Laptop

[wreford]

So no sooner does work dry up so does my laptop. 

Need to find a temporary replacement ideal for travel once that's a possibility. 

Usual requirements of running light room and photoshop and handling 24mb files. 

Not huge quantities at a time and very little video. 

Budget is key here. So Windows I guess-what can I get away with. 

I know this has been covered previously but wonder if anything new on the market may meet my needs. 

Stay safe everybody 

Thanks 

Edited March 19, 2020 by wreford

[Bill Kuta]

Depends on what's "dried up" in your laptop.  If the hard drive has gone bad, you can probably get a 1Tb SSD drive for $100-120, replace the bad one, reinstall your OS, and it might work better than ever.

[sb photos]

On 19/03/2020 at 20:15, wreford said:

So no sooner does work dry up so does my laptop. 

Need to find a temporary replacement ideal for travel once that's a possibility. 

Usual requirements of running light room and photoshop and handling 24mb files. 

Not huge quantities at a time and very little video. 

Budget is key here. So Windows I guess-what can I get away with. 

I know this has been covered previously but wonder if anything new on the market may meet my needs. 

Stay safe everybody 

Thanks 

 

Are you certain that your laptop isn't viable to repair. There is always a possibility someone here or on a technical forum my be able to give advice. Otherwise, sorry I can't advise on PC laptops, my expertise is with Mac's. Hopefully others will reply, but I suspect it would help them if they knew what screen size you were seeking and maximum budget.

[vpics]

I picked up a 13" Hewlett Packard Pavilion laptop last year. Good screen, 512SSD drive. Lightning fast and editing my 30MP files from my EOS R is really quick. Was less than EUR 800.

[Jill Morgan]

I have an 8 year old Acer bottom of the line laptop.  Bought it for $350.  I added 4 GB of RAM to get it up to 8GB.  Runs PS, Lightroom, etc.  As long as I don't load over 10 photos in to PS at once, it runs smooth.  Each photo is 54mb. Over 10 and PS slows down.  It's never crashed and chugs its' little heart out.  I run a number of heavy programs on it besides PS.  I would recommend a laptop with more than 8GB of RAM.  My desktop has 12 and that seems enough, although I can expand to 32GB if I so desire.  I've hauled that laptop to a zillion trade shows and used it as a desktop for 5 years until I finally bought an actual desktop.  It runs software for photos, two different vinyl cutters and my embroidery machines. Quite often I'll have all that software running at the same time.

 

You don't need to spend a lot of money.  

 

Jill

[Chuck Nacke]

I have a collection of Lenovo laptops going back to my original T-21 (old enough to drink in a bar if they were still open..)

Most of my recent Lenovos were bought used and upgraded by a tech.  The T-21 was $3,200 new and my newest T-400

bought used for $200.  I currently use the T-400 connected to an old CanoScan FS 4000.  On occasion I also use the T-400

on location processing NEF files from D800's.  I don't know about 2020, but as of 2019 Lenovo tech support was great and

no charge.

 

Chuck

[spacecadet]

51 minutes ago, Chuck Nacke said:

old enough to drink in a bar if they were still open

😀

[MDM]

On 19/03/2020 at 20:15, wreford said:

So no sooner does work dry up so does my laptop. 

Need to find a temporary replacement ideal for travel once that's a possibility. 

Usual requirements of running light room and photoshop and handling 24mb files. 

Not huge quantities at a time and very little video. 

Budget is key here. So Windows I guess-what can I get away with. 

I know this has been covered previously but wonder if anything new on the market may meet my needs. 

Stay safe everybody 

Thanks 

 

You don't say what your budget is but it might be worth checking out the iPad Pros. These are becoming more computer-like all the time and Adobe have been adding more and more functionality to Lightroom and Photoshop Mobile. Apple have just announced a couple of new ones which are more computer-like than ever (optional trackpad and keyboard). The biggest advantage over a laptop is that they are incredibly light and incredibly fast as well. I would not dream of using one as my primary computer at this point but it is perfect for fast editing and image sorting on the road and it gobbles 45 MP files.

 

 

[spacecadet]

1 minute ago, MDM said:

These are becoming more computer-like all the time

🤩

[MDM]

2 minutes ago, MDM said:

 

 These are becoming more computer-like all the time

 

 

 

Just now, spacecadet said:

🤩

 

In terms of functionality - no longer all touchy-feely stuff as they can now take their orders from a mouse. The lightness and incredible speed is key. Laptops are going the way of cassettes, floppy drives, DVDs. Give it a few years.

 

 

[wreford]

Thanks for all the above input.

Regarding repair, I think its a possibility but its over 6 years old now and well used and feel I would be better adding the £100 or so it would cost to a new/newer one.

Am keeping an eye on ipad pros but think am not there yet.

Since it will be used on the road size is a consideration, as I see it my current one is around 15 inch but quite bulky so a 15 inch or less assuming later versions would be a tad thinner.

I have seen a lot of refurbished Lenovos on ebay etc but unsure of what minimum spec I can settle for other than 8gb or up.

Processor?

Am nervous about the budget to be honest given the current situation so am just trying to see what I could possibly get away with.

Appreciate the help 

Stay healthy 

 

[Chuck Nacke]

Jim,

 

Just give Lenovo in what ever country you are in a call.  The main concern is the OS and the Graphics Card.  Most laptops

from what I know do not have interchangeable Graphics Cards.  Most will go up to 16GB's of RAM and drives can be switched

out.

 

Chuck

[Bill Kuta]

I suggested what I did because it's exactly what I did to an eight-year-old HP laptop running Windows 7: replaced the HD with an SSD myself (found helpful youtube video for my exact model), then did a fresh install of Windows 10 (OK, that's another $100, but avoids Win7 non-support issues). It's running better than ever, but that's usually one result from a fresh OS install. Didn't encounter any problems.