# whats your laptop?



## FPshootsCanon (Jan 22, 2009)

i'm considering purchasing a dell studio15 at the beginning of February. does anyone have an opinion about this model laptop? and what laptops do you guys find to work best for your studio or location work?


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## Holy Ghosted (Jan 22, 2009)

Laptops are subjective and it boils down to what software and OS you want and need to use. Personally I will never own another Dell they just never did hold up to being worked and their Customer support was very poor. I now run a Mac Book Pro for a Laptop and it has given me the best life span and usability of any laptop I have ever owned. If Mac is a definite no then I would look to lenovo and / or Asus


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## ccssk8ter11 (Jan 22, 2009)

I also use a mac book and i love it, the whole interface and organization of the mac's os is so much smoother and easier than my pc.


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## FPshootsCanon (Jan 22, 2009)

i started working on macs in 2006 but i'm not ready to change everything i own over to apple plus i have a geek boyfriend that does all my computer management and hes better with windows. 


anyone out there work with a hp? how well do those hold up?


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## Holy Ghosted (Jan 22, 2009)

FPshootsCanon said:


> i started working on macs in 2006 but i'm not ready to change everything i own over to apple plus i have a geek boyfriend that does all my computer management and hes better with windows.
> 
> 
> anyone out there work with a hp? how well do those hold up?


Like I said if Mac is a No then Lenovo Or Asus are two of the best Windows running Laptops you can buy. If you are talking about editing on location you will need every thing you can get for it Lenovo and Asus understand this and Lenovo has even went as far as incorporating a wacom into one of their laptops.


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## stsinner (Jan 22, 2009)

I swear by Dell..  I have the Inspiron 8600 running 1.25Gig RAM, and I love it..  I upgraded to a 120gig hard drive from a 40, and the RAM I upgraded from 512 meg..  
I don't know if you are ever going to need it, but a lot of laptops now skimp on the ports..  I think it's important to have a parallel and serial port, which my laptop does, for when I need to program a PLC, which is usually serial...  

Just don't fall for one of those crappy laptops that they sell very cheap..  Get a business model..  Celerons suck, as they have a reduced instruction set and are, therefore, much slower than a true Pentium.


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## jglovac (Jan 22, 2009)

if it was an option, i would definately get a macbook. 
I bought a macbook pro, and god has been smiling down upon me ever since


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## MikeBcos (Jan 22, 2009)

I have Dell Vostros, Dell's pro line. My daughter has had one for over a year, it's had a tough life and never had a problem. I just bought myself a new one, a Vostro 1540, it runs the Adobe Creative Suite CS4, Office 2007 and Act simultaneously with no problems.

We are about to buy a third one for my wife.

I would highly recommend Dell.


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## Ls3D (Jan 22, 2009)

XPS 1730 in SLI driving 24" display.  12 Lbs 

If I were re-building I would be tempted to install Windows 7 beta from what I'm hearing...  64 bit dual boot.

-Shea


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## MikeBcos (Jan 22, 2009)

Ls3D said:


> XPS 1730 in SLI driving 24" display.  12 Lbs
> 
> If I were re-building I would be tempted to install Windows 7 beta from what I'm hearing...  64 bit dual boot.
> 
> -Shea



I'm running Windows 7 on one PC - it's nice!


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## frXnz kafka (Jan 23, 2009)

Holy Ghosted said:


> Personally I will never own another Dell they just never did hold up to being worked and their Customer support was very poor.


Dell's business CS is great, and their turn-around times are very fast. Home support may be different, I suppose.

I just recently upgraded from an old Dell Inspiron to a Macbook. The Dell served me very well for 4 years, but it just couldn't handle newer software. I don't think you'd be disappointed with a Dell Studio for photo editing and web browsing. If you plan on doing any gaming you'll want to look for something with a better GFX card.


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## KD5NRH (Jan 23, 2009)

Right now, it's an old Toshiba Satellite 2775: 650MHz, 196MB memory and a 120G hard drive.  With Debian or PuppyLinux I can actually get it to do a lot more than you might expect.  With Win98 I can get it to crawl along, and whine for the install disc a lot.

OTOH, I just bought a used 1.6GHz eMachines on eBay for $170, so I think this one's destined to become a portable terminal for the house once I get that one running the way I want it.


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## usayit (Jan 23, 2009)

I prefer to have both a laptop and desktop.  Spend the money on a desktop and just figure in a mid-to-low end laptop for on location preview, file management, and light editing.. basic stuff.  Place your funds on a well equipped desktop for your final edit, process, and archive.  More options for performance, more bang for the buck, storage, expandability, and (VERY IMPORTANT) a better display (video card and monitor).  Don't forget about backups.  

As for what O/S, either windows or mac will work.  Graphic applications are very memory bound.  You will want to max out memory before spending money on faster processors.

As for Dell, I cannot make up my mind about them.  I have friends and family that have had HORRIBLE experiences with them.  My mother-in-law is up to the point of threatening lawsuit and discontinuing contracts with them form a business standpoint ( IT for the company she works for falls under her responsibility).  On the other hand, I heard numerous people who swear by them. 

Oh well.. I'm an Apple user so it doesn't really matter to me.  I have a fully equipped PowerMac G5 at home and recently acquired an MSI netbook for portability.  If you have the funds, you can't go wrong with a MacBook Pro.  Just fill up on memory.

btw... I don't believe Celerons are RISC processors.


