Computer ignoramus looking for advice

Since my trusty sony vaio died, and is beyond repair, I now need to buy a new laptop (we dont have space for a desktop ) I was hoping to limp the laptop along until I had enough money saved for a really high spec laptop (best of everything) but now those plans have been scuppered.

Can someone help with choosing the spec for a reasonable priced "custom build" laptop (that I can upgrade as I need to maybe).
I dont know whether I should go fast i7 dual core, or slower i7 quad core
What about graphics cards, there seem to be so many to choose from... nVidia, Radion... with varying models (and I assume speeds/memory)
Then theres memory... if I have fast processor, and a decent graphics card, will I need 16gb memory (I could buy more memory to add at a later date maybe)

What is the easiest componant in a laptop to upgrade?

All I really use the laptop for is processing my D800 photos and a little surfing the web.

Any advice will be most welcome

traceyjj said:

Since my trusty sony vaio died, and is beyond repair, I now need to buy a new laptop (we dont have space for a desktop ) I was hoping to limp the laptop along until I had enough money saved for a really high spec laptop (best of everything) but now those plans have been scuppered.

Can someone help with choosing the spec for a reasonable priced "custom build" laptop (that I can upgrade as I need to maybe).
I dont know whether I should go fast i7 dual core, or slower i7 quad core
What about graphics cards, there seem to be so many to choose from... nVidia, Radion... with varying models (and I assume speeds/memory)
Then theres memory... if I have fast processor, and a decent graphics card, will I need 16gb memory (I could buy more memory to add at a later date maybe)

What is the easiest componant in a laptop to upgrade?

All I really use the laptop for is processing my D800 photos and a little surfing the web.

Any advice will be most welcome

Click to expand...

When it comes to laptops, it's a lot like photography: There's always going to be tradeoffs. Luckily doing photo editing, really, is not all that hardware intensive. You need a decent degree of horsepower but nothing extravagant.

Personally, I'd look for an i5 or i7 processor, the i7 is better but the gain over the i5 will not blow you away and you're probably better off with an i5 considering cost since you can put those dollars into more memory or a larger screen. You'll want 8GB of system RAM and if it will handle more, 16GB would be better. Memory is the probably the cheapest, easiest upgrade you can do on any PC and will give you the best "performance vs. cost" return on your investment. I like to say if the CPU is the "brain" of your PC, memory is the "lung": if you can't get enough air not much else matters, you ain't going nowhere fast.

As for graphics cards don't sweat nVidia vs. Radeon; that's a Ford v. Chevy argument that simply doesn't need to be had. Get as much video memory as you can, 1GB would be good, 2GB would be better. Know that if you run out of Video Memory your PC will use system memory, which is why more RAM is one of the best upgrades you can do on pretty much any PC.

All that being said a pretty decent machine would be running an i5, have at least 8GB of RAM and 1GB of video RAM.

A *really* nice machine would have an i7, 16GB of RAM and 2GB of video RAM but I'd be willing to drop down to an i5 pretty quick if I was getting more memory in the video card. I'd actually be ready to drop to an i5 pretty quickly generally speaking, actually, but if you can get everything you want *why not* have the i7, eh?

Hope something in there helps you out...
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Thanks for that [MENTION=13090]Horoscope Fish[/MENTION] .. I use Elements as my tool of choice (loaded with Topaz software too) Would there be any difference in dual core vs quad core for what I use my computer for?

If you use the laptop alone for editing, the important part is the screen. Whether the processor is a bit faster or slower is not something that relevant unless it can't handle the processing.

But the screen quality you're looking at matters for everything during processing. Try to get the best quality you can get or are willing to spend money at. The only problem that will remain is laptop screens being small. I personally have a hard time working at my Macbook's screen and opted for a second monitor.

traceyjj said:

Thanks for that [MENTION=13090]Horoscope Fish[/MENTION] .. I use Elements as my tool of choice (loaded with Topaz software too) Would there be any difference in dual core vs quad core for what I use my computer for?

Click to expand...

More cores is better when you're running numerous applications at the same time since your PC can "assign" one core to do your photo editing, while another core is busy crunching numbers in your spreadsheet or streaming that movie you pirated. It's like giving your CPU a personal "secretary"; now there's someone to handle the lower level stuff so the other core can work exclusively on editing your photo.

Having dual cores at least seems to smooth out the overall computing experience in my opinion; that's a hard thing to define, though, and entirely subjective so just forget I said it. For your purposes four cores would be great (woo hoo!) but don't feel you NEED them, if the right PC comes along one with all the right stuff and suddenly you're all, "Hey, look! Quad Core!!" so much the better, but don't feel like it's a "shit" PC if it's only Core II Duo or what have you. I'd take a faster Core II Duo over a slower Quad Core all other things being equal. Still, nothing wrong with more cores.

I'd tell you to put "Quad Core" in the, "Nice to Have (But Not Essential)" column.

....

What is your budget, and why do you think it needs to be custom? By the tasks you've defined, that would be a fairly common, off-the-shelf laptop....

Budget is realistically around £700-800.
Customising seems to be the only way I dont have to pay for an OS (I still have my licence from the laptop that I broke)

What OS are you trying to keep? Realizing I sense your OS is more outdated than your Vaio... you might be eliminating 3/4 of the universe to keep something that is outdated...

