Is this a good laptop for Photoshop use?

[Dakotah Jackson]

http://www.frys.com/product/7091141?site=frysecampaign


Dell Queen i17RN-5647BK, Intel Core i5-2450M, 17.3" Screen Display, Notebook With 8 GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive, W7 Home Premium

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Got the email from Frys dot com folks and as I am starting to look at a portable computer this one seems like it might be good. Called them and in answering my questions the sales guy basically read the ad info.

Is this worth buying? Is it current enough that it won't bog down or run too slow for working with images?

Has been a few years since I looked at anything laptop - thus the questions. Would run Photoshop CX6/5 and be mainly used for images and basic uploading for managing the pending webpage site. Most would be done on the older desktop computer but this would enable me to take it with me to work on images while traveling.

Price range is decent - should this thing do the job or is there something about this cost that would actually be better for this use.

I assume it has games and junk like that I would need to remove like most of the computers do but that is not really a problem. Just the functionality for images with good processing speed and reliability.

While I am at it what is the recommendation these days for processor speed and 'cores' or whatever tech stuff the processor ought to be on desktop machines?

[Corran]

That's got more RAM and a newer CPU than my custom computer that I built almost 4 years ago, and it works brilliantly for 4x5 scans at 200+ megapixels. Should be more than adequate. Just clean all the BS programs they put in it before you even start to use it. I personally hate Dell, as well as most companies, but if it matters all the Lenovo (IBM) computers I've had in the last couple of years have been fantastic.

[David A. Goldfarb]

It seems fairly affordable and should handle Photoshop pretty well for most typical image processing. Looking around the net, this machine seems to be a Dell configuration put together for Fry's and Walmart, so there's surely some economy of scale to account for the price. If your desktop is a few years old, then you'll probably find this one significantly faster, and even if you feel attached to your desktop, you'll start using the laptop for everything. A laptop with a 17" screen is going to be around 7 lbs., which is portable in the sense that you can put it in your car and take it out to work with it somewhere, but if you have to carry it around on your shoulder everywhere, you'll start to notice it. I haven't owned a desktop for years, and having to get around NYC walking and on the subway, I generally prefer a laptop with a 13" screen that weighs around 3 lbs.

If you do any video editing, or if you do very intensive processes like stitching or any kind of stacking like HDR or focus stacking, you might want a faster machine with an i7 processor.

[livan]

Looks like a good one for me. But if you could stretch out the memory to 16gb or even get a processor with the k multiplier(just so you could have the option of over clocking), I would likely consider that option more.

But when things are not looking to work that way, this should work just fine. People work well within what they are given anyway so this should be no problem.

[Preston]

Dakotah,

I have a some suggestions for you:

1. Get a Solid State Drive (SSD) as your primary drive. I suggest a 240GB. SSD's are faster all the way around, run cooler, and are silent.
2. Get a dedicated video card
3. Stuff as much RAM as the motherboard will accept
4. Win 7 Pro 64 bit
5. Get a machine with an ips screen
6. The i7 Quad Core is a nice step up, but they are expensive.

As far as vendors go, I have heard good things about Lenovo. I'll also put in a plug for Puget Systems. They have an excellent line of laptops: Great customer service, and no crapware installed.

--P

[Old-N-Feeble]

Several years ago I experimented with Vista 64 bit and 8 Gb of RAM. The largest image I could manipulate (USM and GB) and keep it all in RAM (no swapping to HD) was about 70Mb. If I were to build a dedicated image editing PC today I wouldn't even consider anything less than 16Gb of RAM. Frankly, I'd probably go for 64Gb of RAM, a dedicated solid solid state HD for the Photoshop swap file, dual quad core CPUs and the best video card I could afford. I wouldn't bother with a laptop unless I needed the portability and then it would be a secondary machine.

[Preston]

O-N-F,

The system you speak about would be workable in a desktop configuration, but one won't be able to get a laptop, which is what Dakotah wants, configured as such. Even if it could be done, cooling all those components would not be possible.

--P

[Kirk Gittings]

I agree with your assessment OnF. I use a 6 core machine with 24GB of Ram on Windows 7. It is comfortable with DSLR files but not at all snappy with large scans from B&W negs. I'm considering buying more ram as this machine will take 72GBs.

I'm also curious OnF (or anyone else). When do you know you need a better video card? How would an inadequacy in that component manifest itself when you are working files?

[Kirk Gittings]

I agree with your assessment OnF. I use a 6 core machine with 24GB of Ram on Windows 7. It also has a dedicated Scratch drive. It is comfortable and snappy with DSLR files but not at all snappy with large scans from B&W negs at about500MB and larger. I'm considering buying more ram as this machine will take 72GBs and maybe an SSD for the Scratch drive.

I'm also curious OnF (or anyone else). When do you know you need a better video card? How would an inadequacy in that component manifest itself when you are working files?

[Preston]

I'm also curious OnF (or anyone else). When do you know you need a better video card? How would an inadequacy in that component manifest itself when you are working files?

Kirk,

Screen re-draws would likely slow down, or you might get a GPU temperature warning. Inadequacies of the video card would be more apparent with re-draws if you are doing 3D.

Many of my PSD files are 1+ GB and I am running a 1GB nVidia card, 16 GB RAM on an i5-quad core and a 240 GB SSD. So far, I haven't had any issues.

--P