Laptop specifications

AS an alternative: Get an iphone for web access when you are away from home and have a heap of SD cards for your camera. Saves lugging the laptop about. SD cards are cheap. And the iphone needs to be experienced!!
bb2

Be careful using the internet abroad. It cost one person
£41,000 to watch a TV program

shim

Buy a local PAYG sim card for internet access when abroad, thus avoiding the frightening bill

Update

well used my netbook at Glastonbury, edited a couple of days work in the camping field & actually managed to get a 3G signal, using a T Mobile sim card which was free from their website, topped up with £5 credit gave me 10 days free internet access. Worked a treat & no worries about an unexpected bill coming through the door.

battery life using standard battery was 3.5 hours I have a 12v laptop charger so put it in the boot of my car which has a cigar lighter socket & charged it up ready for the next day.

I shot over 50 gigabytes through the weekend so the netbook proved valuable in backing up the memory cards through the weekend.

Can't recommend it enough.

What make Netbook did you use please and how much memory did it have.

My daughter just got a Toshiba Qosmio F50-12W and from the little go I have been allowed its seems really good
4GB Ram, 320GB hard Drive,quality Nvidia graphics card,TV tuner,great screen and superb speakers.
Even has face recognition in place of a password if required

So much faster than my trusty Toshiba satellite and although still a bit pricey, she got 250 quid off on the Toshiba website with 2 years extra warranty for 50 quid

Worth a look if you want a fast and classy machine

Cheers
Rich

I don't know very much about this but was also thinking of buying a laptop or notebook for my pictures. However, a friend in IT told me to wait as there is a new USB system coming out later this year that will speed up downloading. I am afraid that is all I know. I am waiting to see what happens.

The speed of transfer of pictures is not excessive now and we manage quite well, but I can imagine that to the IT people the new standards will seem very exciting!

Prices are very good just now, so a look arounfd might be a good idea. In a few months things could be much more expensive, for all the same reasons that camera prices are increasing.

A faster USB port won't make any difference anyway as USB 2 is rated at 480Mbs and memory cards top out around 30Mbs.

There is a long way to go before memory card transfer speeds match even USB 2, so waiting for USB 3 does sound a bit pointless and not the best advice.

As a designer by trade (and hobby photographer) I see a fair amount of IT equipment, some good, some bad.

Last time I looked Jigsaw24 were still selling the older (non-solid aluminium case) 15inch Macbook Pro at heavily reduced prices. We bought exactly that machine last November, upgraded to 4Gb ram by Crucial (much cheaper than Apple RAM), has a matt screen and spare batteries can still be used.

It has an automatic motion sensor which will stop hard drive and lock the read heads if the laptop moves suddenly while in use (like in the field). This stops the hard drive being destroyed by the read head. All other specs make this a fine machine for field use and editing but with the following provisos:

1) Get Apple's 3 year extended warranty, they are very good at servicing and will even sometimes honour warranties just out of date if the fault is clearly a problem with the machine. Having said that, the extended warranty is valid worldwide and gives you pease of mind for 3 years.

2) The previous generation MBP uses an Nvidia graphics card which is prone to faults after a few months/couple of years. So the extended warranty is again a good idea.

3) I would never ever do serious image/graphics editing using a laptop screen. The colour gamut (and sometimes backlight brightness) just is not up to the job. I have a Lacie Photon20Vision monitor which I plug into the MBP when it's in the office - it's essential for colour correct work.

4) Calibrate your laptop and office monitors regularly. We invested in a GretagMacbeth EyeOne calibrator. It's paid for itself 10 times over since we bought it.


One other suggestion for people needing a laptop for field use in the rain/up mountains/in deserts: have a look at the Panasonic Toughbook range. They are not cheap and have less power than mainstream laptops but are weather proof and tough enough to drive a car over. That's beginning to sound like a cousin to the K10 and K20!

Not sure that's true. The dreaded Vista will slow many laptops to a crawl, as I know to my cost having purchased one recently.

My advice would be to go for quite a good one, with lots of RAM. Or upgrade to XP.

G

I agree with that George, but what I was really saying was that we don't have to spend a massive amount of money to do the job, albeit it maybe slower.

A basic laptop with PSE7 would be manageable for most people and would work.

Absolutely agree that XP is better than Vista.

I like it . Hopefully the new Windows 7 will allow us to forget Vista like we did the ME.

Mind you, a lot of laptops aimed at the consumer market are not XP compatible (i.e. you won't find XP drivers for them). On the other side, most business laptops can be delivered with XP. Check with your supplier.

Seriously, get as much RAM as possible. This is the best upgrade for any PC.

Definitely And OS X is better still (IMHO+experience of course )
Matt

I agree Matt.

My parents are both pensioners and last year had to dump their old Windows ME PC. They had a choice of a new PC with Vista, a new PC with Vista and upgrade to XP , or an Apple. As they were going to be learning a new OS from scratch I got them an iMac, OS X was easier for them to pick up that XP or Vista.

Not sure about Apple hardware quality now though. It looks great but the older stuff seemed much more reliable than their latest models.