Laptop advice?

[CalfeeRider]

Hi all,

It's time to get a new laptop and I was hoping to get some feedback from some of you about what laptop you use and whether you'd recommend it for Photoshop/Lightroom. This isn't going to be a desktop replacement, just a much needed accessory when I'm away for several days so I can (try) to keep up with processing images.

I'd like to stay below $1k and with what I've been seeing advertised that shouldn't be much of a problem.

Currently, I'm looking seriously at a couple of the HP Pavillion (DV6625US, DV6633US & DV6633US) in 15.4" and (DV9610US) 17" widescreen formats. But since these aren't state of the art, there's not much comparative information in this price range.

So your thoughts/experience would be appreciated!

Any HP users out there?

Or if you love/hate your laptop and it's in my price-range let me know!

Thanks and Happy Holiday's!

[PineapplePhoto]

MacBook Pro :D

[Rhuarc]

You can get a Macbook Pro for under $1K?

[cmason]

Bought my wife a DV65xx (or 62xx?? not sure) for Christmas last year and have been overall pleased with it. Performance wise, it works great, though I would add another GB memory (to 2GB) if I were using it for my photo work. For her surfing the web and Quicken, she doesn't need it.

I have a Thinkpad T60 for work, and depending on what you need it for, the comparison can be tough. For a laptop around the house, for moving from the family room to the kitchen to the bedroom, the HP is great. But taking it anywhere on the road would be a serious mistake. For one, the shiny outside isn't that durable, but more oddly, the screen does not latch shut. Again, for around the house, this is no problem, but I would trash this thing in one business trip.

I would also choose the model with the highest res monitor. This one is good, but remember wide screens make the numbers seem more impressive, so be careful.

The Thinkpad and HP are failry equivalent as far as I can tell in speed as far as use goes...not sure how they compare spec wise but they are both Core Duo with 1GB memory.

My only complaint is really Vista. I like Vista, think it is much easier for my wife to manage, but on a laptop, it is a PIG. At first it was really speedy, but it has slowed dramatically. Startup times are a joke, and waking from sleep (just shutting the lid) takes for FREAKIN EVER. A recent update improved things, but if Vista SP1 doesnt, I am wiping the HD and putting XP on it.

[nybor7]

Hi all,
So your thoughts/experience would be appreciated!
Any HP users out there?
Or if you love/hate your laptop and it's in my price-range let me know!
Thanks and Happy Holiday's!

HP User here. dv2120us and have XP on it.
Dual Core, 1G ram(would like to have 2), 120G HD
Friend has dv2214(if i remember correctly) and that has Vista.

Loved the computer until it fritzed on me about 6 months in. Warranty fixed the screen which was the culprit.
I have nothing bad to say about the machine.

Vista, stinks IMO.

You can get them within your pricepoint. CC has great deals. Order through fatwallet to get %cashback!


Robyn

[swintonphoto]

I have a Dell, and have been very happy with it. If you go to bensbargains.net every couple weeks they post special coupons for computers from Dell, and often others. I got my current laptop configured on Dells website for $1800, and only paid $1050 because of the huge coupon on Bens Bargains. Bensbairgains lists coupon codes that you enter when you add the item to your cart and it shows the discount before you buy it. Sounds fishy I know, but I have used it to buy computers for all my family as well - its legit, and awesome!
Most of the stuff on the site is links to good deals on all sorts of electronics, but he has some arrangement with Dell so they furnish him with coupons that are only available on his site. Most of them have a limit to the number of times the coupon can be used, so best to check the site regularly because they can be used up within half of a day.
If you go to the site and enter "Dell" in the the search box on the right hand side of the screen you will see all the current deals. It is right above the bizrate box. Not any of the boxes on the top right of the screen.
Good luck!

Another piece of advice - don't buy the extra memory from computer manufacturers. People like HP and Dell will charge more than you can buy it for yourself. A good site for that is crucial.com - They are very trustworthy. Have been byuing memory from there for years. It is a micron company.

