Best Laptop for Photos?

[Moose Dawg]

Hello all,

I was looking into buying a laptop and was just looking for opinions on what to get. I am going to Montana soon and basically need it to store photos on and to burn cds. I will also use it for weddings for the same purpose.

Any suggestions? What do you use?

Thanks in advance,
Dave

[rdenney]

Moose Dawg wrote:
Hello all,

I was looking into buying a laptop and was just looking for opinions on what to get. I am going to Montana soon and basically need it to store photos on and to burn cds. I will also use it for weddings for the same purpose.

Any suggestions? What do you use?

Thanks in advance,
Dave

If you are using it for showing images to clients, then get the best screen you can afford at the highest resolution. Mine is actually quite nice (a Dell with the ultra-whatever 1600x1200 screen). Other than that, a USB 2.0 port, a CD burner, Breezebrowser, Photoshop, at least half a gig of RAM, and the biggest hard disk you can get is about all you need. Only the LCD display is particularly expensive on that list, and if you won't be editing or showing using that display, then it's not as important.

Finding a laptop with a truly calibratable display is tough, because the color of the backlight is so important. I do important color work on my calibrated CRT display at home.

Rick "whose laptop LCD color is only acceptable" Denney

[Kenal0]

If you have not look at the Mac Powerbooks and are a dedicated Windows user as I was all my life until last summer you should at least look at the Mac Powerbook. It will handle all your audio and video needs as well as a windows machine. I still use Windows machines but prefer the Mac for any audio, video editing.
Kenal0
http://www.macmall.com/macmall/families/config/default.asp?dp=764337&type=powerbook&xml_id=400

[Mark Benavides]

I currently use a Dell Inspiron 8500. TWO harddrives = 100gig of internal storage! Latest version also has DVD burner (instead of CD burner)

Screen resolution is 1900 * whatever.

FWIW,
Mark

[justme_dc]

I would go with a Macintosh Powerbook G4 or an iBook G3. They are rock soild, easy to use and work well with the supplied Canon software. Lots of Pros use them. Checkout this link and read what working pros have to say about Apple laptops. I mean the guys that shoot for National geographic, Sport illustrated and the Associated Press can't all be wrong. There's a couple of Pulitzer Prize winners there too.

http://www.apple.com/pro/index/index.html#prophoto

This is another great article about Pros in the field

http://www.apple.com/pro/archive/creative/ecochallenge/

I am in the market for a laptop myself and without a doubt it will be an apple.

If you are a PC user, don't worry about PC to Mac or Mac to PC file swapping either.... I do it all day with no problems.

Good luck to you.

[deztoys]

I've used a couple Apple laptops as well as PC laptops (still have 3 of them collecting dust). They are really close when comparing the displays. The 12" PowerBook seems a bit washed out, but the others are much nicer. My old 15" Titanium PowerBook had a really bright display.

I'm not sure why one of the posts said to get a USB 2 port, but a regular USB 1.1 port is suffucient to do the job of small transferrs. Besides, when you can use a $35 firewire reader and not waste your batteries it makes it a moot point. Are people making USB card readers that utilize USB 2 yet?

If you want a bigger laptop, checkout the 17" PowerBook. Too big for me, but who knows, you may dig it. One place that had decent deals (also on refurbs with full warranty) is www.Smalldog.com.

Good luck......

Scott

[Moose Dawg]

Thanks for the advice guys. I need to do some shopping!!!!!

Dave

[boBquincy]

To me, the best laptop for photos is the smallest. For the times I need a laptop for storage and light editing I carry a Sony SRX-87 (under 3 lb). The Sony is discontinued so my choices now would be a Sony V505 or a Dell X200. Toshiba also has some small laptops.


boB

[rickm]

As for which USB reader to use with a laptop, I say neither. Just get the PCMCIA (PC CARD) compact flash adaptor. It fits inside one of the slots on the laptop and you pop the compact flash card into that. Pops up an an extra drive when inserted so your ready to go. It's also way faster than any compact flash card built to date and eliminates the extra bulk of an external reader!

