salsa-king

Needing a New LP. Main use will be surfing the net and doing my photograph editing. As i.m now using RAW more.

Been told having a dedicated graphics card is better for photo editing etc. Is this correct?

Seen a HP laptop with 6gb memory and 750gb hard drive. BUT it has a 1gb AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics card.



Spec of the laptop is very good laptop. But does it warrant another £150 over a laptop that shares the graphics card memory?

Bare in mind i want it to last me a good few years.


Can anyone give advice.

Cost is £699 with free stuff to the value of about £95.
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavi...25096-pdt.html

Question is. Would a cheaper laptop be suitable for what i want to do with photo processing in RAW?


or am I better going for sub £500 and look at something lke this..
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/samsung...96509-pdt.html

or look at this wit 8gb memory
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/samsun...96546-pdt.html



Thanks.

urban

iTrader: (1)

I'd steer clear of that bunch of robbing ******.
Have a look at Asus laptops - good spec's for the money.
I got a laptop from simplyasus recently - similar spec to this, but with 8Gb
http://www.simplyasus.com/ASUS_N73SV...V_1154002.html

An0n0m0us

FFS don't buy from the high street you will get robbed blind. For the price you are quoting for that HP you would get a far more powerful machine from Dell's website (even better through their outlet site). If Dell doesn't float your boat then as above really, ASUS/Acer/Sony and possibly a higher end Lenovo are all brands to look at. The Sony is always a premium price so shop about for deals on the Vaio range.

For the best bargains on laptops watch the computer section of HotUKDeals.

This has expired now but they come up frequently and blows that HP out the water for the same money:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell...1-dell-1122803

ScoobyJawa

I just ordered a Vaio as Sony are doing half price CPU and Mem upgrades at the moment (runs out today). I wanted a laptop 15" that was between the XPS15z @ 2.5kg and the Macbook airs at around 1.5kg, the Vaio S Series 15" is 2kg and a spec thats as good as the Dell but ended up costing £800 where the Dell was over 1k!!! And the Macbook air was 1.5k and terrible spec in comparison. Plus £50 cashback on the Sony through Quidco.

Went for an i7 2.8 with 8GB RAM - spec'd the lowest disk as with what I saved I spent the diff on a 256GB SSD. In fairness the weak link in the Vaio I looked at was disk, 5400rpm, sloooooow, probably for power reasons, and the upgrades were all 5400rpm too or SSD at ridiculous prices. (256gb for £490 extra!!! )

salsa-king

so what processor should I be looking at.................... i5 gen II?

and do I need a seperate dedicated graphics card for photo editing?

Or is the i5 gen II fast enough for photo work?

urban

iTrader: (1)

i5 should be good enough.
Put plenty of ram in it too.

InvisibleMan

i have a 5yr old non fancy 1.6Gz laptop with just 2gb ram, deals with raw editing just fine.

salsa-king

I'm running less than that now and the laptop is so slow, freezes most days, have to turn off to turn back on again. I'm now full on the 100gd HD. also. (I have 400gb bick I use too, but thats just back up.



might go and look at ths one now then..
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/samsung...96509-pdt.html

jura11

iTrader: (7)

For editing photos i would go with non Intel graphic card,something like nVidia or Ati should be better option,because you can use GPU processing power not raw CPU power and these nVidia or ATi GPU are much faster than Intel HD series,plus second thing i would go too with SSD and bigger RAM,and CPU as above gen 2 of i5 CPU

Jura

salsa-king

this on HP site looks like the one at PCworld.. but £100 cheaper
http://h40059.www4.hp.com/uk/homelap...erience=direct


they've put it back to £699!!!!! I only rag last night asking about it.. at £599.. yep, in stock, after money the price goes to £600!!!

not happy.

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Looking like good notebook,similar spec are like Macbook(Macbook have same graphic card/GPU).

Not sure if you can benefit with this card in GPU processing your pictures,my brother have older model of HP with AMD CPU and AMD GPU and its very noisy at night and seems run very hot.


As people here said,you should be OK with i5 CPU and 4GB RAM(if its possible upgrade RAM for more i can only recommend),plus you can buy 256GB SSD HDD for good money too

Jura

salsa-king

when i had the demo in PCw, he said about the heat fan working to covert NRG to keep it cool.