Win 7. All our computers at home are Win 7 (or Mac of some kind). I dont really want to go Win 8

I would look for a Refurb'd Mac laptop if I were you... Any laptop that Apple has produced in the last 3 or 4 years will do more than your specified needs...

traceyjj said:

Win 7. All our computers at home are Win 7 (or Mac of some kind). I dont really want to go Win 8

Click to expand...

Actually you do, you just don't know it. Win8 is faster and less resource hungry then 7 which helps with photo editing.

traceyjj said:

Budget is realistically around £700-800.
Customising seems to be the only way I dont have to pay for an OS (I still have my licence from the laptop that I broke)

Click to expand...

Getting a laptop without Windows/MacOS preinstalled is going to be tricky and I'm not sure how much you'll save even if you *can* find someone to sell you the naked hardware. Lenovo used to sell lappies with bare hard drives, as did Dell, but at this point in time I really have no idea who is doing that, if anyone. System76 makes good machines that come preloaded with Linux but you can always reformat and reinstall since it sounds like you have a full blown install-CD for Win7.
.....

Blacktop said:

Actually you do, you just don't know it. Win8 is faster and less resource hungry then 7 which helps with photo editing.

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Total agreement,i tried to find a computer running 7 because of all the negative feedback about 8 but couldn't find one,so i took the plunge i have yet to find where the problem is with 8 i changed it to desktop interface and apart from the shutdown button being on the right its the same as 7 but better.

Hmmm, food for thought there. I may have to take a test drive at our local PC world to see what its all about.

I love the resolution on my screen. I have an Asus laptop with a i7 dual core. It also has a 2 mb nvidia video card, and even has a dinosaur CD Rom drive. It's a great machine with a large screen. It is heavy though, and costs a bit more than you're willing to spend. The good thing about Win8 is that when the next edition of Windows comes out (soon), you'll get the latest edition free. That's right. Microsoft just announced a few days ago that they are going to give it free to previous owners of Win 8.1. I figure this machine will last me at least 5 years or more.

traceyjj said:

Hmmm, food for thought there. I may have to take a test drive at our local PC world to see what its all about.

Click to expand...

If its windows 8 ask them to show you it working in 7 mode with a desktop instead of those stupid tiles,the way mine works is it still opens up with the tile page but one of the tiles is my desktop i just click that and ime away.

Great opportunity to go linux and open source!

(sorry, had to take that plug opportunity)

traceyjj said:

Win 7. All our computers at home are Win 7 (or Mac of some kind). I dont [sic] really want to go Win 8

Click to expand...

Blacktop said:

Actually you do, you just don't know it. Win8 is faster and less resource hungry then 7 which helps with photo editing.

Click to expand...

My wife has a laptop running Windows 8.1. We also have a desktop-type machine, running Windows 7.

In my opinion, Windows 8.0 and 8.1 are just awful, ergonomically. I don't know what drugs the folks at Microsoft were using when they did the user interface on it, but it seriously sucks. It seems that Windows 7 is the last version that makes any sense to someone who isn't also a heavy abuser of harmful, mind-destroying drugs.

My sense is that they were trying very hard to come up with a unified user interface that would work equally well on either a traditional desktop-type system, or on a mobile device such as a tablet or a cell phone, and they ended up with something that works very, very badly on either type of platform. I think the basic idea is valid, but in this case, the execution was very bad.

If I were in the market for another windows-based system, I would consider it worth going to considerable lengths to avoid infesting it with Windows 8.x. Hopefully, they'll do better with the upcoming Windows 10.

FredKingston said:

I would look for a Refurb'd Mac laptop if I were you... Any laptop that Apple has produced in the last 3 or 4 years will do more than your specified needs...

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My primary computer is a 2003 Power Mac G4, running MacOS X 10.4.11 “Tiger”. Alas, it is now seriously outdated, and very slow, but ergonomically, it seems years ahead of any Windows system I've ever used. I don't know what directions, if any, Apple has gone with the user interface since then, but my sense is that they would have to screw it up very badly in order to fail to still be far ahead of any version of Windows in this regard.

One thing you definitely have to credit Apple with, is that they build very, very good hardware. In the time this 12-year-old Macintosh has been running without a hitch, my wife and I have had several assorted Windows-based machines come and go.

traceyjj said:

Since my trusty sony vaio died, and is beyond repair, I now need to buy a new laptop (we dont have space for a desktop)…

Click to expand...

I know that there are a number of desktop-type PCs that are much smaller than the usual layout. A few weeks ago, I had to take a test, and the testing was done in a lab that was equipped with PCs that were apparently patterned after the Mac Mini—they were clearly running some recent version of Windows, but the main body of the computer was about four or five inches square by about two inches.

One big disadvantage that laptop computers have, compared to traditional desktop,s is that they tend to be much more limited and difficult in their ability to be upgraded. Also, you end up spending relatively more money for less computing power.

I'm not sure how well the “Mini” style PCs balance between a traditional desktop and a laptop, but it seems worth looking into. If you don't really need a truly portable computer that you can pick up and take with you everywhere, then it may not be worth paying extra for less capacity and less upgradability.

Aside from the extreme of the “Mini” style, there are also desktop-type computers that are more similar to a traditional desktop style, but smaller. They take up less space, but still retain most (not all) of the upgradability of a full-sized traditional PC.