Beginner a good laptop

JACK88

JACK88

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jack crimlis
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what would a good laptop to start with to run light room I have one now but wont let me run the set up
 
I’ve got a Macbook Air in the classifieds at the moment which runs Lightroom quite comfortably. :) Not the fastest thing in the world, but adequate.
 
JACK88 said:
what would a good laptop to start with to run light room I have one now but wont let me run the set up
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Budget?
Pop on to the Adobe site and see what the minimum specs are to run LR, then start looking.
Don't forget to look on the Dell and HP sites to see if they have offers or refurbs-assuming you want a windows m/c or buy a Mac
 
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Most 'budget' T-series Lenovo laptops are geared for business use with long battery life, I have one and can regularly get 8+ hours out of the battery whenj working on-site, but they have TN display panels, which are not good for photo editing. Some have upgraded IPS panels, and these are great for image editing. If the machine you have been offered has a TN panel, then I would steer clear, when I tried LR on mine it was shockingly bad.
 
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Stephen L said:
I’ve got a Macbook Air in the classifieds at the moment which runs Lightroom quite comfortably. :) Not the fastest thing in the world, but adequate.
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that's interesting, I'm just starting out, not got LR yet but I do have a MacBook Air and was of the thought I'd have to go to a decent spec MacBook pro. I don't want a desktop or go back to windows so do you think an MB pro would cope pretty well if your MB air did OK?
 
arch stanton said:
that's interesting, I'm just starting out, not got LR yet but I do have a MacBook Air and was of the thought I'd have to go to a decent spec MacBook pro. I don't want a desktop or go back to windows so do you think an MB pro would cope pretty well if your MB air did OK?
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A Macbook Pro would do what you want easily, I should think.
 
For lightroom, single core performance is what you need. Windows/mac doesn't make a difference, just look at what CPU us being used.

i5 or i7 would be your best bet. It all comes down to budget though...
 
My MBP is a late 2011 i7 with 8GB of RAM - whilst importing files and opening the catalogue can be a little on the slow side (an SSD upgrade would take care of that of course), editing tasks and stitching pano's etc are handled with no worries at all. You could pick up an MBP from a couple of years ago and it would handle LR with ease.
 
ashtennisguru said:
My MBP is a late 2011 i7 with 8GB of RAM - whilst importing files and opening the catalogue can be a little on the slow side (an SSD upgrade would take care of that of course), editing tasks and stitching pano's etc are handled with no worries at all. You could pick up an MBP from a couple of years ago and it would handle LR with ease.
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You really should replace the hard disk with a SSD the difference is like night and day, you will be amazed at how fast it will boot and apps open up in a couple of seconds.
TBH it is not that difficult, I did mine in about 15 minutes.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Most 'budget' T-series Lenovo laptops are geared for business use with long battery life, I have one and can regularly get 8+ hours out of the battery whenj working on-site, but they have TN display panels, which are not good for photo editing. Some have upgraded IPS panels, and these are great for image editing. If the machine you have been offered has a TN panel, then I would steer clear, when I tried LR on mine it was shockingly bad.
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This, x1000.

I've been using various ThinkPads for years now, and whist they are good, solid laptops in many ways, the screens are dire. Especially the T420.

Avoid!
 
The main requirement for Lightroom and Photoshop is a good screen because the reality is that neither LR or PS are that intensive on processor and most modern-ish laptops will run them ok. Even my 2015 12" Macbook ran them both fine - you could barely tell the difference from my powerful iMac in day to day editing.

For me, the Macbook Air has too low a resolution screen and is very annoying for photo editing so if on a budget I would go for any of the older MBPs that have the retina screen.
 
I extended my budget after reviewing laptops and bought the Dell XPS 13, I am not disappointed.
 
As well as speed the most important consideration has to be the screen - so many laptops have great specs but terrible displays, at least for photography purposes. I can't afford Apple myself but do have access to their products at work, in my experience their screens including MacBooks are very colour accurate and match my calibrated desktop screen at home. I wouldn't consider another brand if you absolutely need a laptop. Would you not consider a desktop PC?
 
I use a higher end home envy from 2015 and its good. To get decent performance you need a reasonable processor (i5 preferably i7), lots of ram I would say at least 16gb rather than 8gd. The next speed boost would come from having an Ssd fitted. Unfortunately to one big enough to run lightroom and store all the data is very expensive. So my laptop has an Ssd for Windows and programs, but all the data (eg photo catalogue and import location) is stored of a traditional mechanical hdd.

Also I critical area is the screen. I have a 15in screen, which suits my needs for portability, but means that I occasionally over edit a photo and then when I see it of a bigger screen (eg 24in) the photo have noticeable defects.
 
Kernowgirl said:
I extended my budget after reviewing laptops and bought the Dell XPS 13, I am not disappointed.
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I have the 17" version of that- and I run lightroom and Adobe Photoshop CC on it- i7 processor 8Gb RAM and a 1TB hard drive :)
 
I find with LR and PS that SSD, and Memory (including Graphics mem) helps quite significantly. Seems that LR uses whatever mem you give it.
 
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