Laptop Recommendation


hellfire88

Senior Member
Aug 26, 2009
567
1
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hi guys, i have old laptop abt 3-4yrs old already (acer 5580 on windows vista) , planning to get one but not sure which one is good nowadays (have not been following market trends)

i need the laptop to be able to handle CS5 and lightroom 3 and also like those 6 images stitching panoramas load. best if the laptop screen display is quite accurate out of the box as i dont have any screen calibration devices (my this laptop also never calibrate but i view my photos on other computers in school, on friends com, office com all quite ok the colours never change much. printed out a few before at those instant print shop also quite ok)

for reference my current laptop specs is 2.5gb ram, core 2 duo processor t5500 and 120gb hdd. the hdd size quite small a bit irritating as i always have to transfer out my photos to external hdd. speed wise, cs5 and lr3 still can run but quite slow and will lag sometimes I have to restart. yup that why thinking perhaps is time to upgrade.

budget $2k max and oh i'm a windows guy and not mac.

thanks!
 

mine is worse......6-7 years old ..... I'll piggyback this thread .......
 

Anything with 2nd gen Core i5 is good enough.
 

[video=youtube;lBcjN27WG-w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBcjN27WG-w&feature=fvst[/video]
 

Have read a recommendation to avoid the notebooks with glossy reflective screens. Nice to look at in the showroom. But bad to work with long term. Matt screen recommended. What do you think?
 

Have read a recommendation to avoid the notebooks with glossy reflective screens. Nice to look at in the showroom. But bad to work with long term. Matt screen recommended. What do you think?

Are there still notebooks with matte screens?
 

mine is worse......6-7 years old ..... I'll piggyback this thread .......
haha I win.
Bought in 2003. Compaq laptop. Change HD 3x already.
It is running xp, no LCD (it got scratched badly and I yanked it and now it has a CRT as display - yep the good old Philips 107S LightFrame2 CRT) - LOL.
Permanently desk-bound as backup PC, attached to external keyboard and mouse too.
 

any recommendations?
 

money no object = go for macbook pro or imac
not so budget laptop = sony vaio, toshiba, fujitsu lifebook
budget laptop = dell inspiron series i5, 4GB RAM all under 1k SGD; lenovo Z series i3, 4GB RAM under 1k SGD; acer extensa series i5, 4GB RAM under 1k SGD

anything with an i5 and 4GB RAM out of the box will already give you decent performance. everything else depends on you and how much you want to spend. external HDD are cheaper now so (the now) basic 320GB HDD laptops are fine.
 

2K budget can get quite a good laptop. But don't spend so much money on that. Get a good external monitor and good enough laptop (I use 24" Dell 2410 IPS monitor, out of box is already accurate color), Last xmas I upgrade from Thinkpad T-series to Acer 3820TG as it came with 750GB HDD. Harddisk drive is external so is light (2nd exhaust takes over that space to cool the CPU which I think is good), and 13.3" HD LED LCD, when hook up to external monitor, it works on external monitor size and resolution, not 13.3" size & resolution. Therefore you don't need any so called 15"/17" expensive and heavy laptop, neither do you need any so called high capacity HDD equipped desktop nowadays.
And I upgrade from 4GB RAM default to 8GB on day one. CS5, capture NX2, ViewNX2, Ninja2, all can be launched and run at the same time with no slow down I feel. My 2 cents.
 

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