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## icassell (Jan 23, 2009)

I use a 15.4" Dell Latitude D830  - 2GB Ram and a 120GB drive (with a couple of outboard WD 500GB USB drives as necessary).  I use it for everything -- I don't have a desktop machine.  The monitor is the WUXGA+ (1920 X 1200) and is beautiful for a laptop. I recently got a dock for it and am now shopping for an outboard monitor -- It was a pain to plug in my outboard keyboard/trackball/graphics tablet every time I want to do some editing.

Ian


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## firefly72 (Jan 23, 2009)

I'll also go for Lenovo. Its performance is decent, and the price tag too. 
Only that I had to downgrade my OS from Vista to XP.


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## AdamBomb (Jan 24, 2009)

I have a buddy with a Dell Laptop, and Desktop, they are both fairly new. They have BOTH crapped out and Dell customer service isn't really being much help. He says their customer service is among the worst he's dealt with. He just bought a MacBook, and Couldn't be happier! 

My Girlfriend, sister, mom, and two close friends all bought MacBook's since they have seen mine in action. It is really a piece of art. Everything about OSX is beautiful, and works flawlessly. I have been on this MacBook for over year, and can the number of time is has frozen on one hand. It is VERY stable and has been problem free for me, and I would recommend it 1,000 times over, as well as any Apple product. There customer service is very pleasing as well.


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## SpeedTrap (Jan 24, 2009)

We are running all higher end HP's and we are very happy.
We custom build all of out PC's, but when it comes to the laptops I only use HP.  I like them and I have never had one fail.  I have had Dells fail several time and when I made the switch to HP I never looked back.


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## milavidal (Jan 25, 2009)

mac


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## mindy-lynn (Jan 25, 2009)

I have a Dell inspiron 1501, and I will never own a dell ever again. My desktop computer is an HP, and i've had it for several years and LOVE it. So i'm gonna say HP.


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## visualpoetry (Feb 18, 2009)

I use a Dell Inspiron and the first week I had it the mother board went and I had to send it back to have it fixed. Sucked. But since then it's been great.

I want a mac badly.


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## icassell (Feb 18, 2009)

I was never really happy with my Inspirion, but love my Dell Latitude 830


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## leaving0hio (Feb 18, 2009)

I use an old Inspiron 710m, and occasionally, a 15" macbook pro.


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## inTempus (Feb 18, 2009)

I run Mac's.  I converted to OSX about 3 years ago after they jumped to Intel processors (big bonus!).  Before that I was a Windows guy.  Vista was the last nail in the coffin of Windows machines for me though.  It's about as bad as Windows 3.0 was back in the 1990's.

I still run Windows, in a window.  When it bombs it just kills that virtual instance and if it becomes problematic, as only Windows can, I just roll it back to the last stable state.  I do a lot of testing (software QA) and that's why I'm constantly killing instances.  But I've learned over the years that Windows generally sucks.  The file system is archaic and the memory handling is crude at best.  Don't even get me started on Internet Explorer...

For most things, aside from the registry issues, Windows is fine for the average non-technical PC user.

For me, I'm content with Mac and OSX in its current state or until something better comes along.


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## blash (Feb 18, 2009)

usayit said:


> I prefer to have both a laptop and desktop.  Spend the money on a desktop and just figure in a mid-to-low end laptop for on location preview, file management, and light editing.. basic stuff.  Place your funds on a well equipped desktop for your final edit, process, and archive.  More options for performance, more bang for the buck, storage, expandability, and (VERY IMPORTANT) a better display (video card and monitor).  Don't forget about backups.
> 
> As for what O/S, either windows or mac will work.  Graphic applications are very memory bound.  You will want to max out memory before spending money on faster processors.
> 
> ...



In my opinion, this 100%. Desktops are much more powerful than laptops and also much more upgradeable, and you can get much better screens for photographic purposes.

If you had to stick with a laptop though, if my only concern was photography then I would go with a 17" MacBook Pro (over the 15 inch version) just because of the screen resolution. If Macs are out, then go with Lenovo.

You might want to consider a Tablet PC, where you can draw and do Photoshop work right on the screen. However the performance and hard drive space is usually pitiful, as is sometimes the screen itself for color accuracy.


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## Chairman7w (Feb 18, 2009)

I havce a new HP Pavillion DV7, and it's a beast.  Awesome, 17" screen, 6 gigs RAM, 500 gig hard drive, card slot, Core Duo 2...  it's a great laptop, I love it.


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## andrew99 (Feb 19, 2009)

How are the macbook's screens?  I haven't done much research on the Wintel laptop side yet, but the ones I've seen have had lousy LCD's .. if you change your angle of view, the brightness and colour seems to change, and they look a bit dark.  I think this would be a deal breaker if your primarily into photo editing.


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## inTempus (Feb 19, 2009)

The MacBook LCD screens are AMAZING.  Do you have an Apple store near you?  If so, you should swing in and check out their offerings.


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## Gomes (Feb 21, 2009)

HP dv4 - it does the trick and was pretty cheap. Only problem is a 2 hour battery.


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## GwagDesigns (Mar 2, 2009)

I prefer doing all photo editing and such on my desktop, which is more than capable. For on the go shooting, backing up photos and blogging, I have an Asus 1000HA, very cheap and does all I need it to. Netbooks are the way to go, I even set it up for tethered shooting.


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