New laptop advice...

Bretagnez

Bretagnez

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Hi all,

Unfortunately my laptop conked out on me on Friday and nothing can really be done to help it... So I am after something new.
I have spent the last few days browsing but can't come to any or many conclusions! I've looked at loads of different models: Samsungs, HP, Dell, Apple, Asus etc, to much confusion! I wanted to see if anyone had some first hand experience. Tricky browsing on my phone!

I want a thin/ultrabook style computer but it must be able to run PSE 10, LR and Picasa without issues, a 13" screen would be good. Perhaps stretching to 15" if the PC is light enough. Otherwise just browsing internet and Uni work.

It's got to be thin/fairly light as I do a fair bit of traveling and want something more portable as opposed to my previous machine and also have decent battery life!

I don't really want to spend more than £600 if I can help it.

Cheers!
 
sheridant said:
are you stuck on windows or would you consider going mac?
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Either or. It really depends on the price with macs, I think. They seem rather expensive..
I am willing to listen to all reasonable opinions and arguments though!
 
Good I have the XPS 15z

Chrome surround will break and **** you off

Shell is a bit soft, so will dent and bend. However that is all aethetics.

Great screen (I have the 1920 x 1080 optional screen)

Great keyboard, no downsides apart from the chrome surround (had mine replaced) and the soft outer shell.

My trackpad stopped working, but dell came out the next day to replace it :)
 
Dale_d3100 said:
Good I have the XPS 15z

Chrome surround will break and **** you off

Shell is a bit soft, so will dent and bend. However that is all aethetics.

Great screen (I have the 1920 x 1080 optional screen)

Great keyboard, no downsides apart from the chrome surround (had mine replaced) and the soft outer shell.

My trackpad stopped working, but dell came out the next day to replace it :)
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Thanks for that!
Shame, as it is just too expensive.

Still on look...
 
i am biased - but you can pick up a 11'' macbook air, 4gb mem 128ssd for £600 used, they are light, have a good screen, extremely portable, backlit keyboard and look as cool as..
 
and with the ssd pretty fast - and are ready to use in 2secs after you open the lid

the touchpad is years ahead of anything windows (and I've tried enough - my work laptops are windows)
 
sheridant said:
i am biased - but you can pick up a 11'' macbook air, 4gb mem 128ssd for £600 used, they are light, have a good screen, extremely portable, backlit keyboard and look as cool as..
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only 4gb memory and what id assume is probably a core2 intel chip at that price isnt going to be blisteringly fast at that price point.
 
neil_g said:
only 4gb memory and what id assume is probably a core2 intel chip at that price isnt going to be blisteringly fast at that price point.
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Yes. But on the other hand it does have a lit logo on the front and, as sheridant said, looks as cool as....
 
i do lightroom 4 and photoshop cs5 on mine and both work great

it will struggle with rendering video files in premiere pro - but most laptops will

It's not a games laptop - so not the very fastest - but perfect for image editing me thinks - well it is for me
 
sheridant said:
i do lightroom 4 and photoshop cs5 on mine and both work great
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Your version of "great" may not be everyone elses expectation of "great". For example, we sold a laptop because we found it too slow processing images (not just me, Ms arad85 who doesn't use a computer day-in, day-out did too). The person we sold it to was very happy with it. He thought it processed images great. We bought a Dell i7 and we were much happier that the new computer worked great. It's all about expectations.

There is no magic when number crunching... CPU horsepower is CPU horsepower and a machine that is 4+ times as powerful will make a significant difference to processing speed.... and won't cost much more than £600 ;)
 
andy - that's fair - just basing on my own experience - and the biggest speed benefit for me is start time - what ever laptop i get - it needs to be ssd driven nowadays

processing power is a big factor - but for me isn't as big as it used to be when you were looking at machines that had below 1ghz and you could feel slow, now for most uses mainstream processors are good enough unless you are doing the really clever stuff

IMHO - now the trade off nowadays for laptops becomes incredible speed vs battery life and size/convenience
 
sheridant said:
andy - that's fair - just basing on my own experience - and the biggest speed benefit for me is start time - what ever laptop i get - it needs to be ssd driven nowadays
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which is fair enough, its around £80 for a 128Gb DIY upgrade.

processing power is a big factor - but for me isn't as big as it used to be when you were looking at machines that had below 1ghz and you could feel slow, now for most uses mainstream processors are good enough unless you are doing the really clever stuff
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if youre working reasonable size RAW then processing power is very necessary. 5Dmk2 files (especially high ISO) chomp through a lot of CPU.
 
neil_g said:
if youre working reasonable size RAW then processing power is very necessary. 5Dmk2 files (especially high ISO) chomp through a lot of CPU.
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I know - that's what I've got - and it's never been a problem - but then I'm sure it would become one if I was working with it in 20 16 bit layers in photoshop - but I wouldn't do that - but some would
 
sorry - this is becoming a "heated debate" - I used to be very power hungry user - massive memory , raid 0 disks, top end processor with water cooling etc - because i needed it to do stuff that really pushed processors 5 years ago - but most can handle it now. Now except for the rare and odd wait when I'm doing something particularly processor intensive - I never have any problems with the Air - even when it's plugged into my 30" monitor
 
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ahh - missed that bit - i'm talking i5 chip in the above spec - your right the core2 duo (pre 2011 model) is cutting it too fine

a 2011 i5 4gb 128 will now be around the 600 mark - that will do the above
 
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