Laptop recommendations for photo editing?

Hello fellow ostomates.

I have a question unrelated to our common issue. I am in the market for a new laptop. I know some of the features that I want but I am not sure of the features I must have so that the system works quickly and efficiently. It is not likely that I will be playing video games, except perhaps some poker, but I will be editing photos. What I need from you are recommendations for RAM, core, etc. I get lost in those features. There are some great prices out there and I am ready to buy. Bring on the suggestions, please. PS I am trying to stay away from Apple products.

Thanks all,

Maria

I wish I could help Maria but I am in the same boat. My laptop is about to go any day now. So I will be following this post closely. :)

I have been thinking about a new one too. There is a person on here that has that kind of experience. I think his name is Bryan but not sure he is from NJ. Maybe he will see these posts and can help out.

Hi Maria.  It's been a while.  Unfortunately I'm an Apple guy.  I've worked with both and just feel way more comfortable with a Mac.

Let us know what you decide.

Mike

Well, how are you doing?

I have not seen you on this site for a bit. Just talked to Zeppo on the phone for over an hour.

I work with computers all the time and am on my third Lenovo ThinkPad. I get about 5-7 years of continuous use on them. It is lightweight and small; I never get the number pad on the right. It can even fit in a large purse (for air travel) so I have no need for a tablet. Most of the employees in my daughter's marketing company either use a Mac or a Lenovo. My son develops user material for Blockstream and Google plus many other companies; he is a Lenovo user as well, except he uses a Mac for animation contracts. The Lenovo comes in various styles but the ThinkPad suits my needs. Once you go Lenovo, you never go back. Good luck in your hunt.

BTW Maria, if you don't  need to spend 2 grand or more and don't need a full 16 in screen you might investigate something like a Platinum Surface Pro 7 for around $600.

Mike

Hello Maria.

Oh! how I wish I could help you with this vexed question. I have been 'ready' to purchase a laptop for years and have studied them many, many times, without being able to decide on one which will suit my needs. Like you, I don't have any use for playing games or even watching films etc. However, what I do need is to be able to use  a programme that would help me design the covers on my books. In days gone by, I bought a programme  called MS Publisher. (which worked well for me) However, since I bought a new desktop,(with Windows 10) this programme  doesn't seem to want to work.  I was moaning about this to my daughter one day and she resolved it by giving me a laptop whose keyboard no longer functioned. I plugged in a separate keyboard and it has been working for me ever since. Unfortunately, it does not function very well as a 'portable' machine, so I still have the problem of contemplating which laptop to buy - If any!

Best of luck with your choices.

Bill 

MarVee,

If you Google "laptop computer reviews" and you'll find the latest info on which to buy from folks like CNET and PCMAG. I find my laptops last a half decade or so, and by then they're ready for the scrap heap (currently at the bottom of the ocean, unfortunately). Labor Day sales are what......6 weeks away? I've owned most of the brands.........never had a problem with any of them until the hard drive dies.....so I buy the cheapest with a good warranty........but I'm not into all the modern features some crave (touchscreen, cursor pens, etc). For photo editing, I'd think any machine can handle that as long as it has a hard drive. Just stay away from the pseudo-laptops like Chromebook, etc. And make sure the software that comes pre-loaded has the photo editor you want, unless you plan to purchase that separately.

Regards,

Bob

I just bought a Dell. Most of the companies I work for also use Dell. The model you buy really depends on your needs. I just use Excel, Word, email, PowerPoint, internet searches, bill paying, and Zoom meetings.

Hello MarVee

Minimum 8GB RAM (Random Access Memory)

Minimum i5 processor (engine)

Minimum 500GB hard drive (storage)

Most laptops are similar, just get one you like the look and feel of with a good price

These specs as a minimum will future-proof you for quite a while.

Alternatively, if you only surf, shop, and use social media, consider a Chromebook. They require no software updates, no virus protection, which is a great ongoing saving. It is all done for you automatically.

