New PC / Laptop Purchase Help

duff67

Monday week ago, my existing laptop became a 'dead parrot'. PC World diagnosis (on the basis of a quick description and a look at the outer casing of the laptop !) - motherboard packed in.

Armed with that technical knowledge I speedily require a new machine.

For last 12 months I have been building/starting a photography/image based business. I feel I understand light and composition and the need to push the small circular button on that big heavy boxy thing :rotfl: but only have the basics of computer spec knowledge.

I mainly will need to :

Download the images from camera to machine, require Adobe LR & PS and a few other software editing packaging.

Being able to cope with basic video editing (through Adobe or similar)

Dropbox (the quicker uploading, the better)

Requirement to cope with conference calls visual with pixel speed/clarity of images and cam function (suppose Skype).

Reasonable speed and graphics re image editing clarity.

Apart from a bit of social internet surfing anything else to consider that those who do similar know would benefit quality and imagework.

I have previously used Windows but like the look of Mackbook Pro's Laptops or 21 inch IMacs. I'm favouring the MacBook Pro for portability over screen size, but am still open to views.

I realise Windows can be cheaper, but I anticipate no need to self upgrade parts as needed, as I wouldn't have a scoobie. I also have an IPad which I have used over the past year to tether at shoots, so I'm thinking they'll work together, perhaps more in harmony.

Price is an issue, but so is confidence in the end product to be able to action what I need it to, when I need it to. Ideally have £800 to spend.

I have seen this:

15 inch Retina
Core i7 2.6GHz
16GB RAM 768GB
SSD MC976BA 2012

Refurbed Grade A 1Year.

Cost £1,100 . No duo/quad processor which research indicates may be advantageous ? , but 16GB and SSD research recommended ?

I'd like to understand more, hence this post.

Mainly looking for views on this Spec as opposed to any other and given my imaging editing needs, what could be missing or required for better performance.

I will visit John Lewis (I have read other recent posts) and this was from Portable Univ (in case anyone has views on them).

Be grateful for your thoughts

Thanks

macman

PCW invariably 'diagnose' mobo or hard drive failure-neither of which you can diagnose without proper testing. They are utterly clueless. Take it to a local independent PC shop and get a proper diagnosis, it could be something very minor.

Chickabiddybex

I'm confused - you want it cheap as possible but are looking at Macs?

I have a laptop I use for a lot of the same things you do (Photoshop, some video editing, etc) and it does pretty well. It's a few years old and still going strong. It runs Windows 7 Professional 64bit with an i5 processor and 4GB RAM. I guess those specs should be your minimum. You definitely don't need 16gb RAM though for what you're wanting.

These should all work well for you - they are 15inch laptops with enough processing power for Photoshop and dedicated graphics for video editing.
Budget: ASUS X555DG
Mid range: Acer Aspire F 15
Mid range: HP ProBook 455 G3
Top: Gigabyte P15F R5-CF1

If you go for a cheaper option I suggest you buy a decent monitor with the money you save which you can plug in so you don't have to do Photoshopping on a tiny laptop screen. Or get a bigger laptop - but then it's a pain to carry. Personal preference I guess.

pmartin86

You really dont need to spend £800 on your needs, despite what the hype and marketing tells you, you REALLY dont need a mac...PM me if you want to talk through more detailed options and I can recomend you something good value for money, that will last the course and be "upgradable" when the time inevatably comes, which it will.

System

If you are doing photography and video editing on it to a point you're charging people and want a professional output you need a good screen with good colour accuracy and I doubt that the above users suggestions will include a laptop with one as non of them sub £1000 do. Razer Blades are as good as they get in a laptop but you're looking at £2000.

A Macbook Pro Retina with calibration will get you an acceptable colour accuracy with a Delta E below 2 which is below the level the human eye can perceive and will end up being one of the cheaper options.

The alternative is to use a separate monitor for when you do the editing but you're looking at monitors starting from £600 such as a Dell Ultrasharp U2716 which is extremely accurate but that monitor will set you back over £700.

Anyone who thinks you can just use a low or mid-range laptop for image editing professionally doesn't really know much about the subject. It may suffice when you're doing it as a hobby and only producing stuff for yourself or friends/family who won't be too worried about accuracy but a paying client is a different case.

Chickabiddybex

I disagree - the OP has not given us any indication that they need to carry out such intensive image editing.

System

Chickabiddybex wrote: »

I disagree - the OP has not given us any indication that they need to carry out such intensive image editing.

Really?

For last 12 months I have been building/starting a photography/image based business.

Most important thing after taking the photo is colour accuracy for editing, artwork and printing. Its so important that at the company my wife used to work at they had lots of colour strips on the wall next to the workstations and printers showing what colours would turn out looking like what on the various materials they printed on.

Colour accuracy is essential in commercial work.

Say you were tasked with making a replacement sign below. Look at the images. Three different monitors could display three entirely different images so how would you know that the colour you chose was correct?



How do you edit accurately if the monitor isn't properly displaying the image? If you had a monitor which had a low red you could find that when doing image manipulation you overcompensate because reds look too low which would result in a final product with red being oversaturated. Nothing worse than a bride getting her wedding photos and seeing that her skin looks bright red because the photographer was doing the editing on a crappy £100 entry level uncalibrated monitor with low red.

Talking of decent accurate displays and weddings, this is the calibration data for my OLED TV pre and post calibration.




Any error below 2 is imperceivable by the human eye. After calibration it was obvious that prior to it that whites had been far too blue white. Skin tones looked far more natural too. My niece brought round the sample wedding photos she'd received on CD from the photographer who is someone who I know that does photography for national magazines. They were blown away by how good they looked being displayed on my TV, much much better than on their laptop where they kind of looked a bit washed out.

duff67

Photography / Image editing is key.

I don't do weddings lol (to much pressure) , but am in portraits, editorials and catalogue work - so calibration is important.

Hence in my originally posted search the MacPro spec includes the enhancement of retina. I know that the raw cookout and edited final image need to reflect my colour toning accurately.

Taking all advice onboard and searching against it.

System

Yeah I think those who go on about high end laptops and computers being a waste of money and constantly say you can get computers with more RAM, faster processors and larger hard drives "that'll do the job better" for less money pretty much every single time overlook the display which quite often ends up being the most expensive component in the device and what you're paying for in higher end systems. That's probably because their income doesn't depend on image accuracy and as long as it puts out a picture they're happy with then that'll do them. Its one of the reasons that TV manufacturers get away with selling some truly shocking tellies.

Enterprise_1701C

I would suggest you get a friend who knows how to do a factory restore for you, assuming you do not have any data you need to recover?

As others have said, PC world are useless, and probably diagnosed it as such so you would go and buy a new one - from them.

If it as bad as it seems you lose nothing by trying.

Of course, you do not give the make, OS or age of your current laptop so for all I know it could be 10 years old and absolutely exhausted.

Chickabiddybex

Tarambor wrote: »

Really?

Yes really because when I wrote that the OP hadn't clarified exactly what they were doing.

It is definitely important to get a good monitor though as you have said. I personaly would invest in a separate one as laptop screens are usually too small.

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