Also - I would go for a widescreen - works better with photoshop I think.

[swintonphoto]

Also - The manufacturers that I think are worth looking at: HP, Dell, Toshiba, and IBM

[Richard]

Also - The manufacturers that I think are worth looking at: HP, Dell, Toshiba, and IBM

Yes. Note that IBM no longer markets laptops. The IBM line used to be manufactured by Lenovo and sold with the IBM logo, but now Lenovo sells them under their own name. I just bought a ThinkPad T61 and so far, I am very impressed. If you like L glass, you will like a ThinkPad--built like a tank and excellent performance. Plus you can still get them with XP instead of Vista, if you want.

[CalfeeRider]

MacBook Pro :D

There's ONE in every crowd! :nono

Just kidding... but you'd be hardpressed to find a new one for under $1k!

[CalfeeRider]

Thanks for all of the comments!

I'll check on the latch for the HPs. Could be problematic although I'm pretty gentle on my equipment.

Besides decent performance, the main point is a good quality screen for photo-editing and I am looking at the wide-screen too.

Vista at home's been humming along now for about 4 months. No issues with performance, but that's also on a hefty (quad) desktop with 4 GB ram. :wink

The IBM/Lenovo is a good option too! For work I've used Thinkpads in the past and they are rugged. I've not worked with one recently so don't know how their screens are compared to the newer WXGA (or whatever) screens.

Thanks!

[Pupator]

My most recent laptop purchase (I buy lots for my company) has been the one I'm most pleased with so far. It's in that $1000 range.

HP DV2500
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7500 (2.20GHz)
3070MB DDR2 PC2-5300 RAM
160GB SATA (5400rpm :( I wish it were 7200)
Vista Home Premium (32 Bit)
64MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS - NOT INTEGRATED!
Wireless A/B/G/N + Bluetooth
Webcam w/microphone, Fingerprint reader
DVD+DL
Express Card Slot
HDMI Out
Remote control
2 USB, 1 FW800
9-1 Card reader

[Rhuarc]

Now if only that laptop could have the 8800 GT video card in it I would love it!!

[cmason]

I'll check on the latch for the HPs. Could be problematic although I'm pretty gentle on my equipment.



Sorry, just to clarify: there is NO latch on the HPs..you just close the screen, no way to secure it.

This is making a mountain out of a mole hill really, just something I noticed.

[Pupator]

Sorry, just to clarify: there is NO latch on the HPs..you just close the screen, no way to secure it.

This is making a mountain out of a mole hill really, just something I noticed.

I like it better this way. One less thing to break. Also, the closure is very secure - I've never had it come open on its own.

[DavidTO]

I like it better this way. One less thing to break. Also, the closure is very secure - I've never had it come open on its own.


Not sure if that's the same method of closure as the MacBook, but if it is, I think it's great. I much prefer it over the MBP that I have. :thumb

[TylerW]

There's ONE in every crowd! :nono

Just kidding... but you'd be hardpressed to find a new one for under $1k!

Hey now, don't count us out. At work I have MacBook pro with XP running on bootcamp - and its fantastic! All the fit, finish and build quality of a macintosh device, all the software support of the windows platform!

To me, that's enough to break the $1000 barrier, but if that's a hard barrier for you, I'm sure you can find what you are looking for elsewhere.

Most modern laptops will ship with vista, see if you can get XP throw in as well. From the spects, most laptops will crawl using vista, but with XP, they'll be an absolute screamer.

[Pupator]

Most modern laptops will ship with vista, see if you can get XP throw in as well. From the spects, most laptops will crawl using vista, but with XP, they'll be an absolute screamer.

:nah No crawling here.

[20DNoob]

Here's the Vista version (http://www.shopping.hp.com/store/product/product_detail/RV112UAR%2523ABA?) of my HP(IIRC my cpus' are running @1.66, this ones 1.73).

