Laptop advice please - clever Photograpy stuff needed

Maureen43

Hi All

Dd's laptop (Dell, five years old) is getting very poorly. It's slow, gets very hot and she can't upload photos to it from her iphone so...

She's just starting an A Level Photography course and a new laptop will need to be able to store lots of photos and cope with clever Photography software (can you tell I know absolutely nothing about it!!!)

She'll also need to run Excel, Word etc, and have quick download times on films etc from the net. Basically it needs to be nice and zippy when using the internet.

Please can I have some advice on a good reliable model. I know NOTHING.

Thanks
Maureen

victor2

Maybe it just needs rejuvenating. If it's 5 years old (running Vista?) and has never had a complete reinstall of the operating system, that might be all it needs. If you're not up to that, maybe you can find someone who can?
Download speed is going to be determined by the internet connection in use, not so much the laptop.
Do you already have MS Office installed for Excel and Word? That will save you buying a new copy so long as you still have the installation disc and licence details.

If you can specify the laptop model, I'm sure someone will list the specs for it.
Of course, if you still want to get a new one, some idea of budget is essential. Any modern computer will have the capacity to store many photographs, plus you could use online storage services too, for backups if nothing else.
Talk to her teachers and see what they suggest, particularly regarding software for editing photographs. Could be anything from freeware to (very) expensive commercial software.

perjubs

If you can tell me what laptop it is I will offer a great solution Im sure, but I can't say much until I know what I'm dealing with. However I can say get a program called CCleaner and Defraggle, both are free from a company called Piriform. If you (or someone a tad more savvy) installs them and runs them it should make a reasonable improvement to speed. As for the heat, get someone you know with a reasonable level of computer skill to open up the computer and give the fan a bit of a clean with either a very soft paint or blusher brush (clean and dry of course) or a can of compressed air (you can buy these from computer shops) and that should help te fan keep the system cool.

As I said though, give me some more information to work with and I will help more and even suggest some decent cost effective software to put on.

I_have_spoken

http://www.ebuyer.com/620977-acer-travelmate-p243-m-laptop-nx-v7bek-027

macman

Dell-but which model? Clean the fan ducting out (physically, not with a can of compressed air) to stop the overheating, then do a Factory Restore. Maybe a RAM upgrade as well-but we need to know the existing specs.
Is this running Vista or W7?

daveyjp

Complete back up, full system restore and it will speed up. I have just done it on a 5 year old Vista machine.

Better to store photos on an external hard drive and even consider cloud storage so they are backed up.

Maureen43

Thanks All

It is an Inspiron 1545 running Windows Vista. 3GB Ram. 32-bit operating system.

Last year I bought another battery for it as it had to be on charge constantly. That cost about £40 - is it worth spending more on it?

I have no idea how to clean the fan.

Cisco001

It doesn't worth spending more for 5 yr old machine. But it doesn't harm to run a recovery

If u are getting new, what is ur budget for new machine?

Maureen43

Budget is £400 max (gulp).

NiftyDigits

Maureen43 wrote: »

Thanks All

It is an Inspiron 1545 running Windows Vista. 3GB Ram. 32-bit operating system.

Last year I bought another battery for it as it had to be on charge constantly. That cost about £40 - is it worth spending more on it?

I have no idea how to clean the fan.

There is a Service Tag written on the underside of the laptop. What is it?

perjubs

Maureen43 wrote: »

Budget is £400 max (gulp).

£400 is more than enough to buy a decent laptop for photo editing and other such things.

From what you say, if it's not a big issue to buy a new one, I think it's probably for the best since the old machine is quite basic.

I'm guessing DD will want to keep it as a laptop for the sake of travel to and from her place of study so that's what I'm going to look into for you, also I have to ask as it's for photo editing, will DD be wanting top of the line software? If so you could find yourself out of pocket pretty quickly, however a lot of colleges and universities (or at least mine and a few friends colleges a few years back) offer the software to students to install on their license. Alternatively there is a plethora of freeware out there that while not as fancy with bells and whistles, will certainly do the job!

Now, I just had a quick look around and this was the best I could find for your budget

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Asus_X552EP_Quad_Core_8GB_1TB_Windows_8_Laptop_in_Black__X552EP-SX023H/version.asp

Also if you sign up to https://www.imutual.co.uk and find laptops direct in their search bar, you can earn 2% cashback too, which granted isn't a massive amount but hey, money IS money after all
you may even be able to sell them (Laptops Direct) your old one to get a bit of money back too if you dont want/need it.

Now when it comes to software the first place I would point you is to Google and to search paint.net, it is a well known and trusty application that has a few nifty editing features and is completely and utterly free. If you want more just ask, I would put more now but I have to shoot off to work.