Are netbooks any good for editing images?

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wellyboot

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991
Name
Marcia
Edit My Images
No
As the title says really!
I wanted a new laptop for doing pp on my images, but can't find any with non glossy screens unless I am prepared to pay a lot of money for a business machine with a very poor spec.
Now I have found some 11.6"/12.1" netbooks with matte screens, but I am just wondering if this is a large enough area, and if anyone had used a netbook for this purpose!
Many thanks
 
I'd personally stay away from netbooks for photo work, I used to have a Samsung NC10 with a 10" screen which I used when travelling, it was convenient and light for general use but everything seemed just a bit too cramped, especially the low res screen. Opening files in Photoshop took ages, and just got frustrating. If you get a 12" one then maybe it is not too bad.......but for the price, you could probably pick up a really decent 15" laptop these days.
 
I was thinking about a netbook for similar use as well when out and about so cheers for the feedback, think I will re-think it myself
 
I agree with Lauy. I also have an NC10 and you *can* do image editing on it but it really is too small and doesn't have the processing power. To be fair though, it's not what they're designed for :)
 
How much editting do you want or need to do on it? Not how many images but how much to each? For quick resizing, cropping, strightening horizons, adding captions etc to JPEGs, they're fine as long as you stick to older versions of PSE rather than expecting them to be happy running the full, latest version of PS. I use mine on holiday to create personalised postcards in conjunction with a Canon Selphy dyesub printer and they work out cheaper than buying the cards off the shelf.

I started off using my wife's Assus eeepc netbook but it's got a tiny memory and runs Linux rather than Windows, so got myself a Medion Akoya netbook with a 60 GB HDD and a reasonable amount of RAM and that does the job just fine for me.
 
I suppose it also depends how picky you are with things.......I really liked using my netbook when on travels, and it does what you need it to do and is cheap. But since then, I've gone to a 13" macbook pro and I gave away my netbook, and to be honest I probably wouldn't go back to one because its still really portable and offers a lot more, but obviously much more expensive.
 
Pick up an Epson P6000 if you need to review your files whilst out and about. It would make more sense. The netbooks are terribly slow for anything semi complicated to process.
 
I have an MSI Wind and it's no good for image editting, the way the screen handles colour reproduction and blacks is just not up to it. Hardly surprising given it's a nice but essentially cheap bit of kit. It's fine for browsing shots whilst out and about however.
 
Thank you for all the opinions and advice so far!
I already have a PC with 22" monitor, but wanted something portable as well for various reasons.
The reason I was thinking of a netbook rather than a laptop is the lack of laptops with matte/non-glossy screens. For medical reasons glossy screens cause me quite a few problems :( I know it sounds weird doesn't it!
I don't do much work on my images. The usual adjustments if necessary - mostly tweaking sharpeness, noise, cropping, and straightening, and very occasionally, brightness, white balance etc.
I've had a look at PC World, Comet, Currys etc and didn't find one non-glossy screen amongst them.
Not sure what to do now.....:'(
 
Chaz Photos said:
A friend has a netbook and its too small BUT she can work with it plugged into a flat screen
Click to expand...

i have the acer as1410 which you could class as a higher end notebook i guess. the res is good and the spec aint bad either. i can edit a photo on it and think it looks great, then plug into my desktop monitor and it looks horrid.

one advantage is that it fits in my camera bag and is handy for viewing rather than using the camera, but for editing i'de steer clear.

Al
 
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