I was at the mall yesterday playing with the Vistas and let me tell you, mine smokes the ones on display. I'm so happy that I managed to get one of the remaining XP versions.

One last thing, it DOES have a latch on it to secure the screen.

[CalfeeRider]

I think I've narrowed it down to the HP DV9500T series (17"). Which with the current 30% coupon mentioned in Ben's Bargains bring down to about $1200 - thanks for the tip Swintonphoto! :thumb

It's a bit more than I had targeted, but this configuration should hold up for quite some time!

Intel Core 2 Duo - T7250 2.0 GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB
2GB DDR2 Memory (2x1024)
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS (256MB dedicated, and up to an additional 255MB shared)
Dual 120GB SATA 5400 RPM
Fingerprint Reader etc

Two remaining questions, how do the Intel and AMD versions (DV9500Z) compare performance wise? And is the HP Ultra Brightview Display at 1440x900 and claimed extra gamut worth the loss of resolution from 1680x1050?

[glassandgear.com]

I can't speak to the quality of HP displays however I can say that the AMD based notebooks don't really stand much of a chance up against an Intel Core 2 Duo. It pains me to say that as a long time AMD fan but they really haven't been able to keep up with Intel as of late.

As for Vista, I've only installed it on one client machine at work and for a while I had it on my MacBook Pro and a homebuilt desktop. Performance for the most part was good, although XP normally seems a bit faster, however there are other issues that just seem to keep popping up with Vista so much so that I'm going to have to downgrade that Vista machine mentioned above to XP.

[CalfeeRider]

I can't speak to the quality of HP displays however I can say that the AMD based notebooks don't really stand much of a chance up against an Intel Core 2 Duo. It pains me to say that as a long time AMD fan but they really haven't been able to keep up with Intel as of late.

I've been and AMD fan too, and agree with the current Core 2 Intel's been taking a clear lead again. Circuit City had a fair number of Intel and AMD versions and looking at comperable models, the AMD were scoring around 3.5 instead of 4.6 on the Vista Experience scale so Intel's definately doing something right.

I also bought a 4GB kit from Frys for about $60 after rebate instead of the $50 2GB upgrade from HP so that'll also help boost performance. And the video card has 256MB dedicated RAM - not sure if I can control if it will also grab another 255MB of system RAM or not - or if it will need it, but that's something I'll check out once I see how it runs.

Thaks again for the tips and thoughts everyone!

[Pupator]

I bought a similar HP notebook recently with the AMD. It sucked. It was absolutely terrible (on 32 bit Vista - it was good on 64 bit).

Now I'm on the Core 2 Duo version and it screams. There's no contest between the two in my mind - at least not on these HP configs.

[AaronNelson]

I think I've narrowed it down to the HP DV9500T series (17"). Which with the current 30% coupon mentioned in Ben's Bargains bring down to about $1200 - thanks for the tip Swintonphoto! :thumb

It's a bit more than I had targeted, but this configuration should hold up for quite some time!

Intel Core 2 Duo - T7250 2.0 GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB
2GB DDR2 Memory (2x1024)
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS (256MB dedicated, and up to an additional 255MB shared)
Dual 120GB SATA 5400 RPM
Fingerprint Reader etc

Two remaining questions, how do the Intel and AMD versions (DV9500Z) compare performance wise? And is the HP Ultra Brightview Display at 1440x900 and claimed extra gamut worth the loss of resolution from 1680x1050?

i have a friend that was able to compare apples to apples...and he said with PS & raw programs dont even think about getting AMD....
i dont have any details other than that...

btw, i have a hp6000v series, good LCD,
the photo work ive been doing lately sure shows that the 1g of ram tends to frustrate me allot!....
im ordering another 1g very soon.

so its seems to me your going to be just fine with your plans...

[Phyxius]

Sorry, just to clarify: there is NO latch on the HPs..you just close the screen, no way to secure it.

