Beginner Laptop buying help

AdamsCanon

AdamsCanon

Messages
116
Name
Adam
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi guys.

After a bit of info on which laptop to buy to edit my photos. Looking to spend around £300 so nothing fancy like a mac etc.

No idea what the ghz,ram and other bits mean so I'm a bit lost.

Thanks, Adam
 
I think your budget may be a bit low. I've been looking at getting a new laptop recently and my budget starts at £400

IMHO, you want a fastish processor, Intel i5 or i7, or a multi core AMD processor. i7s are normally mid to top of ranges. At least 8Gb of RAM, though more is better if you plan to do anything complex. Most budget laptops come with 4Gb and a large part of that is used by the Operating System. Photoshop works better with more RAM, though some say you don't need more than 16Gb. A Solid State Drive instead of a normal Hard Drive would be nice and quick, but probably out of your budget. A good quality screen should be a high on the list too if image editing is the computers main use. I've seen a lot of people saying get an IPS screen for the quality, but again they cost. (And if I'm waffling BS here somebody please chime in)

Saying all that, I currently have a 5 year old HP Compaq with AMD Dual Core 2.10Ghz processor, 4GB of RAM and a 320Gb slow HD, and opening an image editing with Camera Raw and save an image it is fine. Start opening a large folder in Adobe Bridge, where the program may have to build thumbnails previews, make Panoramic images or large multi layered Photoshop files and the thing struggles. Have any other programs open at the same time and things really starts to slow down. I sometimes have to have a number of different programs open during a demonstration, but most people wouldn't.

Hopefully someone more up to date and knowledgeable will post some help.
 
Unless you are going to be editing multiple TIF files then you don't really need more than 8gb of RAM, more is nice but you'll rarely need it and it doesn't make your system quicker it just adds to the capacity of the number of programs or photos you can have open at one time (if you go over the limit the computer slows down massively and at that point you can get some more but if really needed).

I would be looking for an i5, 8gb RAM, as high a resolution screen as possible (this is important for photo editing) and preferably an SSD hard drive. Not sure you'll get that for £300 though. Maybe a refurb?

edit, saying that I run LR and PS fine on a Macbook with a crappy mobile processor so I would prioritise screen quality over processor speed.
 
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There are some very good value refurb Lenovo Thinkpad X240s on the bay around that budget that may well fit the bill. For some reason 2nd user thinkpads seem to be so cheap compared to the competition. maybe because there's a lot of them about from corporate recycling.
 
Steelfish said:
There are some very good value refurb Lenovo Thinkpad X240s on the bay around that budget that may well fit the bill. For some reason 2nd user thinkpads seem to be so cheap compared to the competition. maybe because there's a lot of them about from corporate recycling.
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I think Lenovo got caught putting putting Spyware on their computers a few times, which may account for the numerous laptops around. It is a pity, because they seem quite cheap compared to comparable laptops from other manufacturers, maybe that's the reason. :thinking: I won't touch them though, others will have to make their own judgement.
 
Dell is meant to be doing the Inspiron 15 3000 series i3 with 8gb memory for £199 in their Black Friday sale. It's probably still very underwhelming for any kind of photo editing..
 
Hi Adam.

I'm no expert but thought I'd just give my opinion lol. For a new laptop £300 is quite low. I spent £500 on a new laptop 6 month ago, AMD a10 processor, 8gb ram radion r6 graphics, so pretty decent for a laptop. And TBH I wish I hadn't bothered, I should of stuck with my old i3 powered laptop that ran better (I had tinkered with it's systems a bit). LR especially is very laggy on the new one. I think the problem is new laptops with windows 10, uses so much power on all the rubbish they pile into them. I've spent hours disabling processes and programmes that aren't needed, to make it run at an acceptable level, and still the old laptop out performs the new one. Unless you spending a good amount I think the likes of PS & LR will struggle. I wish'd I'd just spent the extra now and went for something with an i7 and a SSD hard drive
 
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