Laptop for photo editing

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ricky1980

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Name
Richard Wong
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Not ever used a laptop for photo editing but wanting to reduce the amount of desk clutter, also having a laptop and a desktop as well doesn't make sense.

so wondering what people use for their photo editing other than MacBook (I don't have any Apple products)...obviously needs a good screen (IPS) for color editing.
 
I used to hook my laptop up to a large screen as typical 15.6" laptop screen is not that great for photo editing.
 
ASUS ROG G750JM

Designed for gamers, so hence the design is a bit funky, but gaming machines by definition are usually the most powerful machines for other tasks.

Core i7
17" IPS screen
12GB RAM (upgradeable to 32GB)
SSD
1.5TB storage drive
DVD writer
card reader


It will kick the crap out of a Macbook Pro.


I'd always have a desktop machine for editing thuogh. Generally.. unless you plug them into a dcent monitor... mouse and keyboard... laptops suck. If you do all that, you may as well just use a desktop.

If you must have one though.... consider the above. Prices from £899 to £1600 depending on exact spec.


http://www.asus.com/uk/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_ROG_G750JZ/
 
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I'd agree with Neil, I'd probably hook up to a larger screen if I was using a laptop...

Parents in law have a 17" HP Laptop which has a nice screen and is reasonable for photo editing there an then - say at a meeting / out in the field, but for home use, would like to hook it to a larger screen...
 
Dell XPS L502X
Core i5
16GB RAM
Win7
640GB HDD (2 x 1TB external drives)

Deals with files from the D800 in Photoshop CC 2014 with no problems.
Larger screen would be great but then it just wouldn't sit right in the lounge :)
 
Yeah, I do have a dell 2413 for that as well. I just want a laptop that have decent screen so I can do some work on the light room such as adjusting WB,contrast and saturation etc before I get home.

Though I think an i7 processor is needed as the i5 seems to lack hyper threading so multi tasking is going to be rubbish as I also use my laptop for general browsing word processing and as a media centre also. Sometime at the same time
 
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Pookeyhead said:
ASUS ROG G750JM

Designed for gamers, so hence the design is a bit funky, but gaming machines by definition are usually the most powerful machines for other tasks.

Core i7
17" IPS screen
12GB RAM (upgradeable to 32GB)
SSD
1.5TB storage drive
DVD writer
card reader
Click to expand...

17" is a bit of a beast to lugged around tho...5kg weight -.-
 
It is... but I thought you just wanted a less cluttered desk rather than portability. :)

Gramps' suggestion would be a better compromise for portability.
 
13 inch MacBook Pro which I hook up to a 24 inch ips panel for editing with separate keyboard and mouse and small size of mpb means I can then take it anywhere.
 
I've been using a 17" Acer V3-771G for about 2 years now. It's still very capable running Cs6 + LR5, processing 100's of D800E RAW files without slow down.
It's an i7 with an Nvidia GT640M card [good enough for gaming at moderate levels] 8GB RAM, keep meaning to upgrade to 16 - has a built in SD card reader and all the usual. Has a blue ray player even that has never been used. I ditched the desktop when i bought it, so I could park my station anywhere in the house I wanted. I wasn't planning on it being completely portable, as in, taking it everywhere. It's pretty much for home use only. But it's never let me down.
 
I do some editing on my laptop now and then, as long as you use a proper mouse I don't find it too bad. Mines a Dell Latitude E6430, 14" screen but supports 1600x900 so a nice resolution for a smaller screen. Spec wise it's a quad core i5 with 4GB ram, i upgraded mine to an SSD too and now it absolutely flies and would recommend an SSD to anyone wanting performance.
 
andy1868 said:
I do some editing on my laptop now and then, as long as you use a proper mouse I don't find it too bad. Mines a Dell Latitude E6430, 14" screen but supports 1600x900 so a nice resolution for a smaller screen. Spec wise it's a quad core i5 with 4GB ram, i upgraded mine to an SSD too and now it absolutely flies and would recommend an SSD to anyone wanting performance.
Click to expand...
just had a quick goolge on the dell standard laptop they are all TN panels which means they will struggle to represent any decent amount of gamut. the laptop you ahve mentioned only has 34% sRGB which isn't really good for editing purposes. although the SSD should be standard for all new laptops. I switched over to SSD on all my computes/laptops late last year, the difference was phenominal. even the core2duo laptops were running windows 7 with no troubles.

the chill blast laptop seems to have a decent differentiator in that it offers mSATA primary drive as well as a SATA secondary drive, which means u can have a fast primary boot/system drive with a huge hybrid secondary drive. that seems to be quite ideal as the alrge drive can be used for archive/storage. But the color gamut has to come first.

anyone got any experiences with Sony Vaio Duo 13? the one that can flip between being a laptop and a tablet...if you can call a 13inch thing as tablet, i would have called it SLATE/TABLE.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Sony-Vaio-Duo-13-SVD1321M2E-Convertible-Ultrabook.97628.0.html
 
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My other half has a laptop from PC Specialist with an IPS display. Not sure of the model but they had a few with IPS panels as an option.
 
