tower or laptop?

Desktop every time. I can't stand looking down on a laptop screen. I've got a Toshiba laptop that I hardly ever use, unless I have to do something away from the desktop.

Desktop keyboards are unbelievably poor, so it's worth buying a good one separately. About the best keyboard I've ever come across is the
Cherry G84-4100 Compact Keyboard only 11" wide and with real switches on the keys instead of the usual membrane.... really fast to use and portable. I wish it would beep though when the CAPS lock is on They've moved the DEL key to the bottom line which is a lot better, because it gets used a lot. Cream is better than black if your eyesight is as bad as mine

I bought 2 off ebay for about £20 each, they still turn up at that price from time to time, most of the regulars sell for £45 - £60 BIN. They obviously sell well at those prices because they are so good.

This is just an example

It's not supposed to have any gold in it anymore either.

I would vote for a tower too. In fact I did a few months ago.

Definitely desktop.

For viewing and editing photos, it doesn't have to be top-spec, in my opinion. I got this unit from compu-zone.co.uk and I am delighted with it for editing photos, and it's good for editing 720p video too. Windows XP is fine for me, I don't need 'bling' Windows 7

Definitely desktop. Recently upgraded ours. Intel i5/750 quad core with6GB RAM, windows 7/64 bit. Runs Lightroom 3 impressively fast, especially with those big stitched panos I'm getting into.

Sadly no drivers available for our loved but venerable Epson 3200 scanner, so we've had to keep the old XP desktop for scans.

Paul

We're just upgrading our big Mäc at work to 24GB; it's an 8 core monster with only 1TB of disk and a 27" 2560x1440 screen.

There is no such thing as too much memory.

Set a budget and work towards it. Go i7 if you can; at least 8GB of RAM and 2TB of disk. The 27 IPS monitor we just got for the dual Xeon workstation at work is the same resolution as above and it was close to €700. You can get them in the €300 range if full HD is good enough.

Memory will make more difference in the short term than pure processing power. Don't worry too much about using an SSD for boot / OS as it won't help that much when dealing with photos or video. RAID 1 with a couple of disks would be good, but then you need to make sure you move stuff off it regularly, as RAID1 increases the likelihood of disk failure significantly. It's probably worth it for the speed increase, mind you, and you need to back up anyway.

Bret

As others have said a dual core system is more than adequate for running Windows 7 and the applications you need, but the price difference between that and something better is negligible and simply not an area worth saving on.

Far more important as regards future proofing is the choice of ‘platform’. That is the circuitry around the processor in general and specifically the shape of the mount that holds it, which determines your ability to upgrade in future.

Both Intel and AMD offer two main consumer type platforms. In terms of pure performance Intel is the leader, however, they are bringing out a new generation of cpus early next year that will not be compatible with the existing - socket 1156 - platform.

Likely for marketing reasons AMD appear to be more loyal to their platforms and are in my opinion currently unbeatable in terms of price/performance, with their AM3 platform/socket.

The AM3 processor line-up has various models with different features where the key trade-off is performance/power consumption, with lower power consumption (measured in TDW) at a premium. I wouldn’t look at anything with less than 3 cores and - depending on how many people in your household might need computer power combined with your appetite for virtualisation - up to 6 cores.

You need to pair the cpu with a motherboard - either Asus of Gigabyte are the safest bets - and suitable DDR 3 ram; 4gb is likely ample for your needs but if you see others using the computer 2x4=8gb is a better choice so you have added flexibility for future upgrades. And a motherboard that supports Raid with at least 5 SATA ports is also a good idea, and the biggest case possible with lots of room for further hard disks.

That's right, the lizard men space aliens masquerading as bankers have taken it all back to Planet X.

Bwaaaaahhahaahhaha.

I installed an XP partition on my new C0re i7 as well as 32bit and 64bit Windows 7 partitions. Saves using the old machine for stuff not compatible with Win7

ROFL

I'm with Barrie on this one!...Mine crashed after 8 years of use,I just went to my local computer shop in Hexham.He asked me what I used it for,I told him ,and he built me one!......3 days and it was ready.The good thing was he downloaded everything off the old one onto the new!....If I have any problems it's just a short trip into town to get it fixed!.....

Thanks for all the help. I am off back to the local shop that made this current machine to see what they can offer to build. At least my knowledge is a little more up to date thanks to all the posts

There’s one more important factor that you should consider to maximise the longevity of your new computer; the SATA ports for connecting disk drives should be of the SATA 3 (/III) variety (fully backwards compatible).

Hard disk performance is undoubtedly the key system performance bottleneck and although there is little on the market that challenges the throughput capacity of the current SATA II standard this will change in the next few years.

For that reason it is in my opinion also worth looking for a motherboard that provides native support for the new USB 3 standard; just a couple of ports are needed to support the faster external drives that are already appearing on the market.

In practice these factors further skew the platform choice in favour of AMD, specifically a motherboard with the 890 series chipset (with or without onboard graphics).

Good luck with your shopping!

I use a 'Desktop' in the office, a Laptop for around the house and a NetBook on location.
The Desktop is for editing with an i7 processor 12GB RAM and 10TB in storage (RAID 6) with a 128SSD drive for OS (dual boot 1/Win 7 - 64Bit & 2/Win XP Pro - 64Bit).
Laptop is a 'cheap' one for surfing and writing letters etc around the house.
NetBook is used for extra storage on location, as GPS (with MS AutoRoute 2010 GPS) and for surfing. The great bit on the NetBook is that it is much smaller then the Laptop, far lighter, fits in my backpack with the camera and with an 11h battery life it will last me all day.
The Desktop is self build and can be upgraded at any time and I use this with a BenQ G2420 24" LCD monitor.
The Laptop got a 15" LCD Screen but battery life is only 2-3h max, depending on the use.
The NetBook is a 10" screen with a 160GB HDD which I will change to a 250GB+ SSD drive once they become more affordable in price but it does for me at the moment and I got a 1TB USB External HDD for this as well for the extra storage when I am away for a few days. More cost effective then extra 32GB SDHD Class 10 cards.

The thing is you have to decide for yourself what works best for YOU! There are great Laptops and you can connect a large monitor to them if you like but you would pay about double for one of them then for an equally good desktop and you are very restricted with the upgrades.
A laptop is good for taking with you but I find the battery is to short life still (about 5h with very modern ones) hence for me the option of the NetBook which you can pick up by now for next to nothing as the 'Tablet' hype is going on.

ok back on line with new machine

Thanks for all you help

I got the engineer installing the machine to load PSE 9 and restore my catalogue. The workshop guys had just copied the photo folders across!That might have given me the big job of recreating albums/tags etc.

Dave

Try downloading a copy of VueScan from www.hamrick.com it supports most scanners and will blow the socks off the Epson scanning software!