netbook as main computer

mastertrinity

mastertrinity

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Some of you may know that I may a thread about 2 months ago about netbooks for photographers. Well, lately I've been considering using only a netbook for my photography and other stuff and getting rid of my laptop.

This may spark alarms here but just hear me out;

I only take photos for pleasure and on the odd occasion do a few portraits for people but nothing professional/commercial.

I like to travel alot and fitting a 15.6" laptop in my bag just isn't as comfortable and the netbook is so small I can take it anywhere.

I would only ever need GIMP so a netbook can easily cope with that.

I don't do any hardcore PP such as zooming in 1000% to patch a zit on a portrait :lol:

it will be my only comp as I will need to sell my laptop to fund the netbook however it means I will have some money left over and I can possibly go somewhere nice down weymouth or something for the weekend with the GF...also means "Bedroom Brownie Points" :naughty::lol:

I like to write and this seems a nice choice that I can take it anywhere, sit down and just type away without worrying much about battery power.

Can anyone think of any downsides? what's the RAW file upload time like? is it reasonable or can it take forever bare in mind that I only shoot RAW for my landscape/urbex/street work and social photos are in JPEG. What's the screen like? as I've stated, I'm only ever doing basic editing so I don't need the res as much but is it still possible.
 
We've got a (fairly old) netbook, and I wouldn't want to use it for anything in the way of photo processing.... It just doesn't have the processing power. They're designed to have long battery life, so some of the sacrifice is performance. JPG files would probably be OK, and perhaps RAW's on some of the newer, more powerful machines.

For writing, absolutely, I used to take mine when I was away with work so I could sit in the restaurant/bar with it rather than having to lug the laptop / charger with me, but not sure I'd want it for photo editing
 
I think you'll find a netbook just too basic. Have you considered an iPad or similar tablet. You'd get great battery life, a bigger screen and they're still very light and compact compared to a laptop.
 
I thought about downloading Elelements 8 and using it on my Acer but with 1GB Ram i think it would struggle, plus the screen is far too small @ 10'' for editing, just too many tools around the outside.
I could sometimes do with a slightly bigger screen than my 17'' desktop.
 
One of the newer 10" dual core netbook would be fine.

Is it size or weight being the main consideration? Size wise I wouldn't go below 10" and a netbook would be fine for doing some manipulation work as well. If it is weight, then you can get some light weight 13.1" laptops these days (Wintel and Mac).

Tablets are worth looking at if you don't plan to do much manipulation. iPad won't be much use if you need to use a USB card reader to get pictures from the camera.

For a good cheap tablet then the 10.1" Advent Vega (£199) is a very good option. They allow you to customise it without effecting the warranty effectively giving you a dual core 1.5Ghz machine with 8 hours of battery. Can run USB host mode so will read a card reader or external hard disk.
 
I have just bought a packard bell DOT2 netbook and compared with my 22" moniter and my 19" laptop there is no way I could use it as my main computer, its just too slow aswell.
It was bought to use when away on the bike and holidays for storage and other stuff but not as my main. Just too small.

spike
 
400ixl said:
One of the newer 10" dual core netbook would be fine.

Is it size or weight being the main consideration? Size wise I wouldn't go below 10" and a netbook would be fine for doing some manipulation work as well. If it is weight, then you can get some light weight 13.1" laptops these days (Wintel and Mac).

Tablets are worth looking at if you don't plan to do much manipulation. iPad won't be much use if you need to use a USB card reader to get pictures from the camera.

For a good cheap tablet then the 10.1" Advent Vega (£199) is a very good option. They allow you to customise it without effecting the warranty effectively giving you a dual core 1.5Ghz machine with 8 hours of battery. Can run USB host mode so will read a card reader or external hard disk.
Click to expand...


It's mainly size, I did think of a Tablet but if it's going to be my only comp I'm not sure how I'd cope with editing, it seems to only have basic programs and I don't know about RAW support. I have looked at the new dual core machines and they seem pretty good for the money, I'm not too happy about them having W7 as it feels like that extra power is wasted so it can run W7 safely, Could stick XP on there or even venture into Linux territory :lol: I will look at the Vega tablet as I've noticed that before and I will definitely need a usb because I could do with saving images on my ext hard drive.
 
You can still get a decent laptop in an 11" form but it depends whether you want to cough up nearly £500.
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_1830T_1053000.html

Other than that you could go for any number of Intel Atom N550 dual core netbooks but most if not all seem to come with a 10" 1024x600 screen.

Alternatives that are certainly worth a look are:

Acer Aspire One 522 @ £250
Comes with an AMD C-50 processor, 1gb RAM, performs much the same an an Intel Atom, has superior graphics performance but comes with a 10" 1366x768 res screen. Battery life should be around that of an Atom based netbook.
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_One_522_1055519.html

Lenovo Ideapad S205 @ £299
Comes with an AMD E-350 processor which is supposed to be faster than an N550, 2gb RAM, 11.6" screen with a 1366x768 res but a slightly worse battery life.
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_IdeaPad_S205_1076388.html

HP Pavilion DM1-3100sa @ £337
Much the same as the Lenovo but has 3gb RAM (although slower spec), larger hard drive and better speakers.
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/HP_Pavilion_DM1-3100sa_1066208.html


Re the Vega, the majority of comments I've read on it seem to mention how poor the screen is.
 
For colour reproduction you'll need to think about the quality of the screen on a netbook if it's important to your work.
 
I did look at a dell inspiron 11z and dell mini 12 which both have 12" screens and are around my price range. As for colour reproduction, I did consider this but most of the computers I've had (even with cheap £30 monitors) seem to give me good results when printing through my dye sub :)
 
Have you looked at the ThinkPad Edge range? These look pretty neat...
 
