Hi guys,
I'm a hobbyist photographer looking to upgrade my hardware - I mainly use Lightroom to manage and edit my photos but also use Photoshop periodically for bits of graphic design - banners, greeting cards and sketching etc.
My current setup is really showing its age and wasn't great when new three years ago and so I'm looking to bring it up to date. We have an Asus laptop (Intel core M, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, integrated graphics) with images on a mounted network drive on a HP Microserver. The laptop is also for general family use and until recently it was good enough for the amount of images that I was editing and edits that I was applying but is now unusable to the point of being easier to import them to Lightroom, sync them to the Adobe cloud and then edit through the web interface on my work laptop.
I'm looking to get a good all-round laptop or a good desktop for photography and cheap-ish general purpose laptop for family use but am a little lost on which is going to be the best option and which spec to focus on.
I'm looking to spend at most around £1300 (inc. VAT) for one solution or the other and already have a good external monitor (and keyboard and mouse).
I think the key requirements are basically 16GB RAM, an SSD large enough to store the current set of images being worked on and fast CPU.
Beyond that I'm not really sure on:
If I were to go for one good laptop (e.g. Dell XPS) then I'd also want to get a USB-C or Thunderbolt dock at some point in the future but wonder if I could get a good desktop and cheap laptop for roughly the same price. Also, it's possible that if I clear all my photography stuff off the current laptop then it would be good enough for general family use without needing to buy a new, cheap laptop.
Thanks for any help or advice.
I'm a hobbyist photographer looking to upgrade my hardware - I mainly use Lightroom to manage and edit my photos but also use Photoshop periodically for bits of graphic design - banners, greeting cards and sketching etc.
My current setup is really showing its age and wasn't great when new three years ago and so I'm looking to bring it up to date. We have an Asus laptop (Intel core M, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, integrated graphics) with images on a mounted network drive on a HP Microserver. The laptop is also for general family use and until recently it was good enough for the amount of images that I was editing and edits that I was applying but is now unusable to the point of being easier to import them to Lightroom, sync them to the Adobe cloud and then edit through the web interface on my work laptop.
I'm looking to get a good all-round laptop or a good desktop for photography and cheap-ish general purpose laptop for family use but am a little lost on which is going to be the best option and which spec to focus on.
I'm looking to spend at most around £1300 (inc. VAT) for one solution or the other and already have a good external monitor (and keyboard and mouse).
I think the key requirements are basically 16GB RAM, an SSD large enough to store the current set of images being worked on and fast CPU.
Beyond that I'm not really sure on:
- i5 vs i7, (e.g. # of cores vs. clock speed), 7th gen vs 8th gen, or Ryzen CPU
- Branded vs. generic RAM
- Onboard Intel graphics or dedicated GPU (I may also want to use the machine for some Steam gaming but either old games or simple couch multiplayer stuff via Steam Link)
- SATA or PCIe SSD
If I were to go for one good laptop (e.g. Dell XPS) then I'd also want to get a USB-C or Thunderbolt dock at some point in the future but wonder if I could get a good desktop and cheap laptop for roughly the same price. Also, it's possible that if I clear all my photography stuff off the current laptop then it would be good enough for general family use without needing to buy a new, cheap laptop.
Thanks for any help or advice.