I might look into the HP laptop on their site, good price for a top spec latop.

finger print reader I really want

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Have look on this selection of Ultrabook which are same like Macbook air,just cheaper and some say thinner

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/ultrab...-criteria.html

About the yours,not sure,ive only tried older model which has been just nothing more only problems,still we are using him for data logging from Syvecs.




Jura

salsa-king

^^
lol , my screen the scoobs bigger than them lol


I've already got a netbook, so want something a bit bigger

ScoobyWon't

If you really are determined to buy from PC World, they are due to cut prices tonight, as they are expecting the newer models immediately.

An0n0m0us

Once again keep track on hotukdeals - playbooks back down to £169 for those wanting a cheap tablet with good hardware.

The Asus laptop (2nd gen i5) on there at £388 has been hugely popular if the OP decides a dedicated gpu is not necessary.

ScoobyWon't

From what I've seen, it's just laptops, and they are still overpriced.

salsa-king

its never the laptops you want though

ChefDude

i don't want to rock the boat, but i've had over 10 windows laptops and, as you all know, i'm all about the photography. mostly sony vaio, but all good spec.

Well, my last one coming up to 2 years old now, is a 13" Mac book Pro.

Cost me a grand and it's the best mobile photography editing machine out there. the screen is the best feature, but the interface (trackpad, basically) is sublime for image editing.

salsa-king

Funds. I mean wife. Won't let me spend that money. Also want bigger screen. 15.6would be the minimum size. Ideally 17 like i have now.

ScoobyWon't

Dell XPS 17s can be had for a reasonable price. Www.wizmarkcomputers.co.UK has a list of discount codes.

An0n0m0us

That's what i've bought from the Dell Outlet site but a top of the range one (i7 quad 1080p 3d screen etc). You can get an i5 version for well under budget though if you go for 1600x900 screen or if wanting the full 1080p screen then about on budget via the outlet site. You need to be camped on the website and start refreshing from about 14:15 though to get a 17. Lots of 15's on there though for good money.

salsa-king

they've put it back to £699!!!!! I only rag last night asking about it.. at £599.. yep, in stock, after money the price goes to £699!!!

not happy

salsa-king

had re think... I'm going to go for a 17" screen,

so whats on offer.... the Asus?

An0n0m0us

For a 17" screen the only choice for me is the Dell XPS 17 with 1080p screen based on quality at an affordable price. A couple popped up on the outlet site at 2.15 today and went in 10 seconds as they are that popular. You'll get an i5 for £600 tops the more common ones are the i7 quad cores for about £700 (non 3d AG screens) depending on what spec they are.

The 3 year warranty upgrade at the time of purchaing at checkout is £165 incl vat but if you buy with a 1 year warranty and change your mind afterwards they charge £299!!! So always buy at checkout or you'll be stung and to be honest at that price for 3 years peace of mind it's worth it.

The other good thing is you can buy it, use it for upto 7 business days and then arrange a return within that 7 days if you decide you don't like for whatever reason for a full refund. I did this with the last one I ordered as I didn't take out the 3 year warranty at checkout and changed my mind and they would not do anything about it so they even said return it and buy another one (surely would have been easier for them just to sell the warranty to me for £165 and not have a laptop returned!)

Of course there are cheaper 17" models by Dell and others but the XPS is regarded as a top bit of kit for what you get at the price. The equivalent Sony/ASUS of mine would be £1500+ for what i've got and this cost me £800 plus the 3 year warranty so under £1k.

salsa-king

looking at the DELL site now.


also seen this.....Acer
good price and a good spec.. 17.3" too
http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/Acer_Asp...n.asp#feedback

An0n0m0us

If your happy with the 1600x900 resolution on a 17" screen then you will get an XPS for the same money or less from the Dell outlet site.

Many people slate Acer but they have certainly pulled their socks up. I bought my Son an Acer 15" laptop and got it with a 3 year warranty. After about 6 months one of the keys came off the keyboard. I logged the call online with them on a Sunday night, the call was then officially live and logged on the Monday, they picked the laptop up on the Tuesday and it was returned on the Thursday!!! Now that in anyone's book is not service that can be faulted. I was gobsmacked at how good Acer were with dealing with it.

An0n0m0us

The only thing I would say about the Acer you have linked to is thgat at that price i'd be wanting a dedicated video card, not integrated.

salsa-king

trouble is fnding a sub £600 17" laptop with decent memory & HD.

and do I need a dedicated graphics card.. if running a gen2 i5?

my 17" laptop now is 1440x900 pixel screen size.