Most important laptop component

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Paul Parker

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Hi guys,
Could i get to the point but in your opinion what is the most important feature you kook at when you bought or buying your laptop?

Im looking into buying a laptop (never used an apple device) to use while out photographing.

Have Adobe cloud so Photoshop and Lightroom, main software used.

Im considering size, weight, a very clear screen display!! speed are factors but dont think i need huge storage space... as its only for a days use before transfering pics later onto main computer.

What feature/specification made you choose yours laptop?? - Many Thanks
 
An average i5 with 8-16Gb of ram and an up to date onboard GPU such as intels new 520 or the 6000 series would be enough for a standard system. The main part that will then determine speed and fluidity of work will be the storage. An SSD or 128/256GB would be more than enough if your not keeping work stored on it.

If you can stretch to an i7 be sure it's a quad core 8 thread rather than a dual core 4 thread as its speed will only be negligible over your typical mobile i5 otherwise.

If the laptop and budget also allow you could opt for a dedicated GPU although I wouldn't stump for anything less than an nvidia 950 or faster to ensure you get a noteable difference when it comes to any photo or video manipulation although it's only really more important for video rather than photos as onboard GPUs these days can hassle 7-10 24mp raw images easy enough.
 
Thank you @andrew a dedicated GPU, and quad core I forgot about on my spec list.

I noticed or in my shopping hunt, screen resolution seems to be 1920x1080 is there bigger/better resolution than that or is this still pretty clear quality do you know? (y)
 
Paul Parker said:
Im looking into buying a laptop (never used an apple device) to use while out photographing.
...
as its only for a days use before transfering pics later onto main computer.
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What do you want it for? ie what will you be doing with it?
 
In my experience, for a nice photo editing experience it is in this order:

Screen > Fast Hard Drive (SSD) > CPU > RAM (8GB is plenty unless you are editing multiple TIFs in photoshop).

PS and LR aren't that CPU intensive unless you are batch exporting so even a dual core i5 is plenty, in fact my Core M laptop runs PS and LR perfectly fine in general editing, just takes a while doing bulk exports or generating smart previews. Don't get me wrong, more power would be nice but as a mobile solution for holidays and trips it is perfectly fine, I have my beasty iMac for power editing when needed and actually I use that less and less because the laptop is powerful enough and has a lovely screen - if it didn't have the nice screen I wouldn't use it so much, that's why I put screen as top priority.

edit: to add, if you are only doing photo editing then the graphics chip is of little consequence as LR and PS are rubbish at utilising them, even on my iMac with a M395 they work better with graphics card acceleration switched off. Anyway, the modern intel graphics are pretty good so I wouldn't worry about a dedicated graphics card.
 
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RAM and Hard Disk can be upgraded in future if needed and are not too expensive so I'd concentrate on getting a good screen first and the fastest processor you can for the available money. Also look for an m.2 SSD drive slot, that way you can have the best of both worlds, an SSD with the operating system and apps so it boots/loads quickly and a low-cost big HDD for photos.
 
There isn't one feature.

Light room loves cpu and disk speed and photoshop loves cpu and ram.

Plus you want a good screen which most laptops lack (ideal is a nice big ips monitor).

So really you want at least a quad core cpu with at least 8-16gb ram and a ssd/flash based storage.

Combine that with portability and battery life...

Personally I've got nothing bad to say about the Dell Precision range, I'm sure people are fed up with me saying I loved my old m3800 alu and carbon fibre machine. Only niggle was the glossy display but it spent most of its life hooked to a pair of Dell 27" via its dock.

Tl;Dr - it depends on your budget.
 
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I've got to agree that so long as it has an IPS screen you'll be atleast accurate with your renditions even if the rest of the system takes a while to churn out the goods.

A fair amount of the more expensive Dell systems run i5, SSD, IPS display and 8-16GB of ram and as the CPUs are 6 series or potentially soon to be 7 series the onboard GPUs are rather good for photoshop and Lightroom average use.
 
+1 for the screen.

When I first started in photography, I used a laptop. Only years later when viewing my photos on another computer did I realise how overly warm the images looked. Like stupidly warm. Turns out my laptop screen was very cool colour wise. Made screen choice my number one priority after that.
 
Lots of very expensive suggestions being put forward..
Paul Parker said:
as its only for a days use before transfering pics later onto main computer.
Click to expand...
.. for an unclear and possibly trivial usage.