This is making a mountain out of a mole hill really, just something I noticed.

Um, mine latches... Maybe it's model specific? I have the HP dv 9005

Jack, I have the HP Pavilion dv9005us 17" Widescreen Entertainment Notebook PC (AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-50, 1 GB RAM, 100 GB Hard Drive, LightScribe DVD RW Drive). But, I upgraded to 2 gig of RAM. If you saw my laptop in Glacier that was it! I've upgraded to PS CS3 and I believe it runs even faster than CS2 did. Bridge is a little slower though, loading the files come up pixelated at first and settle into clear definition. Once there there though they're crisp and gorgeous. I LOVE viewing dgrin on my laptop.

I hope you enjoy yours too!

[timk519]

I have a DV9000 that I took on a 8100 mile motorcycle trip around north america this past summer. Outside of the letter "j" becoming a bit dis-jointed, it's performed well and fast. I like the keyboard, the 17" display's a dream, and the 200+ GB of storage space was enough to hold 13K pictures, a few hours of video, and still have lots of room to spare. Doesn't weigh too much, so carrying it around's not a hassle (unlike the Toshiba Satellite I owned before this unit.)

Core 2 duo, T5500 @ 1.667 GHz, 2G RAM, Windows Ultimate. Runs Lightroom like a charm.

[CalfeeRider]

i have a friend that was able to compare apples to apples...and he said with PS & raw programs dont even think about getting AMD....
i dont have any details other than that...

btw, i have a hp6000v series, good LCD,
the photo work ive been doing lately sure shows that the 1g of ram tends to frustrate me allot!....
im ordering another 1g very soon.

so its seems to me your going to be just fine with your plans...

Good to hear about the photoquality of the display. I haven't seen this new "Ultra" version yet, but anything that can help extend the gamut and/or accuracy of the color sounds good to me! :)

[CalfeeRider]

Um, mine latches... Maybe it's model specific? I have the HP dv 9005

Jack, I have the HP Pavilion dv9005us 17" Widescreen Entertainment Notebook PC (AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-50, 1 GB RAM, 100 GB Hard Drive, LightScribe DVD RW Drive). But, I upgraded to 2 gig of RAM. If you saw my laptop in Glacier that was it! I've upgraded to PS CS3 and I believe it runs even faster than CS2 did. Bridge is a little slower though, loading the files come up pixelated at first and settle into clear definition. Once there there though they're crisp and gorgeous. I LOVE viewing dgrin on my laptop.

I hope you enjoy yours too!

Hey Christina! Yep, I'm sort of psyched about getting it! I did see yours and a couple in Glacier and thought they were really nice machines. I had it shipped to my work since I'm away, but it's been delivered and I'll be playing with it first part of next week!

Have a great Happy New Year!

[CalfeeRider]

I have a DV9000 that I took on a 8100 mile motorcycle trip around north america this past summer. Outside of the letter "j" becoming a bit dis-jointed, it's performed well and fast. I like the keyboard, the 17" display's a dream, and the 200+ GB of storage space was enough to hold 13K pictures, a few hours of video, and still have lots of room to spare. Doesn't weigh too much, so carrying it around's not a hassle (unlike the Toshiba Satellite I owned before this unit.)

Core 2 duo, T5500 @ 1.667 GHz, 2G RAM, Windows Ultimate. Runs Lightroom like a charm.

Sweet! I don't plan on carrying it too much in the field, but it's nice to get back to the room and have a decent platform to process from.

Thanks for the feedback!

[CalfeeRider]

I bought a similar HP notebook recently with the AMD. It sucked. It was absolutely terrible (on 32 bit Vista - it was good on 64 bit).

Now I'm on the Core 2 Duo version and it screams. There's no contest between the two in my mind - at least not on these HP configs.

Yep that seems to be most people's experience! But it's nice to hear that I went in the right direction! :D

[BikePilot]

I have a toshebia UXGA laptop (15") and a lenovo x61 for travel. The display on the toshebia is unbeliveably good, really sharp, great colors, great resolution etc.

