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Hannah

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not sure if this is the right forum for this, but didnt seem to fit in anywhere else...

my mum and dad have agreed to buy me a lap top for my birthday, but I havent a clue about what spec's I'd need.

I want it mainly for editing photographs on photoshop and lightroom, but I also want to occasionally run the internet from it.

what sort of processor should I get? what sized hard drive??

Basically what are the best specs and whats the minimum? (they are on a budget so I hope to get something between minimum and best!)

much appreciated,

Hannah
 
As a basic rule go for the most memory you can get (at least 1GB) and a large hard drive but also some way to back up your pictures, so a dvd writer for example would be good to have.

Without knowing what their budget is no one can really get specific for you. I will say remember that you'll probably want to buy software to go with it as well so if you can, budget for that as well.


/edit avoid laptops that have shared graphics memory, if you want to use the likes of photoshop you really should get one with a dedicated graphics card.
 
To be honest Steep, after having 1GB of ram for a month, then finally upgrading to 2GB, I can honestly say 2GB is really a minimum requirement 1GB is just painfully slow at multitasking between LR/Bridge/PS/Photomatrix Pro and Firefox.
 
Good point, I don't use any of those progs so have no experience to draw on.
 
Grant said:
To be honest Steep, after having 1GB of ram for a month, then finally upgrading to 2GB, I can honestly say 2GB is really a minimum requirement 1GB is just painfully slow at multitasking between LR/Bridge/PS/Photomatrix Pro and Firefox.
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Although if you buy a laptop from mmm lets say Dell and upgrade the ram from 512mb to 2gb you will pay throught the nose for it so to get 2 gb better to worry more about other things like the screen and hard drive then get cheaper 3rd party ram and install it yourself.

Most laptops now come with core 2 duo cpus and obviously the faster the better but I run a Dell Inspiron 9400 with an older core duo cpu running at about 1.6Ghz which is more than fast enough for CS3.

If you don't need portability then go for a Dell Inspiron 9400 with the wuxga+ glossy screen which you can pick up from the Dell Outlet for around £650 on a good day.
 
Id say 2gb Ram and a Intel Core2Duo processor are the best bang for buck at the moment.

What kind of budget are you looking at?
Im planning on getting a 15¨ Macbook pro this weekend. 2.4ghz c2d, 4gb Ram, 8600mGT GFX and 160gb(7200rpm)... this is going to set me back about £2000 but is robusty made and should last me a few years.
 
I run CS3 from my lappy happily enough (often better than the desktop!)

It has 2Gb RAM which I'd recommend is your minimum, duo-core processor 1.66 ghz and 120GB hard drive.

This is fine for my use, but i woul drecommen dyou budget in an external hard-drive, no matter what spec of laptop you go for!! :)
 
hey, thanks for your replies.

I'm not sure what their budget is, hence asking for what top notch specs would be and what min specs are so I can tell them and they can then have a look about.

I'm going to have a peek on ebay just now and see whats about.

Thanks again for all the replies, very helpful they are!:D
 
Check out the Dell machines here http://www.dmxdimension.com/ some very good deals to be had especially if you are willing to take a shorter guarantee.
 
well...you can go PC or apple...apple and the choices aren't so varied makes it a bit easier. itf its for education purposes you can get £ off.
PCs and there's tons on offer. Dell are a good start but be aware they come with tons of 'software' added on the system when it arrives, I often read about people formatting harddrives soon as their machine arrives...Dell are a standard I think, reasonable battery life, components and price-wise pretty good too.
 
shiato storm said:
Dell are a good start but be aware they come with tons of 'software' added on the system when it arrives, I often read about people formatting harddrives soon as their machine arrives...
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Absolutely correct, first thing I do with any laptops from Dell I have supplied is stick in the windows cd and start again WITHOUT the rubbish trial software, also dump McAfee or Norton whichever it comes with. Doesn't take too long though maybe an hour and a half including downloading the windows updates which you have to do too.
 
Laptops can be an expensive game for the private owner.

Do you really need a laptop?

You will get a much better PC for your money if you buy a desktop.

They don't need to be physically big - Shuttle make some excellent little PC's no bigger than a shoe box and almost silent!
 
