BEST LAPTOP?

[Flyball Rebel]

I'm looking to purchase a Laptop in the near future. How many of you out there work on a laptop full time and what are the good points about the make of laptop you own. I will use it 90% of the time for photography purposes. Hope you can help, Regards [F.R.] :)

[DaveG]

I'm looking to purchase a Laptop in the near future. How many of you out there work on a laptop full time and what are the good points about the make of laptop you own. I will use it 90% of the time for photography purposes. Hope you can help, Regards [F.R.] :) I bought a notebook about six weeks ago. I didn't want to spend a fortune for this computer since it's not destined to replace my desktop.

I wanted a notebook that had a CD burner, at least a 40 meg hard drive and 512meg of memory. USB 2 is nice for file transfer speed and the 15 inch monitor seems to be fine. If I was using it a lot more then perhaps the 17 inch (and much more expensive) screens might something to consider.

After that everything else was gravy. The one I got - and I doubt that you could buy one now without this - has a built in wi-fi system card. Mine is the 802.11b and I now see other notebooks in this price range with the g card. I will defer to others to say if there's much improvement over the two cards, since I simply don't know.

But you will want this feature so that you can hook up to the internet at some coffee shop wi-fi hotspot and you can move images as email or FTP transfers. This could be a cool way of sending images home while you are travelling. As I say I bought mine without thinking even a little bit, about 802.11, but now I realize how important it is.

I'm using Photoshop CS on this computer and the Celeron chip is only OK for speed. The notebook is a HP 5600 and a week later I saw a Compaq computer with virtually the same specs (g card though) and an AMD chip, and for the same money. Sigh ... But the HP pushes around 16 bit RAW files (32 meg) fairly well.

I have no doubt that I'll get better performance when I upgrade to a full gig of memory. There are only two slots for memory in my computer (I'm told) and if there are two 256 meg chips already installed then I'll have to buy two 512 cards to upgrade, which is an incredible waste. Ideally there's one 512 memory chip in the notebook and all I'd have to do is buy another 512, but I sort of doubt it! If you can specify your desire for one chip which would leave the other space open, then you'll save some money when it comes time to upgrade. In hindsight I wonder what the upgrade to one gig memory would have been when I bought the notbook? God I hate hindsight.

Anyway some thoughts.

[Canuck]

What ever you do, don't get a compaq! I have had nothing but problems with them. IMHO, there is only one place for them...the compaqtor!

That said, there are tons of other options. I have heard that Gateway isn't value for money; Dell's customomer service leaves a lot to be desired; and if you are like me you get one w/o an os and DIY (Do-It Yourself). The reason is several fold... 1) You see what happens as you install drivers and get to know your computer really well! This comes in hand later when upgrading drivers. 2) There is an immense amount of gratification when it all comes together and it is all stable and everything works like a dream. 3) None of the overinflated stuff you get with Dell/Gateway/etc. It is an OS and that's it. You install what you want, when you want. 3a) Tying into this is that you can customise during OS installation what you want/don't want. IE: I have no use for the Chinese/Korean/Arabic/etc characters so I don't install that. Also, I can see just fine so I don't install the visually impared stuff. This list could go on... 4) Be ye forewarned, this isn't rocket science, but it can be daunting for a first timer. I recommend the DIY option w/ a computer savvy friend the first time, if you're unsure. If you do it DIY, there isn't any tech support. However my finding is that the tech support are flunkies with a logic tree (LT). In case of video problems, go to LT 5-1...Is there power to computer? Yes-proceed to LT 5-2; no-have person plug in/turn on computer and so on. In very rare cases you get someone that knows a computer. 5) I could nit-pick all these options till the end of time, but ultimately it is your decision.

I'm thinking although expensive, Mac may well be the way go. I am very seriously leaning that way.

[Imp]

I work on my 15" Powerbook full time. However I do have an external monitor hooked up for photoshop. CRTs are still king for color accuracy :-) I've edited images on my laptop screen when I'm away but I always double check on my CRT when I get home.

In any case, Apple's Powerbook line is really nice.

Good luck.

[mikesd]

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/featured_notebook3?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs One of the best notebooks on the market. I spend alot of time on the Dell boards and the 8600 is their most dependable notebook and has extremely high customer satisfaction .

[PaulN]

I have a 17" apple powerbook 1ghz G4 processor with 1Gb ram. Runs everything great. Including free software like the GIMP (though I still use Photoshop CS for 16 bit Raw images).

I have never had a Mac that I do not like. My Powerbook has NEVER crashed. OS X is a great operating system IMHO.

The laptop comes with a PC card slot (convienent for downloading images off a CF card (firewire reader is faster, though), firewire port, and USB ports.

[Tom W]

Well, I've been very happy with my Dell. Its worked flawlessly since the first day. The only thing I did wrong when I bought it was that I only got a 40 gig HD. You should consider a larger one for dealing with pictures.

I can't comment on customer service since I've never called them.

[CyberDyneSystems]

GOOD
Fujitsu
Sony
Dell
Some Toshiba's (the pricer ones)
Panasonic (YES! They make the heavy duty drop them out of the back of Belmondos car.. and trek it to the top of Everest and they keep on ticking models..) :wink:

BAD
Compaq
HP

[dwc]

Get 1 gig memory.
DVD burner or at least cd burner.(mine is a removable bay type)
Screen size 14 - 17 inch is not the same as resolution, your looking for pixel count. UXGA screens are 1600 x 1200 pixels. 8)
Check battery time. Some new Sonys quote up to 11 hours. :shock: (I only have a two hour and it sucks)! :cry:
USB 2 and firewire!

Good Luck,

Scott W.

[Mills]

I love my 17" Powerbook. NEVER a problem.

[SnJPhoto]

12" powerbook.... Absolutely perfect for photos in my opinion.