What PC/Laptop to buy?

Hello,

Can anyone give any good advice on what sort of spec a PC or laptop should be if i were to be loooking to run editing software - PSP and maybe some more advanced software for 8 million pix. pictures?

Many thanks for your time!!

The laptop I use was quite inexpensive and it works well for me.

it is a pc windows xp sp2 system ( a compaq 4035ca r4000series sold with 1gb ram - still available which has a wide screen AMD processor and a separate ATI video board. I upgaded the ram to 1.5 gb and I use an external firewire drive as my editing drive. I also have an extra 17 inch lcd monitor attached for a 2 screen display.

The hardware in Canadian $ cost about $1300 current price for laptop, $200 or so for an external case w/ 260 gb drive, $70 for the extra memory and $220 for the refurbished lcd monitor. By the time taxes are over a little over $2k Canadian.

Photoshop CS works well - w/big files too. It is usually on a desk networked to another computer but when I take it I carry it around in a backpack rather than a case, (It is heavy - big screen and battery life is poor as a result, not what I would buy if money were no object - but it is)

You can definitely get higher speed, lighter stuff but the costs go way up too. This one was affordable.

Get a dual core CPU and a fast 7200RPM HD.

Asus are very good laptops.

If you get a mac, you'll fall in love with it and have so few problems and have such an enjoyable time you'll start bragging about them to your friends and maybe become somewhat annoying about it.

That's what happend to me after i switched from using a PC for years and years and thought 'well, this must be as good as it gets?'

windows is sooooooo laaaaame

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cheers,
adamM
(gear in profile)
http://www.robotbreeder.com

About 18 months ago, I bought a HP laptop with a P4 2.80ghz for the amount of 1,300$ canadian dollars.

I added some RAM in it to make it even go faster. with a 15 inch widescreen display and close to 1 gig of RAM, it was not cheap nor very light weight: close to 8 pounds (3.5 kg).

My point is:

My laptop had a defective display hinge last month and I had to send it to service (under extended warranty). During this time, I had in my possession a "loaner" laptop that consisted in a Toshiba laptop model M-50: very light, 15 inch display, but cheap display, and very slowwwwww processor (Celeron). It couldn't even play DIVX compressed files without skipping frames. Its market price today: 895$ canadian dollars.

My conclusion:

In terms of laptop, you have two choices (after 15 years in this field I have seen hundreds of them): either you choose light weight, or power. Light weight can be slow and cheap or fast and very expensive. Heavier will bring you power for an average price (neither cheap or expensive).

So, choose according to your needs and remember that a few more pounds are very heavy when you have to carry it all the time. But if your laptop is meant to stay more at home, then weight does not really matter.

Hope that helps.
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Regards,

Benjilafouine

get as much as you can aford..lappys= money pit
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'Beware of the oldman with one gun\camera..He knows how to use it'

Thanks people - some really useful information. Time to make some choices I think!!!

Col

is this new? asus does Mother board and in the last 5 yrs video cards..never saw an ASUS lappy great mobos btw
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'Beware of the oldman with one gun\camera..He knows how to use it'