Every computer is ultimately a compromise. Desktop vs laptop... one is better value and potentially more powerful, the other is portable. RAM, processor, disk configuration, OS... it's all a tradeoff in performance vs price and what works for you. Screens are probably more about what you prefer - high lpi retina display (but small physical size) of a laptop vs low standalone lpi IPS panel at 24+". The new 4k screens might start to blur that particular boundary, but they're still a way off from being properly "ready".

I have both a laptop (with an awful TN screen) and a brand new desktop which came in at £600... plus a reasonable (and cheap) IPS panel that either can use when at home. If I wanted a laptop that came close to my desktop in terms of performance, with an IPS screen, I expect I'd be looking at £1500+ at a minimum and possibly closer to £2k. And the problem with gaming laptops (which will often give you the CPU/disk performance) is you're paying for a graphics card which you may not really need.

If budget is unlimited, get the funkiest gaming laptop you can find with IPS, but you may find it's pretty heavy - so yet another compromise. Alternatively, think about whether you can get a laptop which "does the job" when portability is required and stick with your dual computer solution? Yes, it takes up space but then you'll have the best tool to hand depending on circumstances. A mini PC tower doesn't take up that much space and surely you're using a separate mouse & keyboard when at home with your laptop? So there's not a massive difference in space requirements...

It's your money to choose how you want to spend it... but just think about what you really want/need and the incremental cost of getting that. Are there alternatives that might save £500 or even more? Is making that compromise worth saving that sort of cash for - perhaps that can go on a new lens?
 
ricky1980 said:
Though I think an i7 processor is needed as the i5 seems to lack hyper threading so multi tasking is going to be rubbish as I also use my laptop for general browsing word processing and as a media centre also. Sometime at the same time
Click to expand...
honestly the i5 quads are not far behind performance wise. i think its something like 10% difference while encoding HD video, so for editing photos you most likely wont notice.

plus i dont think many (if any) photo editing apps are coded to make good use of hyperthreading. @arad85 is probably the best person to comment on this at the moment, he did the comparison on the i5/i7 for video IIRC.
 
neil_g said:
honestly the i5 quads are not far behind performance wise. i think its something like 10% difference while encoding HD video, so for editing photos you most likely wont notice.

plus i dont think many (if any) photo editing apps are coded to make good use of hyperthreading. @arad85 is probably the best person to comment on this at the moment, he did the comparison on the i5/i7 for video IIRC.
Click to expand...
I think you are right. I had a look at my PC's cores while using light room and Photoshop yesterday it wasn't spread across all cores. It was using 2 cores heavily while other 4 was used a little bit. This is an AMD x6. Not sure how the work load is spread but that may have something to do with the OS too.

So I am not fussed about i5/i7...in terms if performance as long as it can handle the editing software's demand I am gonna to be happy.

Really got my hearts on that Sony VAIO, the ability to flip into a tablet is quite cool. Not used windows 8 before but I can see it would be advantageous when reviewing photos in lightroom as a tablet and simply flip thru the selection.
 
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I have a Dell Precision M4700 laptop configured with a i7 quadcore CPU, 32gb RAM, two SSD and a spinning HD. This machine is driving a pair of U2413 screens via a dock. If you are going to use a laptop on a desk I have found a dock to be worth the expense I bought a 2nd unit for person use at home. The machine is set up for a range of image processing and data processing tasks, not specifically for photos. Lightroom/Photoshop do not seem to use the cores very efficiently, Premier does seem to a better job. The biggest difference is between the SSD and HD, processing times are noticeably shorter when the files are hosted on the SSD.
 
Hyperthreading is not all it's cracked up to be. Perhaps 10-15% performance improvement on apps that can properly use it (the only one I know I can max my system out is ffmpeg). For 99.9% of the population an i5 is the right choice (price vs performance).
 
Actually decided that I am going to replace like for like. Trying to get a thinkpad w530 or a dell M3800. Both got quadro card which means I can still enjoy the 10bit workflow and also both have 95% sRBG gamut...tho they don't seem to be readily available and the second hand market is hardly full of the stuff either
 
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