Cheap Laptop for Vacation

[monkeymike]

I'm going to Hawaii for my honeymoon in the beginning of September, and I am looking for a small laptop to bring with. I have a Dell Inspiron E1705 that I work with at home, but it is much too big to bring with.

Needs List:
download RAW and do basic RAW edits in DPP.
backup photos on some other media (i.e. DVD).
fit in a Dakine Sequence backpack.
cheap!

Obviously, this pretty much pushes me out of the netbook family, but I've been looking at the Lenovo Y series, specifically the Y430/Y450 series. The main hurdle I'm having is figuring out if the discrete card is required, or if I can get away with an integrated card. Basically, it is between the Intel Integrated Graphics 4500 or NVIDIA GeForce 9300M 256MB.

Realisitcally, I don't expect to do a whole heap of work on it, but it would be nice to send some cleaned up pictures to our families when we're out there. I may throw my copy of CS2 on there, but I really don't expect to do much (if anything) in CS2.

~mike

[Tony-S]

The nVidia 9300 smokes the Intel 4500. But more importantly, does DPP require such a beefy gpu? I know on my Macs, Aperture and DPP run fine on the Intel GMA950, so I'm sure DPP will work just fine with the 4500. If you can find a Dell Mini-9 that might work for you - although I'm not sure about its DVD options. It has an single core Atom processor with the GMA950.

[MaxxuM]

I'm going to Hawaii for my honeymoon in the beginning of September, and I am looking for a small laptop to bring with. I have a Dell Inspiron E1705 that I work with at home, but it is much too big to bring with.

Needs List:
download RAW and do basic RAW edits in DPP.
backup photos on some other media (i.e. DVD).
fit in a Dakine Sequence backpack.
cheap!

Obviously, this pretty much pushes me out of the netbook family, but I've been looking at the Lenovo Y series, specifically the Y430/Y450 series. The main hurdle I'm having is figuring out if the discrete card is required, or if I can get away with an integrated card. Basically, it is between the Intel Integrated Graphics 4500 or NVIDIA GeForce 9300M 256MB.

Realisitcally, I don't expect to do a whole heap of work on it, but it would be nice to send some cleaned up pictures to our families when we're out there. I may throw my copy of CS2 on there, but I really don't expect to do much (if anything) in CS2.

~mike

I don't see how you're going to get much smaller. It's already a laptop. All you will gain is maybe a pound or two and 1/3 of an inch here and there going with a thin notebook. The only thing truly smaller would be a netbook which would be about half the weight. My Lenovo S10 can do everything I need on trips (upgraded HDD to a 320GB 7200 RPM + 2GB RAM) but the screen is way to small to do any meaningful on. I can however scan my pics and get rid of the crud and store the good ones.

I take my MBP if I'm going to be on the road longer than a week and it is very light, sturdy and has very good battery life. PC wise, I would look into Dell or Lenovo - but I don't see any serious gain from going with another laptop.

[monkeymike]

The nVidia 9300 smokes the Intel 4500. But more importantly, does DPP require such a beefy gpu? I know on my Macs, Aperture and DPP run fine on the Intel GMA950, so I'm sure DPP will work just fine with the 4500. If you can find a Dell Mini-9 that might work for you - although I'm not sure about its DVD options. It has an single core Atom processor with the GMA950.
well, the nvidia card would kill the intel gpu, but like you said, im not sure what DPP required. the only info i got from the DPP manual was that it required a 16 bit display, 1024x768 min.

I don't see how you're going to get much smaller. It's already a laptop. All you will gain is maybe a pound or two and 1/3 of an inch here and there going with a thin notebook. The only thing truly smaller would be a netbook which would be about half the weight. My Lenovo S10 can do everything I need on trips (upgraded HDD to a 320GB 7200 RPM + 2GB RAM) but the screen is way to small to do any meaningful on. I can however scan my pics and get rid of the crud and store the good ones.

I take my MBP if I'm going to be on the road longer than a week and it is very light, sturdy and has very good battery life. PC wise, I would look into Dell or Lenovo - but I don't see any serious gain from going with another laptop.
the biggest problem with my e1705 is that it doesnt fit in the backpack, and i flat out refuse to check it with baggage. the lenovo y430/450 will fit in the front pocket of my backpack, so thats why i was looking at that one. i would like to consolidate my camera gear and the laptop into a single carry-on. the weight differnece isnt a big selling point, just the size difference.

i looked at the s10, but i thought you needed 1024x768 to run DPP. what editing software do you run on the s10? DPP or something else? are you forcing the resolution to 1024x768?

~mike

[tim]

How about leaving computers behind and enjoying your honeymoon? You can play with your toys when you get home. Family can wait.

[overclicker]

How about leaving computers behind and enjoying your honeymoon? You can play with your toys when you get home. Family can wait.

That was my first thought too... except for maybe putting a slice of the laptop funds into more memory for the camera. Deal with them when you get back, after enjoying. :)

[MaxxuM]

i looked at the s10, but i thought you needed 1024x768 to run DPP. what editing software do you run on the s10? DPP or something else? are you forcing the resolution to 1024x768?

I haven't used DPP in years. I use Aperture on my Mac's and tested LR on the S10. It worked, but it wasn't exactly very fast. Check out the link HERE. (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=700837)

As for leaving the tech behind, having been married for a while with kids it's the tech that makes the trips tolerable :lol:

[basroil]

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dndwwa2&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&kc=laptop-inspiron-13

Want cheap and decent? 13" inspiron weighs about 5.5lb, has a decent processor (about 10% faster than the one in my old comp, and that thing runs LR2 and DPP perfectly), and best of all, starts at $500, pretty decent one for $600. Not that much more than an S10 and it runs much, much faster (probably 5x faster)

EDIT: Don't forget that that little bugger also has an 8x dvd-dl burner, so backing up to 4.7gb AND 8.5gb disks is possible.