The lenovo is really good for travel as its battery lasts 8hrs, it weighs just a bit over 2lbs and is physically very small.

I agree that at the moment intel has quite the advantage for mobil dual core processors. Their 45nm core is able to do its thing with less heat and current than the 65nm AMD's which matters a lot when you are powering it via battery. For a desktop the AMD's are more competitive and I'm sure they'll be back in the running for laptops before long. Right now I have an AMD desktop and two intel laptops, though if I were building the desktop from scratch again right now I'd probably go with an intel quad core:)

Oh, I'm still running xp-pro on all my stuff too.

have fun

[gagodfather]

well im a newbie to photography and just wanna put my 2 cents in. i bought a sony vio about 8 months ago and had about 6000 pics on it and the hard drive just went out. it come with a 1 yr warranty and sony said they would replace the hard drive but couldnt do anything bout recovering any of my pics or other info. after numerous calls to sony now they have said that they wouldnt even cover the harddrive and so now im stuck with a 2200 dollar pos lol just my 2 cents i will never buy another sony product

[timk519]

well im a newbie to photography and just wanna put my 2 cents in. i bought a sony vio about 8 months ago and had about 6000 pics on it and the hard drive just went out.
These little critters (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=262)

http://www.westerndigital.com/global/images/products/frnt/120/wdfPassport_Portable_2.jpg (javascript:openAnyWindow('/global/products/imageviewer.asp?model=wdfPassport_Portable_2&filter=1047604&currentimage=frnt&lang=en','image',440,505);)
are great for backing up laptops and keeping your pics safe. I got one in California, and still use it to move large quantities of data around.

I also got hit with a HD failure :puke1 , but fortunately it happened about 8 days after I got the unit, before I left on my trip, so I was able to get it swapped with a replacement unit :ivar , but not before I'd spent a week getting the original unit all setup and configured. :deal :fish :humungus

[DavidTO]

well im a newbie to photography and just wanna put my 2 cents in. i bought a sony vio about 8 months ago and had about 6000 pics on it and the hard drive just went out. it come with a 1 yr warranty and sony said they would replace the hard drive but couldnt do anything bout recovering any of my pics or other info. after numerous calls to sony now they have said that they wouldnt even cover the harddrive and so now im stuck with a 2200 dollar pos lol just my 2 cents i will never buy another sony product


Any hard drive will fail. It's not a matter of if it will fail, only when.

Backup and backup often.

Sony is truly not to blame in the hard drive failure. Not honoring the warranty, well, not sure on that one.

[BikePilot]

well im a newbie to photography and just wanna put my 2 cents in. i bought a sony vio about 8 months ago and had about 6000 pics on it and the hard drive just went out. it come with a 1 yr warranty and sony said they would replace the hard drive but couldnt do anything bout recovering any of my pics or other info. after numerous calls to sony now they have said that they wouldnt even cover the harddrive and so now im stuck with a 2200 dollar pos lol just my 2 cents i will never buy another sony product

hard drives are cheap, buy another, stick it in and call it good. Depending on how your old drive failed it may be pretty easy to recover the data. The data is totally recoverable, its just a matter of how much time and money it would cost. The quick and dirty way of doing it is to buy an external enclosure (not expensive), put the drive in the enclosure, put the enclosure in a plastic bag and put it all in the freezer, then take it out once its good and cold, plug it in and move as much data as you can before it warms up. A typical failed hard drive (won't spinn) will work for a short while if you get them good and cold.

if you really don't wanna mess with the vio anymore send it to me:deal


good luck

For backup, I back my laptops up to my desktop which runs a RAID-I array and then I back that up to an external drive (WD mybook prem). I then have my really critical stuff (wedding pics, papers I've written and am proud of etc) backed up to a second external drive and burned the info to CD's and sent it to my parents in FL (just in case the house burns down or something).