[Spinners]

Personally, i find my USB flash reader much faster than my PCMCIA card reader. Plus why install a PCMCIA card when you dont need to. Its just an added cost, my 10D came with a USB adapter. Just my 2cents ;)

[tenerife]

I used a Toshiba Satellite Notebook..With XP
Verry good to stored on Location i think the alternaty to the Powerbook.
I used it also to present my clients my work..
I am verry happy with it - so i recommend it..

Regards from Tenerife
Klaus

[maxrebo]

I would suggest the IBM X Series of ThinkPads.

Light and portable. (1-inch thick, 3.6 pounds)
Has both USB2.0 and Firewire.
And the built-in CF card slot is very handy.
Reads CF Types I and II natively.

The only downside is the lack of a trackpad.
Instead, there's a ScrollPoint for mouse navigation.
A spare mouse is almost a must for editing images.

-rebo

[Chad D]

I am not a big fan of Dell all the time but the high angle screen on the 8500 series is hard to beat
if you go into there refurb area you can get a nice one for under $1500

also I think Toshiba now has a high viewing angle screen

[Gary Gibson]

Dell Inspiron 8500 w/ 15.4 Ultra View display.........unbeatable! Also, be sure to get XP Pro OS rather than XP Home. PRO has much more advantages in the photo work(s) operations with whatever software you use.

Also has USB 2.0, much faster than 1.1
Now about the card readers, go with the USB. The PMCIA adapters are way too slow.

Give this some thought, Dell has the supreme customer/product support. The new 8500 is my next investment.
Gary

[davidbellca]

Gary Gibson wrote:
Dell Inspiron 8500 w/ 15.4 Ultra View display.........unbeatable! Also, be sure to get XP Pro OS rather than XP Home. PRO has much more advantages in the photo work(s) operations with whatever software you use.

Also has USB 2.0, much faster than 1.1
Now about the card readers, go with the USB. The PMCIA adapters are way too slow.

Gary

I would just like to clarify that the primary difference between XP Home and XP Pro is that Pro includes the Networking capabilities and advanced security and encryption commonly required in corporate and multi-computer environments. If you don't plan to network multiple computers together, there's nothing photography-related that should warrant the extra cost for XP Pro.

I do agree that you should demand USB 2.0. It is backward compatible with the slower standard, and maybe you'll fill up your hard drive with pretty pictures and need an additional external drive someday.

Dave {who teaches Information Systems for a living} Bell

[Mark Benavides]

Dave,

I have 8500 with the gorgeous screen, 100Gig of Internal HD (60 + 40), and an external POCKET 60GIG LaCie Firewire HD serving as backup of pictures (using Dell's internal firewire adapter to chain 3 LaCie's)

Works beautifully! Internal DVD burner on order!

FWIW,
Mark (wet-fingered dentist and software developer)

[kellylipp]

maxrebo wrote:
I would suggest the IBM X Series of ThinkPads.

Light and portable. (1-inch thick, 3.6 pounds)
Has both USB2.0 and Firewire.
And the built-in CF card slot is very handy.
Reads CF Types I and II natively.

The only downside is the lack of a trackpad.
Instead, there's a ScrollPoint for mouse navigation.
A spare mouse is almost a must for editing images.

-rebo


I just got a new laptop, specifically with photo processing in mind. I had an IBM X20 before. Decent, but not nearly fast enough to do useful processing work.

I bought the T40 with the 1.5GHz M Series processor. Added 512 MB of memory bringing the total to 768. 40 GB, USB 2.0 (for connection to the Epson 2200), fairly large screen (not the largest you can get) but the bottom line was performance out of the M processor (equivalent to 2.x GHz in the P4) and the weight. Heavier than the X series, but lighter than the other family members. I use a CF PC Card adapter.

One nice thing about the X model is it has a CF slot built in and it will accept a Microdrive.

We've used other laptops in our company but have standardized on IBM. They seem to have the broadest range of product and surprisingly their prices aren't bad.

Kelly

[carnagex2000]

I recommend an Apple Powerbook. Ive drop mine, banged mine, and amazing enough it still works perfectly. And the operating system is great.