Nice Dell Inspiron laptop with a 15.4" widescreen (1440x900 i think), 1.73GHz, 1GB mem, 80GB HDD, DVDRW will be just over £500 and do nicely until you can afford to pop the memory out and throw in 2 1GB sticks.
 
i use a Toshiba, and Photoshop CS2 runs well on it, but to store my photos i'm looking for an external hard-drive, i've seen 500gb hard-drives around now for about £80-90 which i think is amazing
 
I also run a toshiba which runs cs3 amazingly. I have upgraded the ram from 1x512 to 2x1gig though and upgraded the hdd from 40 gig to 120gig which has made a good difference. If your going to upgrade the parts please buy them after you have bought the laptop, never from the lappy manufacturer as they charge the earth for them!!
 
i'm thinking about upgrading from cs2 to cs3 actually, are there a lot more functions? as i've read various reviews and that say different things
 
Whilst I'd agree with many of the points here, getting a good sized hard drive on a lower end laptop could be a problem. Rather than worry about that you can buy large external hard drives cheap enough these days for mass storage.

Personally I'd recommend going for the cheaper Apple MacBook. http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook/macbook.html

Although £699 may be pushing your budget, you get a fast processor, 1gb ram (2gb upgrade is about £60 from Crucial), and all the Apple software (iLife etc). The 13" screen may sound small, but it runs 1280 x 800 resolution and is a joy to work with.
 
^^^^ I echo that!
 
me three. my mum's got the 'old' iBook G3 and its still going strong. cracking machine for the money now at £699...was around the £1k mark back when she got it.
 
yeh my laptop is has a 1gb ram, so theres plenty of running power, and uses a pentium dual-core so its quite good, just the hard-drive isnt that big.
 
re laptop
I would like to ask the same question as HANNAH,but I have to pay for it myself on a limited budget (£400 -£550)Is the Gateway mt6825b or the ml 6226bfrom Tesco suitable
 
I don't think there are any NEW laptops that are not suitable to run PS CS3 etc, its just a matter of making sure you have enough ram and an Intel or AMD cpu. I think the Gateway you are referring to is either the one at £349 or at £500ish.

The one at £500 has a pretty high spec 2Gb ram 120 HD DVDRW 15.4" glossy screen and a dual core cpu so is pretty good value but as with everything this expensive at Tesco, sometimes it's worth waiting a month or so until it's classed as old stock and they knock £100 off the price. Or if you know someone that works at Tesco they'll get 10% off so a decent saving there.

Either way they will both run CS3 but the expensive one will run it faster and smoother.
 
ok, have taken on board all your good advice (and can I just say I'm over whelmed at the amount of people who've replied... thank you all!)

I've looked about, and I think I've nearly decided.... so, what do you think of the dell inspiration 1501 at £539?

heres the link to it

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/notebooks_better?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

seems to have the best specs from whats been mentioned on here, and I've spoken to mum about it and she's cool with the price (my bf and his parents are chipping in on it)
 
If you are going for an inspiron 1501 remember they DON'T come with a glossy screen.

Also Dell change their deals every Thursday so you may get a better deal tomorrow, but they did and still do have a very high spec Inspiron 1501 for only £327.
Click on this link...
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/emea/topics/ecomm/evalue?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&~ck=anavml
and at the bottom of that page in the evalue code box enter 1 in the first box and in the second enter N06153XP to get the deal. Also remember to change the hardware support option to 90 day not 1 year. Its a big saving and the guarantee is still valid for 1 year just that after 90 days you have to pay for the postage back if there is a fault.

Also worth noting that Dell are about to release new design laptops so they may have even better deals on the 6400 (which is better than the 1501).
 
mikeleslie said:
And finally if you intend on running it on the battery for any length of time then pay the extra £35 for the 9 cell battery.
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:agree: :agree: :agree:

If you are going to work it hard then buy a 2nd battery now if you can!

My little toy is now just over a year old and my battery is going south fast!!

What a mission to get a 9 cell replacement:bang:

I know the budget is never unlimited but do consider a docking station too, or at least get one with the option of a docking station for later!
 
what is a docking station? and what is the importance of the glossy screen??

(I'm learning so much from this - thanks guys!)
 
docking station is something you plug your laptop into when at your desk, not exactly essential really, neither is a glossy screen - glossy screens look nice but reflect pretty much everything behind you, and gather finger prints very efficiently...the idea behind them is colours appear more saturated and generally 'nicer' display but tbh its more about personal pref. and I prefer the matte screens...
 
Pop in to a local PC shop and look at the glossy and non glossy screens and see for yourself. I personally love my glossy screen, It does reflect more but the colours are more saturated and look so much more vibrant. You probably don't need a docking station.
 
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