Laptop for £500 help

[moranphotography]

Well I know I've asked before but I came into some money I had long since written off and want to buy a laptop.

Got £500 (no more, maybe £550) and looking for a laptop for my photography, want at least 6gb of RAM and a good processor.

Any suggestions/advice on where to look?


Phil

[danieljnewman]

You should look at getting a Mac... second only to my DS3R, it's the best thing I have ever bought.

[moranphotography]

cant afford one lol

would do otherwise

[lfcrule1972]

I'd recommend the Mac too Phil, but only cos I came into some money unexpectedly too

[Superfly Guy]

You should look at getting a Mac... second only to my DS3R, it's the best thing I have ever bought.

Why? If you can post a link to a new Mac that has the required hardware configuration and fits within the budget, il eat my spare tyre and post the vid on You Tube.

[moranphotography]

Me to***



***probably won't...

[Superfly Guy]

Got £500 (no more, maybe £550) and looking for a laptop for my photography, want at least 6gb of RAM and a good processor.

Phil

Whenever people ask me for purchase advice on all things PC, i required two answers, budget and primary use.

So for photo editing the critical hardware is Processor (CPU) and memory (RAM), Depending on how good your photo editing software is, the more RAM the better.
However RAM has risen in price in recent months so to fit within your budget 8GB is as good as you will get.

Next is your CPU, there are two mainstream brands, AMD and Intel, whilst AMD are currently putting Intel to bed with their combined CPU and Graphics chips (APU), photo and video editing require raw power and this is where Intel chips are currently the favourite. If your editing software takes advantage of it then a quad core processor should be high on the priority list but may the latest versions may just be out of your price range.

My work lappy is a 13.3" Hewlet Packard which has been very good considering the amount of knocks it has taken, Lenovo are also a top top brand, however dont think for one second that a laptop comes anywhere near the power of even a similar priced desktop. Even for the Apple fanboys my main rig will rip and encode a HD film in a fraction of the time a top of the range Mac can.

Dont fall into the trap of thinking that a laptop component is the same as that on a desktop, even if they are named and numbered the same.

This is probably a good yardstick to go off,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-G510-...=lenovo+laptop.

[Clean Your Ride]

And here endeth the lesson. How could anybody follow that? Nice one SFG. Know who to ask for computer advice in the future👍

Sent from my Lumia 925 using Tapatalk

[Superfly Guy]

Laptops are not really my thing as there is very little 'modding' that can be done. Add more/faster RAM and replace the hard drive with an SSD and that's about it. However imagine going into the Citroen WRC workshop and building your own vehicle from scratch including tuning, that's what I do with my desktops.

[moranphotography]

Cheers SFG, I'd quite like to have a desktop for the power etc but thing the portability wins out for me unfortunately!

[Superfly Guy]

Cheers SFG, I'd quite like to have a desktop for the power etc but thing the portability wins out for me unfortunately!

That's the compromise we all have to make, is it stricktly for photo editing or just for storing?

[moranphotography]

That's the compromise we all have to make, is it stricktly for photo editing or just for storing?

Mainly editing as I keep my photos stored on an external hard drive.

Saw this, what do you think?

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Pr...t=ABU&sel=PCNB

[Superfly Guy]

Cool, an Intel quad is the way forward then, you need to look for any 2nd, 3rd or 4th generation Intel i7 CPUs.

http://ark.intel.com/

[ZACK]

My HP Pavilion lasted years ( Older model ) but you'll probably find the same model new for cheaper in stores with offers on such as PC World / Currys ( Yes I know they're the same company ). As SFG said I'd definitely look for a quad i7 though. Will give you that edge with your photo software.

[moranphotography]

I currently have a HP and had it for years. Always worry if it will even turn on the next day when I turn it on to be honest lol. It's a AMD machine which always did me well to be honest, little slow obviously as camera raw images have got bigger as I get new cameras and it's got older.

I'm not sure I'll be able to find an i7 with 8GB in budget tbh.

Funny thing about currys and pc world, went to both yesterday (separate stores next to each other not same store) and surprisingly currys had a far better selection of laptops. None that caught my eye, but a better selection none the less.