Help, need to buy a laptop...

[tracymorris]

OK, I'm begging here! My Dh is going to be deploying to Iraq in June for 15mos, it's his 2nd deployment and I decided that I don't want to stay in Texas by myself again. So I will temporarily be moving back home to NJ, all of our belongings will go in storage and I will be living at my inlaws house . It's really just the most simple way to do it, because next summer 09 I will move back to Texas.

Photography is just a hobby for me, but I definitely want to be able to continue in NJ and be able to edit pictures. I really don't want to lug our PC there, and having a laptop would just be easier. I am going to need a distraction...lol! I have gone back and forth on what to do...

I would love to get a macbook pro but I am not ready to make the pc-mac leap just yet, plus they are just soooo expensive. I currently have a Dell pc that I have been happy with so I think I will stick with Dell. After looking at the Dell laptops it seems that they all have Glossy screens which as I understand are hard/impossible to edit on. So I thought that I could I buy a Dell laptop, bring my current monitor and use the monitor to edit with. Do you think this is a good idea? Or do you think I should just suck it up and go for the macbook pro?

Also what should I look at as far as specs to be able to run CS3 quickly?
Would this
be sufficient?

Should I leave the hard drive as is or upgrade to a smaller hard drive with a faster speed?
Is the processor fast enough or should I upgrade that?

Thanks so much for any help!

[Mike G]

I have that laptop and it works great but I would call them and order, they have an option for a LED LCD that is so much better than the CCFL and is a $150 upgrade. Its well worth it for both weight and quality of the image. My M1530 with the 9 cell battery is only 3.1lbs .. yours with the 6 cell will be even lighter.

[tracymorris]

Graham,

Thank you so much! So you edit on that laptop with the LED LCD screen?

[Mike G]

I use it whenever I'm away from the house, it calibrates beautifully.

[barP]

from 10 years in the business world where almost everyone buys dell, my recomendation would be....to never buy a dell.

their stuff is junk, especially the monitors.

i have an hp laptop at home that's been great.

wp.

[tracymorris]

Thanks again Graham.

WP, I have had my Dell pc for almost 3 years with no problem and my monitor is Dell as well and it calibrates great. I guess everyone has different experiences. I suppose it's possible I got lucky...but I do know people who have gotten unlucky with HP. Honestly, I hate computers...all the techy stuff anyway...I just like to use them and for them not to break.

Thanks!

[icephoto]

Slightly OT

Originally Posted by barP

from 10 years in the business world where almost everyone buys dell, my recomendation would be....to never buy a dell.

As a somewhat former computer tech, I can tell you that Dell's reliability has gotten noticeably better in the last couple of years. For a while, the running joke was that the reason they named them Dell was that all the other 4 letter words were taken up (yes, I know it was named after the company's founder, Michael Dell. Please Austin folks don't fire up the flame PM's). I would not hesitate to purchase a Dell these days.

Specs look fine. I'd invest in an external portable hard drive rather than rely on the internal for all of your editing, but otherwise you should be good to go.

Warm regards - jim

[tracymorris]

Thanks Jim, I appreciate the information and the advice. I had planned to buy an external hard drive so that will work out fine.

Thanks again everyone, I do appreciate it!

[trahanw]

Hp or Sony is my preference. Had bad experience with Dell monitors.

[Charles Putnam]

Tracy

I've been looking at laptops to upgrade from my old Gateway desktop (Intel P4 1.8, 1gig of RAM, ATi Radeon 9550 - currently running Server 2008).

The current crop of laptops from Dell, Gateway and Apple all calibrate well using a colorimeter.

As Jim noted, Dell's QC has radically improved over the last year since Michael Dell came back and took over. Previously, Dell had serious problems - mobo's and hard drives crapping out, etc.

Personally, I would not recommend Sony. My sister in law purchased one for her husband, with the intent of upgrading it from Vista Home Premium to Vista Ultimate. Turns out that Sony wrote their drivers to work with only Vista Home Premium.

You might also want to look at some of Gateway's new offerings. I've had great experiences with Gateway and am leaning towards one of their new laptops.

http://www.gateway.com/systems/series/529598021.php

[LORatliff]

I'm going to be the one to tell you to suck it up and go for the MacBook Pro. ;) They are expensive compared the other laptops on the market, but as far as reliability, technical support, etc., they just can't be beat.

The PC-Mac leap is not as big as most people make it out to be, particularly seeing as you can now run Windows on any Mac. In addition, Adobe offers a cross-grade so you won't be stuck buying expensive software a second time.

[Charles Putnam]

Generally, I'd agree with Laura. The MacBook Pro is an excellent laptop. Apple does make good products. Their main downside is that they're pricey.

For someone like me, who has a lot of applications that are Windows-only (i.e. not ported to the Mac platform), switching would not make sense.

On the Adobe cross-grade, they'll charge you shipping for the disk ($15) but will require you to sign a form stating you destroyed your Windows media and they'll make the serial invalid (per a recent call I had with Adobe when I was considering switching).

[toverman]

Are you going to have access to wireless Internet at your in-laws' house? If not, you might just lug your desktop out there, especially if it is adequate to do what you want it to do.

If the Dell laptop is something you REALLY want and can get lots of use out of later, too, then that is a consideration. But you mentioned the MacBook Pro, so you're at least thinking about that. I'm working my way up to one of those, too, using a MacBook for now (somewhat adequate for hi-res photos). Why buy a Dell laptop and then wish you got the Mac?

Take your desktop with you! Especially because computers don't improve with age, and it gets worse if they're just sitting around not even being used.

[bennet]

If you're looking for something smaller, I have a Dell XPS M1330 with LED Screen
T5250 1.5GHZ
2GB
200GB 7200RPM
3yr warranty, 1 year onsite
8400GS for 950
bought it this year around Jan. Let me know

[amator]

I work in IT area and we have mostly Dells, with very little problems reported (we use mainly Latitude notebooks). I personally use lattitude D830 and like it, there is not much speed difference between my desktop and laptop.
I would not recommend Sony as their replacement parts are terribly expensive and reliability is not on the par with their look.
I think the specs you provided are OK, one item you may want to do is to lower memory to 3GB as I believe your OS will not recognize more than 3.5GB of RAM unless you are going to use 64bit OS. BTW I have top of the line upgraded screen but still have problems calibrating it (using PSCS) . But i have not used any calibration hardware. I may try to do it later on this week using Spyder and will let you know the results if you are interested.

Regards,
Mariusz