Photo Editing Laptop

Hey guys,

After some advice on photo editing laptops as per the title.

Ive seen the price of MBP's and frankly is insane for the specs.

Does anyone know of windows laptops that has a calibrated monitor or has close colour representation close to that of a U2711?

Quad core processor or even with hyperthreading.

Mobile graphics isnt essential.

Thanks in advance guys.

Cheers,

 

I'll stay tuned to this thread as well. I've been thinking about getting one too.

I'm in agreement about the price of the MBPs

 

dell m6600 - edit: 6800 series now...im behind the times it seems
lenovo ws series
hp dreamcolor series

these are all pro highend screens, specifily for graphics work. if you think a macbook pro is expensive, then take a shot of whiskey before you look these up

 

Thanks for the heads up, im editing on a n61jv asus laptop with a u2711 attached.

They seem too close to call at the $2000 price point.

 

MBPr maybe expensive, but then, they're good value for money for their specs.
Last I checked, a 1k 15" laptop would get you i7, 1TB HDD, dedicated Graphics, 6-8GB RAM and sub FHD monitor. a 1.5k 15" Laptop would get you a FHD screen and 8GB RAM. It's only when you're happy to go for 17" where you get slighly better specs, e.g. 120GB SSD + 1TB, but then you're loosing portability and may as well grab a desktop, which would be much faster for the same price.

By the time you get to a higher spec one, like this http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1538_1540&products_id=25370
It's close to a 15" MBPr anyways. Sure you lose out on RAM (16GB vs 8GB), graphical power (GTX770m vs Iris Pro) and a BluRay burner but you gain a higher res screen (2880 x 1800 vs 1080p) and actually usable portability (2kg vs 4.5kg).

In the end though, it really depends on what you want. If it's value, then go for a PC build, as laptops will never get close. But if you're looking at laptops, Apple isn't too bad. I think I relised this when they released the last MBA, where it's 1.3k pricing puts it on par with similar spec ultrabooks. You get what you pay for, and the new revision with the Haswell processors haven't seen any price rise over the older ones, meaning they're still good value, especially during a 10% off sale and now that they come with "Office" (their version of it anyways) out of the box.

 

^

If you're specifically after a workstation machine for colour work, hard to beat the Dell/Lenovo workstations. My girlfriend has an M4600, and the premierecolour display is freakin awesome.

I just bought myself the new Dell XPS15 (best alternative to the MBPR15), $2.2 gets you a QHD (3200x1800) 15inch touch panel, i7, 16GB of ram, 512GB SSD. (Prices have jumped a bit now though). The QHD panel is pretty damn good apparently, should be fine for most work. Throw on a wide gamut external monitor for better accuracy though.

 

the first question to be asking is how much cash have you got to spend (realistically)

after that, members can start offering some suggestions based on that, just makes it easier.

 

If you do your editing like I do with say a Wacom tablet + stylus interface it might also be worth considering a Surface Pro 2, which cost around $1500 for a 256GB SSD with 8GB of RAM and are very popular with graphic designers. It also has a SD card slot built in as well and you can colour calibrate the screen which when combined with the Windows 8.1 update has shown some excellent results.

As said it really depends on what you want to do and what your budget is.

 

What's your budget?

 

$1k to $2k I would say.

Will be getting an ABN soon so I dont know if that helps with pricing?

 

I have a Clevo P150EM with a 95% colour gamat LCD. It is probably one of the nicest looking screens I have seen on a laptop. The ATI 7970, might be able to help out when needed too.

Check out their current range (or PM me if you are interested in this baby, as I am looking to upgrade to a desktop)

 

They do look good for the stats, is it only the small ssd?

That refurb you linked me didnt state it had a hdd.

Im not sure whether it would benefit me more going new as it will be a business expense.

Feel free to pm me the specs and what you are after for it if you're keen.

Cheers,

 

They aren't refurbs? eg. The 15" I'd recommend would be the P150SM (3 year warranty for +$99, plus 95% gamut screen for +$69 and whatever video and SSD you want, should still come in well under $2k.

 

My bad, the first laptop on the page was a refurb due to a faulty LCD.

Thanks for the heads up, I knew there were options out there instead of just DELL or Apple!

One thing though, would the 1800p screen on the apple be worth the premium in price and hit in processing power?

 

Another recommendation here for the Dell Precision series. I specced out an M6700 (work was paying ), and I've been blown away by the performance. It's not in your price range, but there would be similar-type computers at around the $2k mark I would think. Check out the Clevo range, they've always looked pretty decent to me.

 

They still have a P150EM for a clearance price on there for $1279, would that be the way to go?

Thinking about customizing in a 512gb m4, keeping the 128gb msata promo, as a way of protecting my data if I drop it when it is running, or if I want to edit in flight.