For basic non-mission-critical have-a-look processing a cheap <£150 Chinese tablet running Win10 64 will do the job. But the OP needs to better define what he wants to do.
 
Paul Parker said:
Hi guys,
Could i get to the point but in your opinion what is the most important feature you kook at when you bought or buying your laptop?

Im looking into buying a laptop (never used an apple device) to use while out photographing.

Have Adobe cloud so Photoshop and Lightroom, main software used.

Im considering size, weight, a very clear screen display!! speed are factors but dont think i need huge storage space... as its only for a days use before transfering pics later onto main computer.

What feature/specification made you choose yours laptop?? - Many Thanks
Click to expand...

Alastair said:
Lots of very expensive suggestions being put forward..

.. for an unclear and possibly trivial usage.

For basic non-mission-critical have-a-look processing a cheap <£150 Chinese tablet running Win10 64 will do the job. But the OP needs to better define what he wants to do.
Click to expand...

Good point Alastair - I would use a Toshiba Chromebook 2.

I is super light, got a fantastic full HD screen but only got 16GB storage. I resolved that by plugging in a mini USB with 128GB (256GB is also available), and I run Linux on mine. Absolutely brilliant for on the road.
 
The headphone socket!!

Just kiddin. Screen first. They might try and fob you off with some crummy resolution that I had on laptops 12 years ago. (1080)
 
Was going to invest in a refurb Dell XPS. Anyone had any experience with the XPS laptops? #cantaffordamac
 
If a Dell XPS would run OSX I'd consider it, although personally (and many of my colleagues have one) I do find them a bit plasticy but undeniably good value for money for what they offer.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I was looking a few suppliers of these and randomly came across this monitor. I was thinking (heavily) about upgrading my current display to get one of the Dell U2413 to go with the XPS . Is £279 a good price for https://www.nrgit.biz/products/dell-u2413-monitor although they also have a U2515H that looks good value and a very good colour gamut. #confused
 
I'd say it depends on what screen you are looking to get with your XPS. I used a HiDPI screen in my laptop, and I find the Dell 2415Q great to match them as it is 4K resolution, not too big on the desk and excellent value for money.
 
Dell XPS15 owner here too - yup, they're good generally, and the screen is excellent. I went from a Macbook to the XPS, and am generally happy with the experience after 2 1/2 years - it's certainly been less unreliable.
 
Any views on this for an off the shelf job @ £799?

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...-15-7000-15-6-laptop-silver-10153659-pdt.html

Operating system Windows 10 (64-bit)
Processor - Intel® Core™ i7-7500U Processor
- Dual-core
- 2.7 GHz / 3.5 GHz (Turbo Boost)
- 4 MB cache
Memory (RAM) 16 GB DDR4 (32 GB maximum installable RAM)
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce 940MX (2 GB GDDR5)
Storage 256 GB SSD
Screen size 15.6"
Screen type IPS
Resolution 1920 x 1080
Battery life Up to 9 hours
 
Depends what you want it for - the processor is ony dual core, so for heavy jobs it will be relatively slower than a quad core version, but for lesser processing the SSD will make it seem fast. HD IPS screen is nicer than the food grade machines.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Depends what you want it for - the processor is ony dual core
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I knew there would be something i'd overlooked :D My desktop (a budget all in one) struggles with Lightroom, but is okay with photoshop and I like to do a little music and video editing too, so am thinking of getting something new.
 
I bought a macbook pro, main reason, peasants cant afford them, and it strokes my ego to know that I am better than those without.
 
andyscott said:
I bought a macbook pro, main reason, peasants cant afford them, and it strokes my ego to know that I am better than those without.
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Hmmm, definitely not taking that comment seriously!
 
andyscott said:
I bought a macbook pro, main reason, peasants cant afford them, and it strokes my ego to know that I am better than those without.
Click to expand...

We are not worthy. :notworthy:

:mooning:

nickEnackEnoo said:
I knew there would be something i'd overlooked :D My desktop (a budget all in one) struggles with Lightroom, but is okay with photoshop and I like to do a little music and video editing too, so am thinking of getting something new.
Click to expand...

Quad core i5 for that. Music editing doesn't usually use huge resources unless you're trying to work with a lot of tracks and effects at the same time, but video will likely have a big overhead.
 
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