buying a laptop for photoediting

Cricri

It always amuses me that people ALWAYS say that you need top notch PC to do whatever.
I concur with albertross: you do NOT need 2GB to edit a picture, even a 8MP one. Of course, it might run a bit better, but if I was in your shoes: would I spend 3 times more so that an operation takes 15 seconds instead of 20? Or 3 seconds instead of 5? If that at all in fact. Definitely not.
Now, if you are loaded with money, the answer will always be "buy the most expensive machine money can possibly buy". But let's be honest, with today's power even in the low range, you get more than enough to do most of your stuff.
I was already happily editing 640x480 pics in DOS with 4MB of RAM, and 1024*768 pics with 32MB.

Blacksheep1979

Cricri wrote: »

It always amuses me that people ALWAYS say that you need top notch PC to do whatever.
I concur with albertross: you do NOT need 2GB to edit a picture

I'm sorry but you're wrong - if the op wants to play with HDR or merging multiple images together to form panoramas/gigapixel images they do need a decent computer and 2gb of ram minimum - besides photo editing most new computers come with vista which I'd reccomend getting 2gb ram with anyway.

Cricri

I don't say that it's not beneficial, I agree that it would be better. What I say is that 2GB is not a compulsory requirement. To reiterate my original post:

"would I spend 3 times more so that an operation takes 15 seconds instead of 20? Or 3 seconds instead of 5? (...) Definitely not.".

Many people where at the top with 1GB of memory few years back. If 2GB is the minimum, how come they successfully manipulated a similar volume of information back then.

Now you are correct that Vista is quite resource hungry. However, Vista doesn't do the task any better, therefore it wouldn't make any sense to purposedly select Vista, and being left with no choice but to get 2GB because Vista is wasting some of it. That would be like digging potholes in your driveway because you bought a 4x4 vehicle.

So to conclude, yes, of course you can get 2GB, and sure, it will do the job, possibly somewhat better. But if budget matters, it is not worth buying a laptop 3x more expensive for a slight increase in performance.

Besides, even if you buy a £2000 laptop now, it will be obsolete within 2 years anyway.

Blacksheep1979

no 2gb isn't compulsary - you could do the process with 512mb or maybe less. As for 15 seconds instead of 20 you are far out with those estimates with some processes it could be 10's of minutes and so yes I would pay more (if I was seriously into a hobby or a proffesional) to have a process done in 5mins instead of 30mins.

Nobody was 'at the top' a couple of years ago with 1gb of ram, I remember buying a computer 6 years ago with 1gb ram, those who were seriously into editing of any kind a couple of years ago would easily had 2gb. And now if people are serious/proffesionals they would quite possibly be looking at 4gb.

I'm not saying Vista will do the job better - quite the opposite infact (and am quite vocal about not getting Vista) but for some people newer is better and also they don't always have the choice as it is often bundled with the laptop with no option to change to XP (other than to uninstall, ask for a rebate and buy XP). I'd say it's quite the opposite of your analogy - its more like you want that fabulous country home but because of the dodgy path to the house you need a 4x4.

Also with the price of ram at the moment 2gb vs 1gb isn't going to make the laptop 3x more expensive.

i_love_pigs!

Have you thought about an Apple mac? I'm a graphic designer and use CS2 suite daily on macs. As for memory get as much as you can afford. I have 4gb in mine and it still takes ages sometimes.