looking for a good laptop that's ideal for photo stuff

salsa-king

salsa-king

Suspended / Banned
Messages
354
Name
Phil
Edit My Images
Yes
Needing a New LP. Main use will be surfing the net and doing my photograph editing. As i.m now using RAW more.

Been told having a dedicated graphics card is better for photo editing etc. Is this correct?

Seen a HP laptop with 6gb memory and 750gb hard drive. BUT it has a 1gb AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics card.

Spec of the laptop i very good laptop. But does it warrant another £150 over a laptop that shares the graphics card memory?

Bare in mind i want it to last me a good few years.


Can anyone give advice.

Cost is £699 with free stuff to the value of about £95.


Question is. Would a cheaper laptop be suitable for what i want to do with photo processing in RAW?

Thanks.
 
I don't think it warrants it. No laptop is ever going to match a quality PC for serious editing. Added graphics cards are ok for gaming but any system is only as good as it's weakest link which in this case is the screen.
Buy a much cheaper laptop for surfing the net and get yourself a PC or mac with the best screen you can afford.
 
For comparison I use the following:

Dual core 2.4Ghz
6Gb RAM
FX570M Nvidia graphics which has 256Mb of memory

So - graphics card is OK, was top notch a few yrs ago, but is nothing compared to whats available now.

I use lightoom alot and occasionally Photoshop CS5 and too be honest, the speeds / capability seems fine. It takes a second or so generate a load of preview thumbnails in LR, but editing of single photos seems fine.

So - reckon if you could find something with half decent graphics, I wouldnt get too hung up about getting a dedicated card in a laptop.

For info the laptop is an HP 8510w
 
salsa-king said:
Been told having a dedicated graphics card is better for photo editing etc. Is this correct?
Click to expand...
No, if the processor is one of the second gen i3/i5/i7 processors - the on chip gfx is plenty.

What is important is the CPU. Which CPU do they have?
 
salsa-king said:
or am I better going for sub £500 and look at something lke this..
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/samsung-series-3-np300e5a-a02dx-15-6-laptop-11296509-pdt.html
Click to expand...
I'd probably go with the second. Better processor than the first, same as third. The memory appears to be expandable to 8G and looking at the Samsung site (http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/model/NP300E5A-A02DX-techspecs) it seems that it comes with one free slot, so for another £15 or so you can upgrade to 8G. The RF511 might have a faster 7200rpm disk, but I'm not sure it's worth it for the extra £100.

What's interesting on the Samsung site is it describes the RF511 as having 6G of memory and a GT540 with 1G dedicated (there is only 1 RF511 model on the Samsung website).
 
arad85 said:
I'd probably go with the second. Better processor than the first, same as third. The memory appears to be expandable to 8G and looking at the Samsung site (http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/model/NP300E5A-A02DX-techspecs) it seems that it comes with one free slot, so for another £15 or so you can upgrade to 8G. The RF511 might have a faster 7200rpm disk, but I'm not sure it's worth it for the extra £100.

What's interesting on the Samsung site is it describes the RF511 as having 6G of memory and a GT540 with 1G dedicated (there is only 1 RF511 model on the Samsung website).
Click to expand...


So at £480 th second one is a good buy?

How do I know if L had a 2nd gen i5 processor, or still on Gen 1?
 
salsa-king said:
So at £480 th second one is a good buy?

How do I know if L had a 2nd gen i5 processor, or still on Gen 1?
Click to expand...
All second gen processors have a 4 digit suffix starting with 2. I.e. i5-640M (3 digit suffix) is gen 1, i5-2430M (4 digit with the form 2xxx) is gen 2.
 
PS...
salsa-king said:
So at £480 th second one is a good buy?
Click to expand...
Don't know if it really is a good buy (haven't looked at laptops since mid last year when I bought mine so have nothing to compare it against) but it does seem to be a good price....
 
salsa-king said:
Is that better?
Click to expand...
It's ~4% quicker...



salsa-king said:
its £100 cheaper
http://h40059.www4.hp.com/uk/homelaptops/product.php?id=QG799EA&experience=direct
Click to expand...
Looks the same price to me... One thing about second gen core Ix and external graphics... Nvidia have something called Optimus technology which helps with battery life. Given you aren't doing anything gfx related, I'd opt for the one with longest battery life (or the one without the ATI Radeon chipset in ;)). Which means, I'd still recommend my original choice!
 
update

rang HP Direct last night and asked about the £599 deal Laptop... yep in stock, offers on till monday then it goes back to £699.

rang today.. its already gone upto £699!! (like it is in PCworld/Currys) wasn't happy.. told the woman I spoke to they guy last nght and was told it was on offer till monday at £599.
She said she could nt do anything about it.. but would knock 5% off!

I said thats not £100 is it!!




Now, had a re think... I really want a 17".

So been looking and saw this...
http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_7750_Core_i5_Laptop_LX.RN802.025/version.asp#feedback

Price is good, but I'll be taking a step away from the dedicated graphics card... which I was told I need when doing photo stuff!! (what ever)

I think the above would be ok... does anyone else??

tnx ;)
 
but Macs are £900+.... not £500

also only 13".. the screen for my satnav in my cars almost that size lol
 
Bear in mind the i3,i5,i7 chips differ greatly, to stay in front, go for the Sandy Bridge processors, these are the ones with the proceeding 4 digit number starting with a 2.
 
Good point. They'll be the generation 2 chips. That's why i want to got i5 2430m etc
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top