I'm not sure processing power is as big an issue as people make out. It may not be the greatest, but up until not that long ago I was using PS7 on a Pentium III. That's right, 533Mb processor, 500mb RAM... Took a bit longer to do some things, but it worked just fine.

Obviously newer programs, photo editing software, and operating systems use more power than they used to, but most netbooks should cope OK. Just try to get the best spec you can.

You will be without a disc drive, so that may be a concern depending how you back up your images?

I think one of the biggest losses is going to be the screen size, which is never going to be ideal.

In regards to Ipads...don't you need a computer to update them?
 
Urban Grimshaw said:
I'm not sure processing power is as big an issue as people make out. It may not be the greatest, but up until not that long ago I was using PS7 on a Pentium III. That's right, 533Mb processor, 500mb RAM... Took a bit longer to do some things, but it worked just fine.

Obviously newer programs, photo editing software, and operating systems use more power than they used to, but most netbooks should cope OK. Just try to get the best spec you can.

You will be without a disc drive, so that may be a concern depending how you back up your images?

I think one of the biggest losses is going to be the screen size, which is never going to be ideal.

In regards to Ipads...don't you need a computer to update them?
Click to expand...

I agree with you there about the old comps, I had a similar spec desktop that was about 6 years old and I managed to run CS2, it was a bit laggy at times but it still worked great :lol:

I don't need a disk drive as I have an external one somewhere and also I have an external hard drive.

Screen wise it doesn't bother me much.

As for iPads I weren't really thinking about them because I think you do need a computer to update them and sync items to them etc.
 
if you're ok getting second hand kit have a think about business sub-notebooks. They cost a fortune new and are usually better spec'd than netbooks, upgradable and well built. For example recently I picked up a HP NC4400 for about £120, 2Ghz dual core cpu, 2Gb ram, Win XP, 12" screen and no cd drive.
 
t-m said:
if you're ok getting second hand kit have a think about business sub-notebooks. They cost a fortune new and are usually better spec'd than netbooks, upgradable and well built. For example recently I picked up a HP NC4400 for about £120, 2Ghz dual core cpu, 2Gb ram, Win XP, 12" screen and no cd drive.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was looking at second hand and refurbished kit, that HP laptop seems quite good I've been checking a few out on eBay :)
 
mastertrinity said:
...........Can anyone think of any downsides? what's the RAW file upload time like? is it reasonable or can it take forever bare in mind that I only shoot RAW for my landscape/urbex/street work and social photos are in JPEG. What's the screen like? as I've stated, I'm only ever doing basic editing so I don't need the res as much but is it still possible.
Click to expand...

It's bleedin SLOW!
 
I ran cs4 on a asus ee pc. It worked... Kinda. I had to sell it as it was costing a fortune in milk. Every command you made, you had time to make and drink a cup of tea.
 
I have a 12" netbook that I use regularly, the only thing that frustrates me is the relatively low screen resolution when web browsing.
I can see the slow processor being an issue if you're using it as the main computer and often but I use my netbook for image capturing among other astro things at it has not faltered yet. Mind you I transfer to the main pc for any of the really heavy work.
 
Netbook wont have enough processor or HDD for a Photographer. If size is main motive you'd want to look an Mini lap top (600 Quid+). Net books were brought to market for email and internet on the go strictly speaking aimed at students. Neither of these activities take a great deal of computing power. Opening and viewing pictures is one of the most heavy loads you can put on a computer. Unless your shooting images smaller than 1Mb (a large RAW image is circa 14Mb from a canon 7D) I think you'd quickly get frustrated with processing times to open pix let alone edit and re-save. Limited edit capability S/W available last I looked (always increasing) but IPad or the Motorola Xoom would be better than netbook in terms of speed and HDD space, both have great screen quality. But they have cons as well
 
I'd just look at a Second Hand Macbook or maybe a 12'' Apple Powerbook. They run great for lite photo stuff. I wish i still had mine but it died :(
 
Here's another thing I've found without having to get rid of my laptop.

It's an Advent Amico tablet, it's going for around £75 and all I need it for is to view images (portfolio) get some photo apps to mess around with images and use WiFi and possibly 3G when I'm out and about with mates :)

what do you think of it?

http://www.computer-shows.com/advent-amico-tablet-black-p94900
 
Avoid it like the plague if you want it for anything more than reading an ebook or viewing the odd low Res image. 300MHz processor, no memory to speak of and no storage. These low cost Android tablets are fine for tweakers and hackers to play with but as good as useless in any real life situation.
 
You're going the wrong route. I have the 5" Streak (on a data only package) and love it but it's no way suitable for image processing, Android just isn't designed for that kind of thing and there are no 'proper' apps that can do it. You can get a Photoshop app and many others but all are very basic and lack any real editing controls outside of preset filters.
 
Steep said:
You're going the wrong route. I have the 5" Streak (on a data only package) and love it but it's no way suitable for image processing, Android just isn't designed for that kind of thing and there are no 'proper' apps that can do it. You can get a Photoshop app and many others but all are very basic and lack any real editing controls outside of preset filters.
Click to expand...

No. If you'd read my comment before I said that I've decided to stick with my laptop and either buy an Advent Amico or Dell Streak for WiFi, portfolio and possibly mess around with a few of the hipstamic app things.
 
Sorry, I was still going by the first post, in that case the 7" Streak is a bargain and well worth a punt :)
 
enriqjames said:
The Internet proved to be a person to work, especially the popular choice. In the mobile broadband connection and Wi - Fi hot spot availability of a wide range of advances, many people now choose to buy, rather than the more traditional laptops this.
Click to expand...
Ahh.. another spammer trying to get their signature on a popular forum. Reported accordingly ;)
 
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