any ideas of anything else out there with these in mind. The one you mention is just too big and heavy for what im looking for.

All i want to do on it is a little basic photoshopping, nothing too serious.

Lets also take the budget upto 450 :)
 
Small & portable normally means long battery and not much processing power. How about the Acer Aspire One 753. Has an Intel dual core celeron @ 1200 which comes in at 935 on the benchmark test, so a tad faster than the other you were looking at. You can get it with varying disk/memory sizes so costs change dependent on that. Also has a media accelerator so it will play HD movies with the correct software (such as MPC-HC) if that's something that interests you.
 
Daymouse said:
Yeah that Acer looks good, how does the processer compare to the others??
Click to expand...
Just less than 1000 on the benchmark (which is all you have to go by, and although it isn't a perfect indicator it does give you an idea of relative performance). Other netbooks tend to use Intel Atoms which score between ~300-700 depending on processor, but they will be better on battery. The Acer does benefit from 1366x768 screen and IMHO, screen real estate is very important when editing photos (and hence why I have a 1920x1080 screen on my laptop).

The lenovo linked to above is about 2.5x as powerful as the Acer, but is a 13.3" 1366x768 screen. You would definitely notice the difference in performance with the lenovo, but it is bigger and bulkier. All down to what your priorities are...

If you want to do comparisons, the place I'm looking at for CPU scores is here: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php. Just remember, it's only an indication and if there are two systems that are within - say - 10%, they won't be much different in the hand.
 
Looks like the Acer is the best for what im looking for small, light weight 1.4kgs, decent battery time and decent processing power.

As long as it will open up a raw image in reasonable time i will be happy.
 
Daymouse said:
As long as it will open up a raw image in reasonable time i will be happy.
Click to expand...
Define "reasonable"?

What do you currently use to process images? It'll be easier to make a comparison with what you already have.
 
Ive used an Acer Ferrari One Netbook for the last few years when travelling and it has never let me down. It has a decent processor and a dedicated graphics card so can handle basic lightroom/PS/CAD. It is not a replacement for my workhorse laptop, but does give me functionality when travelling.
 
Daymouse said:
Just use my pc at home which is running and AMD Athlon 64 dual core 5200+ 2.7GHz
Click to expand...
Comes in at 1400 on the benchmark score. The Acer will be slower - you're taking ~40% performance hit (or thereabouts). Make sure you get one with decent memory though. I'd go with 4G. They're available for less than £300 with 500G HDD on Amazon (although it does seem to be too good to be true)...
 
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arad85 said:
Comes in at 1400 on the benchmark score. The Acer will be slower - you're taking ~40% performance hit (or thereabouts). Make sure you get one with decent memory though. I'd go with 4G. They're available for less than £300 with 500G HDD on Amazon (although it does seem to be too good to be true)...
Click to expand...

Yeah but my pc is also used as a HTPC so theres all sorts of codecs and rubbish installed on it which run in the back ground, the laptop wont have any of that rubbish installed on it so that should help!?
 
Daymouse said:
Yeah but my pc is also used as a HTPC so theres all sorts of codecs and rubbish installed on it which run in the back ground, the laptop wont have any of that rubbish installed on it so that should help!?
Click to expand...

Codecs are only used when you are watching a video or viewing a picture. At other times they wont have any effect on performance AFAIK.
 
Daymouse said:
Yeah but my pc is also used as a HTPC so theres all sorts of codecs and rubbish installed on it which run in the back ground, the laptop wont have any of that rubbish installed on it so that should help!?
Click to expand...

CSB said:
Codecs are only used when you are watching a video or viewing a picture. At other times they wont have any effect on performance AFAIK.
Click to expand...

:agree:

Not sure which OS you're using, but open task manager (assuming a windows machine, right click on the taskbar and click on Task Manager). Most machines have nothing actively running to slow a process down. Not having enough memory is normally the biggest problem - hence why I suggest you get the 4G version of the Acer...
 
arad85 said:
Comes in at 1400 on the benchmark score. The Acer will be slower - you're taking ~40% performance hit (or thereabouts). Make sure you get one with decent memory though. I'd go with 4G. They're available for less than £300 with 500G HDD on Amazon (although it does seem to be too good to be true)...
Click to expand...

Decided to go for the Acer,

Amazon have it for 400 but that other company have it for 295.95 which is for the black! Although they have the others priced at 400! Looks like a mis price to me as like you say too good to be true!!

Now do i risk purchasing it and see, neve had any experience with purchasing from other companies through Amazon!
 
They're also selling it on ebay for £290. There's also a phone number on their ebay site if you want to contact them.

I tend to go based on feedback when buying through Amazon.
 
I have to say macbook pro 13" is really your best bet. Look second hand for 1-2 year old one if you can't afford it.

I had a look recently for similar win-tops for my mother under £500 and struggled to find anything remotely decent, compact, powerful and with good screen. I think the good ones are more expensive than apple.
 
daugirdas said:
I have to say macbook pro 13" is really your best bet. Look second hand for 1-2 year old one if you can't afford it.

I had a look recently for similar win-tops for my mother under £500 and struggled to find anything remotely decent, compact, powerful and with good screen. I think the good ones are more expensive than apple.
Click to expand...

Thanks but if im going to be spending over £500 i would defo put extra to and invest in a mac. Although for travelling i dont want to be carrying so an expensive piece of equipment around.

The Acer mentioned above for £300 will be more than adequate for what i need while travelling :)
 
Daymouse said:
Cheers pal, you think im better buying through Amazon or ebay? Which one has better protection??
Click to expand...
Protection against what? You're dealing with the same company (Bentham Ltd) and their service standard is likely the same from both outlets.
 
DemiLion said:
You'd be better off with the 4820T from Argos @ £399.

Slightly less screen real estate, but same resolution and a better processor (unless you meant the 5820?).

I use one as my home laptop attached to a 24" monitor and they're excellent.
Click to expand...

Mine's a 5820, but they're outside of the quoted budget. :cool:
 
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