I have two Chromebooks in the house and a Windows desktop.

The desktop is only used for video and music editing; everything else is Chromebook.

Chromebook only has a small hard disk, so it stores everything on the cloud, which is good as you can access it anywhere as long as you have internet access.

If you insist on having Microsoft Office, then it is a Windows-based computer for you.

Chromebook uses "Sheets" and "Docs" instead, which are very similar to Excel and Word.

I bought my mother a Chromebook after a Windows PC I bought her; she loves the simplicity of it and would never go back.

And just to mix it up, my daughter has a mid-range Surface Pro (Windows) which she is very happy with.

You can also easily edit photographs with Google Pixlr Express on Chromebook.

Any good store will be able to guide you, and yes, you can play many types of poker on a Chromebook.

I use my Chromebook 99% of the time.

Hope this helps.

Axl

Yeah...........what he said! 

Regards,

Bob

Hmm, I tried a Chromebook for about a week and back it went. I guess I am just used to Windows and Microsoft. Everyone has a different favorite, Marvee. You will have to decide. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone suggested the same computer? Karen

All depends on what you're using it for. Anything really nowadays is decent enough. RAMs are how quickly the information is sent, and the processor is just like it is spelled - it processes the information. Now you can just buy those parts yourself and just upgrade the laptop you have now, far cheaper than what you would spend on a new one. Asus laptops are a good and cheap option, performs decent enough to get most tasks done. Just my opinion, hopefully it helped you out. Good luck.

Best thing I can advise is to make sure there is enough memory and more essentially disk space. I bought an ASUS netbook not so long ago and due to the size of Windows 10, it has taken up most of the disk space and am now unable to install Win10 updates.

Here's my 2 cents .... 500GB or 1 Terabyte Solid State Drive is without question for everything to run quickly .... 8GB RAM Memory .... minimum 1920 screen resolution w/ 16" screen so your images or movies are clear and sharp .... Intel i5 or higher don't scrimp here this is the engine that drives it all .... USB 3.0 slot for faster transfer of data .... Good luck Ron

Hi,
I gave up on the various aspects of computers, started this in 1966 (yes 1966) and covered all aspects of computers designed build programmed market and anything else.
I suggest you might want to check into a Chromebook starting at 150 CDN (Canadian) about 100. or check various selling sites Amazon Kijiji eBay in order to buy a laptop from 200 - 1600 (and up).
Typical configuration for a Chromebook is 2GB/16GB that means 2 Gigabytes for main memory (to run programs) and 16GB for storage, should you want more you can buy an external USB unit 32GB for about 10 - 15.

Unless you do a lot with pictures the 16GB is fine for e-mail, letters etc.
I bought a used laptop at Vallue village (a second hand store - mainly used closthing) for 7.99 I tried the battery from my laptop and after it worked I bought a power supply (20) and eventually a new battery 28.
I bought it just to play around with it.

I used to come online very often but less so now.
Hope this helps; ask if you need more.

My first personal computer 1978 had 32KB of memory and two yes 2 48 kb floppy disks.
I now have numerous older computers two windows 10 laptops (including the used one) and my main computer runs Windows 7 I tired to upgrade but it wasn't worth it.
Attached to this 4GB Windows 7 are 11 external hard drives plus 1 SSD hard drive plus two 1TB hard drives for a total storage of about 16 TB some via USB 2 and some via USB 3 and that is not counting the 12 older hard drives that sit in one of my desks.
And of course the original IBM 10 MB full height har drive.

To see the amazing growth in computers, when I worked for Honeywell as a Product Mananger I would sell a 200 MB hard drive (The size of a washing machine) for 95,000.00, 512 MB of memory (size of 10 fridges) for 395,000.
what do I do with a 200 MB disk dirve now -throw it out - actually give it to electronics recycling.
The then returned memory I would send to a recovery site in Holland and they would recover and each 10cmX10cm control module had about 5 of gold, it was worth it to ship those memory units (each a multiple of ten fridges) pay for the shipping pay for the destruction and end up with money to boot.

