Laptop or Netbook?

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The screen/graphics card on my laptop has gone again so I need to replace it. I'd like to get a netbook because it'd be more portable and cheaper but I think I'll struggle to run photoshop on a 1024x600 screen.
Photomechanic will run on this screen res but Adobe state 1024x768 as the minimum spec.
Photomechanic and Photoshop are all I need to run on this machine as it won't be used for anything else.

Anyone out there managing to do this?
 
Get a laptop. Netbooks just aren't designed to cope with the processing needed for imaging. Apart from which, as you've already discovered, Adobe products won't run on a netbook.
 
Exactly what I hoped someone wouldn't say!
I guess I should really just get a laptop, it'd have been nice to be able to just carry about a 10" netbook though!
 
Well I'm going to disagree with some (or all) and say a netbook (Samsung N230) works OK for me, but only under specific conditions.

I love the battery life (I can leave it unplugged from over an hour before a football match), and the size/weight is really useful.

Another reason I got the netbook was to keep my main laptop at home, without risking it being damaged or stolen, and I didn't want to splash out on a second laptop. Ultra-portable laptops are not cheap!

The only issues I have are lack of detail when assessing images in Photoshop, and the slower preview generation in Photo Mechanic. I tend to lock photos in camera and just ingest those, to save on processing time.

Basic Photoshop functions such as levels and sharpening work fine, but for anything other than quick edits the display quality and processing power may frustrate you!

Hope that helps.

Ben
 
ba1212 said:
Well I'm going to disagree with some (or all) and say a netbook (Samsung N230) works OK for me, but only under specific conditions.

I love the battery life (I can leave it unplugged from over an hour before a football match), and the size/weight is really useful.

Another reason I got the netbook was to keep my main laptop at home, without risking it being damaged or stolen, and I didn't want to splash out on a second laptop. Ultra-portable laptops are not cheap!

The only issues I have are lack of detail when assessing images in Photoshop, and the slower preview generation in Photo Mechanic. I tend to lock photos in camera and just ingest those, to save on processing time.

Basic Photoshop functions such as levels and sharpening work fine, but for anything other than quick edits the display quality and processing power may frustrate you!

Hope that helps.

Ben
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Ah i see, it's basically hopeless then as it only works under "specific conditions", the only reason i can see to use a netbook is for extended battery life, hmmm, my top of the range Dell Lattitude E6500 15.4 inch runs for 7-8 hours.
 
'hopeless' no, but frustrating, yes! It did take me time to find the most efficient settings and workflow to use.

I may also go for a Dell Lattitude soon - the new ones look great (E6320, E6420 etc). But at the moment I don't want to risk dragging my huge home laptop around to games each week, and can't afford to own two laptops.

Netbook battery life is not to be sniffed at BTW, for example when shooting cricket with no mains power. It's also nice to have one less thing to worry about when frantically trying to shoot and get a 3g signal!
 
I had what I would describe as a top end netbook, the HP Mini 311 with the Ion GPU and an 11.6" screen which was a cracking machine but I upgraded to a Acer 8371 which has a low powered Intel Core 2 Duo 1.4Ghz CPU and a dual Graphics card.
I didn't think the CPU would make such a difference but it blows the poor Atom CPU in the netbook out of the water I wouldn't bother with a netbook now it was just too slow, like above though battery life is better on some netbooks, that said on my Acer I can get 8 hours as long as I'm using the Intel Integrated GPU and fairly low brightness.
 
Before buying the netbook I researched a lot of laptops - that Acer was top of my list, but I couldn't get it for less than £700 - Now it seems to be a lot cheaper so a very good recommendation, thanks! I may get it myself :)
 
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