I Need a laptop...

Started Jul 22, 2021 | Discussions thread
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John Card Forum Member • Posts: 72
I Need a laptop...

Posting here because some of the D850 people may have had similar experiences...

I figure if I post in the PC group, its going to trend anti-Mac, and the Mac forum would be the reverse.  Maybe I can find some balance here.

Background:  When I have traveled in the past, I took a Surface Pro (early model) with me to run Lightroom and do some processing on the fly.  It worked great for this, however this is when I was carrying an 18mp APS-C camera, so the processing needs weren't that high.  Since then, the Surface has been lost (long story) and I need to find a replacement.  Maybe "need" is the wrong word.  I'd like to have something I can carry with me that is capable of viewing the raw images, and also do some basic processing in Lightroom and Photoshop when traveling.  My home rig is a self-built PC with a recent spec Asus Tuf series board, Ryzen 7 processor, 32gb RAM, RTX3060, etc.  It does everything I need pretty well.

So for those of you that are crunching 46mp raw files on a laptop, how much horsepower do I need to make it run smoothly?  I don't think my old Surface would do well in that situation.  My home PC struggled until I upgraded it.

Screen quality is important to me, as I eventually figured out that processing on my old Surface was also compensating for the questionable color of the default screen.  What looked good on the surface usually ended up being over-saturated on other screens.

I've looked at Dell XPS series, but I'm wondering if that is overkill and overpriced.  I've also considered the new M1 Macbooks, but will there be any compatibility problems between transferring files back and forth with my home PC?  I dont necessarily want to use a different OS, but what I've seen tends to indicate that it will do the job for a lower price than the PC laptops I've been looking at.  The newer Surfaces aren't impressing me, and with my previous screen experience, I'm leery.  Price is also a factor.

What would you do?

 John Card's gear list:John Card's gear list
Nikon D850 Nikon AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm F1.8G +4 more
Nikon D850
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