Hey, I'm with kmedup. I just bought a Lenovo too. After looking at reviews and doing some research, I decided to go with a Lenovo, which is a part of the giant IBM. I did not say anything about my choice to the employee at Staples. When I asked for his opinion, he suggested Lenovo. I purchased at Staples because they have outstanding tech help and are always available to help if needed.

I went the Lenovo tablet route, since I have a Dell desktop that has kept on chugging' for 8 or 10 years now, and still going strong!!! Since I don't need much portability except when I (rarely, these days!) travel, and I don't need power usage when I do travel, the tablet is fabulous. Lenovo Tab M8 FHD - brand new, and the specs are awesome, at a terrific price. You can even get a keyboard/cover to go with it, but the keyboard may be a bit small. I can wholeheartedly endorse the Lenovo ThinkPad for a laptop; my son used one until it finally bit the dust about the time he started needing something more powerful! He'll be thinking about a new laptop himself when school starts meeting face to face again. He is considering a newer, more powerful ThinkPad.

Hello. I believe Dell computers are by far the best overall for reliability. I've had HP and they never worked right. Lenovo and ASUS are Chinese owned and manufactured, and I hear they aren't good overall. As for the guts, I think the average user needs at least 8 GB of RAM and a 500 GB hard drive. Solid state drives (SSD) are newer and mostly carry less memory. I would stick with a hard drive with cloud backup. The processor is extremely important! I would stay away from anything other than an Intel processor! AMD, Celeron, and others are slower and inferior. Dual and quad-core processors are okay, but the i3, i5, and i7 are much better. Intel has new processors like Kaby Lake that are higher in price and are used for gaming and more advanced tasks, so you probably don't need those. You should look for at least 2.5 GHz of speed. 3.2+ GHz is best. You can probably find a reasonably priced i3 or i5 at Staples, Costco, or Best Buy. Good luck!

I'm offering my opinion based on my own experience.  It's difficult to compare Macs with PCs without digging into specifics.  I don't know if there's a big difference if they're being use just for word processing but if we get more involved with marth, art, photos, etc. I think there are real differences.  There were several Windows commercials created on Macs because PCs couldn't handle them.  To me it seemed like PCs "thought" like accountants with strict rules whereas Macs "thought" like engineers, artists and creators.  Macs seemed more forgiving and their finished products were as good as anything done on any platform.  I always felt like my Macs were working with me while PCs were just waiting for me to mess up.  Am I referencing computers or people?  I need to rethink this whole thing.

Sorry,

Mike

MarVee,

If you can state your budget and have a laptop in mind, post it here in the forums and we can tell you if it's a good buy or not. You can get a decent laptop, any brand, for just over $200 with all the specifications that everyone has listed so far.

If you're just using it for editing photos and playing poker, you don't need much. I would recommend investing in an external hard drive as well if you plan on storing/editing photos. That way, if your computer ever crashes, your photos are safe and sound. Either that or use OneDrive. It's a file hosting system from Microsoft.

Microsoft Office isn't a bad investment either.

Try looking at newegg.com for a laptop. They have a plethora of new and refurbished laptops and anything else you can think of.

Bain

Hi MarVee,

Bain's point about an external hard drive is a good one. I've had more than one hard drive in my computers die, and the stuff on it was not retrievable. That for me isn't always a bad thing.......as I have way too many pics I'll never look at on there most of the time.......so my hard drive crashes are sometimes welcome "resets" for my computing clutter. But if you have serious stuff you want to store it's best to have a backup somewhere other than on your machine.

Regards,

Bob

Bob,

You can purchase a hard drive or solid state drive converter to recover those files or pics. It basically converts to a USB connection which allows you to plug into any PC and retrieve almost anything. I have one connected to my Xbox with a 3 TB HDD.

It comes with its own power source and basically acts like an external HDD. Let me know if you want the details.

Bain