Laptop or PC

Kondwani

Kondwani

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53
Name
John
Edit My Images
Yes
I've been using a laptop to edit raw photos (using PS Elements) but sometimes find this quite restrictive due to screen size. I am not into building a PC myself, and not looking to spend a fortune (max £750), but I am undecided which way I should go to make post-processing easier.
I would welcome comments as to readers preferences.
ie.
Should I look at:-
1. Using my existing laptop (Lenova Z50) and buy a separate larger Display Unit....this would allow for minimum cost, maximum versatility and I could always uprate the laptop at a later time. If so what display should I look for (size, spec etc).
2. New laptop with larger screen size....again any suggestions ?
3. Desktop PC + Display.....this would be a more static option but I might get a higher spec for the money. Any suggestions ?
 
If you're happy with the performance of your laptop then just get an external monitor. What you get depends on the graphics capabilities of your laptop so you'll need to help us out here.
I'd suggest either a 1920 x 1080 24" or 2560 x 1440 27" (IPS in both cases) but there's no point in buying something that can't be driven at its native resolution now as it won't look good. Conversely, you don't want to buy a monitor that will be too low a resolution for any replacement PC/laptop you might buy in the nearish future. So we really need to know what your Z50 can do before making specific suggestions.
 
Building your own custom PC is easier than Lego kit.

I can build one in about 15 minutes and I am fairly low intelligence lol.
 
GTG said:
Building your own custom PC is easier than Lego kit.

I can build one in about 15 minutes and I am fairly low intelligence lol.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The actual mechanics of building is very simple but the problems arise in selecting and knowing exactly what make/model/performance rating of the various components to use for the intended application.
 
I was in the same situation and ended up buying this and a decent monitor. It's fixed to the back of the monitor so you don't even see it. Select the higher spec with SSD from the dropdown. Absolutely no regrets.

https://tinyurl.com/y7ecmd4r
 
Thanks for your comments.
The Z50 I am using has a maximum resolution of 1920x1080 pixels
RAM of 8GB
Processor- Intel I7-4510U
64- bit operating system
Graphics card-NVIDIA GeForce 840M

Not that this means much to me but hopefully some readers may be able to comment as to whether this spec is suitable.

Cheers
 
If your laptop was plugged into an external monitor then it might be able to drive it at a higher resolution than the native res for the built-in screen. BTW I would choose 1920 X 1200 rather than 1080, 24" or 27" screen size, and I find the extra height useful for both image processing and work. Something like a Dell U2412M or the later replacements.

The spec you've given suggests it's a useful machine, but not especially fast, and with only 2 cores it will struggle if you queue images up for processing (i.e. when importing or exporting, video work) but should be OK for general use.
 
Thanks Toni,
I tend to process images individually so I might look into your suggestion and the extra height would be sensible.
Regards
 
ancient_mariner said:
If your laptop was plugged into an external monitor then it might be able to drive it at a higher resolution than the native res for the built-in screen. BTW I would choose 1920 X 1200 rather than 1080, 24" or 27" screen size, and I find the extra height useful for both image processing and work. Something like a Dell U2412M or the later replacements.

The spec you've given suggests it's a useful machine, but not especially fast, and with only 2 cores it will struggle if you queue images up for processing (i.e. when importing or exporting, video work) but should be OK for general use.
Click to expand...
I agree 16:10 is much better than 16:9 but I wasn't aware any monitors were still available in that aspect ratio. Please could you let us know some model numbers?
 
Kondwani said:
Thanks for your comments.
The Z50 I am using has a maximum resolution of 1920x1080 pixels
RAM of 8GB
Processor- Intel I7-4510U
64- bit operating system
Graphics card-NVIDIA GeForce 840M

Not that this means much to me but hopefully some readers may be able to comment as to whether this spec is suitable.

Cheers
Click to expand...
Unhelpfully, Nvidia doesn't give the maximum resolution of the 840M so we don't know if it's capable of better than 1920 x 1080 via the HDMI port (which I think your Z50 has) but a bit of digging shows it should be capable of 2560 x 1440 (or 1600). So I'd suggest going for a 27" 2560 x 1440 monitor (which just happens to be what I use) but I'd try to take the laptop and an HDMI cable to try one first. The other thing is to make sure it's an IPS screen. The Dell Ultrasharp is always a safe bet but not the cheapest option.
 
If photo editing is all you really do then as an extreme measure you could disable the 840M GPU and run solely of the Intel HD4400 graphics aboard the CPU.

The HD4400 supports 4096 x 2160 (4K) so there would be scope for buying a 4K monitor and future proofing yourself.

Realistically though I would say it is time to put your laptop out to graze and look at bringing all your hardware up to date.
 
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Snapsh0t said:
I agree 16:10 is much better than 16:9 but I wasn't aware any monitors were still available in that aspect ratio. Please could you let us know some model numbers?
Click to expand...

Just had a quick hunt, and I'm struggling to find something, but I'll look more thoroughly later.
 
I would buy a better monitor, the spec of the laptop is good enough and down the line you will just be able to use the monitor with a PC if you choose to go down that route.
 
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