Need Suggestions For Laptop Features?Features

[BayAreaPhotog]

I need to buy a laptop so that while I am on location, I can off load my digital images from my Microdrive, start preparing the images in Photoshop, etc. and then email them to the client.

Since I have never had a laptop, what features, hardware, size, etc. should I be looking for? Any suggestions. Models, brands, things to watchout for? Again, most of my work will be shooting an event and within a few hours, emailing the images to a client for their website or magazine.

[JR92]

I have a Dell Inspiron 8100. It has 256 MB, DVD-CDR RW, it is fast and very handy.

I use a card reader about $25 and downlaod all of my images when I am working away from home.

The CD-RW is nice, because I can burn photo CD's on location.

The brand of price does not matter the main thing that you need is a reliable machine with lots of memory.

Do not buy used or refurbished, by new, many places will finiance on line.

I paid over $2000 for mine and it gets the hell worked out of it, I have already made my money back on it more than once.

Good Luck - Go Giants and 49ers (Cortez sucks)

[henkbos]

Got an IBM A31 with all the features. Took it on holiday to Borneo for downloading/viewing. If I would have to buy again I would:
- buy a lighter smaller laptop, like the Sony Visio with plenty of hard disk space
- buy a digital wallet and use a laptop like the A31.
Both have pros and cons, bulky and everything or small and less. Depends on your trip/assignment. Car always available: go for the (cheaper) bulkier ones with all the features.

[war72]

Speed, speed and speed, I hate waiting for pics to load..

[ssim]

My next laptop could very well be the ThinkPad W700 (http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/special-offers.workflow:ShowPromo?LandingPage=/All/US/Landing_pages/ThinkPad_notebooks/2008/W700/W700ds). It is being targeted at photographers and graphic artists. It can come with a built in Wacom tablet and to calibrate the screen all you have to do is invoke it and close the lid. It can also come out with an additional pull out screen. I've seen some reviews of it and they were very good. It doesn't come cheap but this thing could easily replace a desktop if one wanted.

[Tallking]

Holy Cow. Someone's bucking for the "Thread from the Dead Revival" award! ;)

That said, in the seven years this thread was peacefully resting in heaven, the concepts, if not the actual equipment, have remained pretty constant. As the revivalist noted, buy what it takes to get speed. This is especially critical if you shoot raw (or for any other reason you generate very large files, or very large numbers of files, or both. My 18 month old Dell workstation notebook was supposed to be a speed demon, but I've found a way to bring it to its knees -- digital photography involving raw images. . .

[Veemac]

Holy Cow. Someone's bucking for the "Thread from the Dead Revival" award! ;)...
I wondered if anybody else was going to notice that this thread was well over 7 years old. :razz: My first clue was when one of the replies said he spent over $2000 for a laptop with 256 MB (I'm assuming he was talking about RAM - but it could have been HD space, too!).

[ssim]

oops....missed that whole date thing.

[DStanic]

I wondered if anybody else was going to notice that this thread was well over 7 years old. :razz: My first clue was when one of the replies said he spent over $2000 for a laptop with 256 MB (I'm assuming he was talking about RAM - but it could have been HD space, too!).

No kidding!! :lol: Just not too long ago i was trying to sell my toshiba laptop with 256mb of ram and getting frustrated at the fact it is only worth $150 or so.