Recommend a laptop

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esawers

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#173556 27-May-2015 14:21

Can anyone recommend a laptop for using Lightroom? (it will be used in a home office, some downloading, basic kids games, browsing)
We have an oldish Toshiba currently, which is running Lightroom well but could do with an upgrade! We hide the laptop under the desk and use an external monitor with wireless keyboard and mouse (but we like the portability).

I keep leaning towards Macbooks, but to be honest I'm a Windows gal.

Budget: Can't justify more than $1000 (second hand is also ok)

Edit: I saw this one this morning, but can't find any reviews.
https://www.noelleeming.co.nz/shop/computers/computers/laptops/pc-notebook-computers/hp-15-p215ax-15-6-white-notebook/prod134863.html

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#1312776 27-May-2015 14:30

8GB RAM min, 16GB better. Fast processor is really important. SSD is really useful, makes things HEAPS faster. Graphics card is basically irrelevant.

Laptops are made of compromises - processor performance, screen, ram, disk, etc.

nathan

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#1312777 27-May-2015 14:30

Surface 3

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msnz/en_NZ/pdp/productID.314935000?icid=HPBanner_2_S3_22052015

nathan

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#1312780 27-May-2015 14:33

how hard core do you use Lightroom? What sort of size files?

Lightroom 6/CC, which offloads a lot of the graphical rendering to the GPU, runs fine on my 4Gb Surface 3

Fred99

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#1312853 27-May-2015 16:00

nathan: Surface 3

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msnz/en_NZ/pdp/productID.314935000?icid=HPBanner_2_S3_22052015

Not for serious image processing/editing with Atom processor. I'm pretty sure it will choke on processor intensive tasks (raw file conversion etc.) It's incredibly frustrating using sliders etc in image editing software which don't reflect changes made on screen almost instantly.

Surface Pro perhaps - but even then I'd suggest Core i7 upgrade option. Better still would be something with quad-core i7. Please pass back to MS head office to make a surface device with larger screen, faster CPU options.

This is a 4 core i7 with HT rendering a 36 megapixel 14 bit raw file:

esawers

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#1312937 27-May-2015 17:06

I'm not hardcore, using Lightroom 5 at the moment (will upgrade soon) editing raw files off my 70D. (20mb files?)

Batman

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#1312941 27-May-2015 17:11

get a quad core i7 haswell

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#1312943 27-May-2015 17:12

it doesn't use GPU so dont worry about GPU.

also i misread your version. lightroom 5 has pretty poor multithread CPU uitilization so the highest speed i5 you can find is best. again, ignore GPU.

LR 6 has max multithread utilization so i7 quad core for that version. bugger all GPU usage despite the fact it "does" use GPU. (well at least according to my GPU-z. never higher than about 10% use! ever!)

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Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

timmmay

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#1312946 27-May-2015 17:14

For 20MP files you want a reasonably fast processor. If you can manage a desktop they're faster and cheaper.

Batman

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#1312948 27-May-2015 17:15

agree timmay. every time i use LR/PS i wish i had a desktop. but i can't sit still in one spot. so laptop for me, but still pretty slow with my Quad core i7

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#1312951 27-May-2015 17:17

Fred99:
nathan: Surface 3

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msnz/en_NZ/pdp/productID.314935000?icid=HPBanner_2_S3_22052015

Not for serious image processing/editing with Atom processor. I'm pretty sure it will choke on processor intensive tasks (raw file conversion etc.) It's incredibly frustrating using sliders etc in image editing software which don't reflect changes made on screen almost instantly.

Surface Pro perhaps - but even then I'd suggest Core i7 upgrade option. Better still would be something with quad-core i7. Please pass back to MS head office to make a surface device with larger screen, faster CPU options.

This is a 4 core i7 with HT rendering a 36 megapixel 14 bit raw file:

does Nathan get a commission for every GZ Surface referral or something?

LR 5 is good like that, very poor CPU utilization. wth LR 6 it maxxes out all the time. But i must say it doesn't feel faster than LR5. go figure

macuser

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#1312964 27-May-2015 17:30

Nathan actually is surface spambot

Batman

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#1312968 27-May-2015 17:42

he looks pretty human to me. except that every time laptop is mentioned once, surface pro is the response over and over

MikeB4

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#1312970 27-May-2015 17:44

joker97: he looks pretty human to me. except that every time laptop is mentioned once, surface pro is the response over and over

He does work for Microsoft. The Surface range are excellent devices

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#1312976 27-May-2015 17:48

imagine every time I ask for an 8 seater and the answer is Mazda 3 ...

gzt

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#1313012 27-May-2015 18:36

joker97: he looks pretty human to me. except that every time laptop is mentioned once, surface pro is the response over and over

You are clearly wrong about that. The respomse was 'Surface 3'. ; )

Also it was a conditional recommendation based on LR6.

Nice thing about forums everyone put in 2c and OP ends up with $1. : )

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