PS, toshebia is awesome when it comes to warranty work (I've used it once before) and a couple friends at school have had really good luck with lenovo's service as well (I've not used it personally, but a classmate had a soda spilled on his laptop and they sent a box for it, he stuck it in the box, they picked it up, fixed it and had it back inside of a week - all at no charge to him). Now the school's officially recommended brand is lenovo and I'm sure that gets lenovo a lot of biz so they may be a bit more helpful to us than people not affiliated with a similar organization, but I kinda doubt it.

[gagodfather]

yeah im chalking it up as experience and moving on i back up everything now twice and also keep a copy at my parents house. Thanks for all the replys and thanks for dgrin. i know by signing up on here i will become a better photographer in 2008.

[Moogle Pepper]

I been looking at these two laptops:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8648118&productCategoryId=abcat0502001&type=product&tab=7&id=1195598868093#productdetail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117606 [this one has 2 gigs of ram]

And at best buy they are the same price: 699.

I, too, am wondering about a good laptop to purchase. Macbooks and macbook pros are way out of my price range.

[noreen]

Hi, I would like to reply to the laptops.
I own many sony, (4, one every 18 months) but with pictures feel limited by the gig's and video cards. the begining of Jan 08, I purchased an IBUYPOWER laptop.
it was from costco( which I recommend getting any computer from them to use for 3 months instead of 15 days). I dont recommend them but they did claim the biggest, ram, gigs and speed.
i found it slow, clunkly and doesnt do what i thought it would, from just the touch pad,(which doesnt always work with one tap or many taps(mind of it's own at times), the loading of app's was slower, but then lighting speed for others app's., perhaps it is a Vista thing, so I would stay with XP. I was looking at the differnce of the dell (not a dell fan, except for the onsite service for 3 years inculding software issues) 4300 series or ( alienware), I wanted at least a 250 gig, 7500 or higher CPU, great graphics card, so either amdus, Nvidia, ETI. at higher graphics optimization and speed. (let me know if you need more on the graphics cards). so the toshbia SLi3 looks really good, sony is a bit higher, and possibly not worth it, but perhaps. Go to costco's website, since they dont sell that type of speed at the stores, it took 3 weeks to deliver. I am returning the Ibuy's, I will go with a toshiba for my son who is the gamer and me, the photo , and app's "nut" will try the sony... unless i see a special. i used to build my own, desktops and know what you need is cpu speed, graphics card for your programs to run well, and storage.

I also had a hard drive failure on Sony (the others it is just the gig's,) You should, send it back to them, even if the warrently isnt good. You be surprised how good they are. I did and was. They replaced it. However, I did have to pay a company to get the information, after the idiots at BESTBUY'S best of the best geeks caused the already WORKING BUT FAILING hard drive to fail permently, when i went in to get the files transfered. After claiming to find someone to fix it, then they lost the whole computer, which they found three weeks later after I had a tissy fit and had to keep the demanding they find it. police and all.... beware of Best Buy and the Geek squad. ask a simple question like how would You, email files and it will show if they know what they are doing.

hope this helps and forgive me i couldnt find spl cek(it is my first reply and response.
noreen

[glassandgear.com]

You really shouldn't have any problem finding a pretty decent laptop at fairly low prices these days. One recommendation I would make is that when you buy any laptop, before you do anything and install any programs, is to go through and remove any of the programs installed by the manufacturer that you don't need - which means most of them. I've seen Dell, Sony and HP machines run like garbage even though they were fairly high end machines simply due to the amount of useless programs that the manufacturers load on them. If the laptop is running Vista you'll definately want 2 GB of ram and if you can find one in your price range go for a Core 2 Duo based laptop over an AMD based laptop. While I was once a big AMD fan they've simply fallen too far behind for me to recommend them at this point. As for video cards, a discrete video card is always better than a card that uses shared memory however for most photo editing this really shouldn't make that large a difference as long as you have enough ram.