Laptop for editing?

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Currently using an old Lenovo X220 with its ram upgraded to 8gb. Hopefully starting a uni course in May (not photography related) so think I might need a better laptop and wondering if there are any reasonably priced ones with screens suitable for photo editing.

When I say reasonably priced I'm thinking £500 but might be way off! Wonder if I'm better sticking with what I've got?!?
 
Almost a year ago I was in the same posistion as you.
I realised that budget laptops lack decent memory and woefully low storage SSD's.
Apps like Lightroom love memory and at the budget you will get 8GB which is nothing nowadays.
I opted for a Dell G3 laptop which is a budget gaming laptop and it cost me a grand.
I don't use a computer for gaming but I knew the spec should keep me more than happy for a few years.
The bonus of having a spare 2.5 drive bay was handy so I fitted a Samsung 1GB SSD as well.
For years I've moaned about buget laptops being a pain in the arse to upgrade because the don't have removeable covers for the HDD or RAM making them a pain to take apart just for an upgrade.
Not with this one, 5 mins to install upgrade the memory and SDD.
Dell use to be the bane of my life when I was a computer techy but they have really impressed me.
I tend to be lazy at updating device drivers but the Dell app takes care of that and BIOS updates plus it has a really handy tool for creating bootable USB OS recovery tool.
There was a time when I would never have recommend Dell but they've come a long way.
 
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Laptops are generally very poor equipment for editing.

First hurdle to overcome is screen quality. most are S**T. But they are like that for a reason, most laptop users just want to use word, excel, internet, and want things cheap.

You then need a good processor, at least an i5, i7 is absolutely better, along with plenty of RAM and hard disk space.
 
Laptops are generally very poor equipment for editing.

First hurdle to overcome is screen quality. most are S**T. But they are like that for a reason, most laptop users just want to use word, excel, internet, and want things cheap.

You then need a good processor, at least an i5, i7 is absolutely better, along with plenty of RAM and hard disk space.

Yes with budget laptops it's the same with desktops but you can buy better spec.
£500 woud get him a i3 or at a push a i5 but i7 is worth the cost.
 
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I don't think laptops are the best tool for editing images. Although I do use one when I am being lazy but when I later view what I have done on my desktop, the colours and sometimes the contrast and brightness need to be re-tweaked to get them accurate which my desktop is. One problem is the contrast range of even quite a good laptop is normally lower than a decent seperate screen used with a desktop. Also unless you are looking at a laptop screen from the same angle every time that can also make a big difference.

I only have experience of Windows laptops I don't know if Apple devices are any better, but there you will be talking of serious money.
 
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Thanks for replies. Might be better looking at a dell ultrasharp monitor & some sort of base unit, don't need it to be hugely portable, just struggle for space in the house as to where I could put a desktop. Will have to give it some more thought...!

Been spoilt really, had use of a macbook Pro for last few years but have to give it back next month, so only have my old Lenovo which doesn't really cut it :(
 
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Thanks for replies. Might be better looking at a dell ultrasharp monitor & some sort of base unit, don't need it to be hugely portable, just struggle for space in the house as to where I could put a desktop. Will have to give it some more thought...!

Been spoilt really, had use of a macbook Pro for last few years but have to give it back next month, so only have my old Lenovo which doesn't really cut it :(
Given the choice between a MacBook or Windows laptop of equivalent spec I'd take the windows machine every time, for upgradability and choice as to how I want the machine to look and feel.

People who suggest a laptop is poor for editing are right, although with a good IPS screen and God spec it's not impossible. There's often great laptop deals on HUKD - well worth a look. You'll need at least 8gb ram, preferably 16gb (preferably 32 for a bit of future proofing) and a 500gb SSD. My 7 year old Dell XPS came with 16gb and is still ok for editing.
 
A used MSI Gaming 17 inch Laptop with the 10 series GPU`s or newer and DDR4 16GB RAM. Oh and dual storage, a small SSD stick thingy, i forget the name M2 or something like that. And a much larger Hard Drive for bulk storage. I use to switch the Hard Drive to a very high capacity one.

Those have strong power but shop around because some people over charge ALOT.
 
Thanks for all the advice, in the end couldn't really push the budget so last night I ordered an Acer Aspire 5. 8gb ram (which is upgradeable), 11th gen i5 core, IPS screen which had £100 off so was £499.

Tempted by lots of others inc Dell XPS 13 & HP Envy, but head won over heart at this time!

I'm guessing I could always add a Dell Ultrasharp monitor further down the line if I wanted but I'm only a hobbyist so not too worried right now!
 
Thanks for all the advice, in the end couldn't really push the budget so last night I ordered an Acer Aspire 5. 8gb ram (which is upgradeable), 11th gen i5 core, IPS screen which had £100 off so was £499.

Tempted by lots of others inc Dell XPS 13 & HP Envy, but head won over heart at this time!

I'm guessing I could always add a Dell Ultrasharp monitor further down the line if I wanted but I'm only a hobbyist so not too worried right now!

Hope it works out well for you.
 
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