Which one would you choose?

It can be very off-putting for those starting out to receive a bewildering barrage of advice, and also to come away with the idea that digital photography is going to be an endless and expensive upgrade path.

The point I was making about not needing the latest, best, most powerful is to reassure those beginners that whatever off-the-shelf laptop or desktop they get from the High Street will operate Photoshop perfectly well. If possible a better screen will be more relevant, and they can see that for themselves in the shop.

We know that those who want better than that are free to buy it as they wish, as are those with specific requirements. But they do have the advantage of already knowing what they need and what they are doing.

excellent post.
like asking what truck to buy, buying an 18 wheeler, cause everybody said it was best, then realizing your business required a simple van....

Quite, John. I recently bought a reconditioned desktop package for about 200.00.... Dell Optiplex GX620 USFF/P4 2.8Ghz/2GB/40GB/DVD/Win XP/17" Dell Monitor. I can't imagine there is much it can't handle. Playing with Corel VideoStudio, I think it will handle editing 720p AVI files. (But we'll see!)

I upgraded from a 1.7Ghz/512BG laptop, which in itself could handle most tasks including photoshop adequately, with a little patience

I've never said you need a high end machine, I've only defended the usefulness of a decent GPU with the current and upcoming generation of software.
The GPU has the potential to be the most important component for graphical artist together with RAM.

I do agree the machines I choose are over-specd for normal photoshop but I don't use the PC for just that and the problem with the laptop is that only the higher end ones have a decent screen.
The only ones that have a good screen are the Macbook pro, Dell Studio and the HP Envy 14.

My mate Andy (the bird expert) asked me tonight for advice about buying a laptop for his son -- a talented artist who photographs his work with a compact camera. He wants a laptop to store his photos and send e-mails.

There was talk of hard-disc space, processor speed and brand reliability. Someone had told his son it was all about processor speed.

The best advice I could offer was to shop around for the best deal, try to get as much RAM as possible and forget the rest. Unless you're into post processing in a big way (I use an easily upgradable PC for my serious work), any laptop on the market will do the job. The only deciding factor that I can see is the screen, and this can be judged only by looking at it in a store.

Computers can be interesting tools and magazines are full of mind-numbingly rigorous comparisons to help you choose. I've come to the conclusion, though, that I've never taken a photograph that would have been better with a more complex camera or found an issue with my software (DTP, spreadsheets, WP or photo-editing) that would have been addressed by a "better computer". Simplistically, women love shoes, men love technology.

Al

Thank you Al.
I still don't know what to do.
I don't know who said it but it's far cheaper to make a power PC and to keep it up to date, for €500 I can make a pc that preform better than €1600 laptops
Maybe I should go for a simpler laptop that can run lightroom smoothly so that I can manage and do the basic editing when I'm not home and use the power of the PC for photoshop for the more advance editing.

The only problem is find a laptop with a good screen, good enough CPU (RAM is easy to upgrade) good battery life and at a friendly price.

John also said that but all the screens at the shop are mostly set to bright and it's hard to judge the colourspace. You can see how the black levels are and the contrast but I find it really hard to judge which is the better one though sometimes in the store.