New laptop

[jambouk]

Does anyone have any laptop recommendations? I don't do gaming, just bog standard Microsoft Office work, internet, email, and currently very simplistic photo editing, though I might look do something more adcvanced during the life time of this laptop. I also want to use it to do some web-cam imaging out in the field, so away from mains power (though I do have a car battery power pack thing from Halfords which has a plug socket on it).

Ideally I want a matt screen too, as I can't stand those reflective screens.

Budget: I was hoping under £800 but with some overtime I'm doing I could spend more if it was going to make me really happy.

Thanks for any replies

James

[Woking]

The Acer range are worth a look at, as they are cheaper than the main brands when comparing the all imprtant specs (RAM, processor, and hard drive).

Not as flashy in terms of the build but the one I've got still has a decent webcam and screen.

[jambouk]

I should add, I also want a massive hard drive, 1TB or bigger so I can store pictures on it.

James

[Carbon Brush]

Hi James.

For what you want to do, absolutely anything (cheapest) sounds more than adequate.

They all have a couple of USB ports at least. That is all the connection you need.

You can plug in a USB/serial adapter to talk to mounts, etc.

Webcams, DSLR, etc usually talk directly on a USB port.

For the hard drive. Consider buying an external drive unless you really need the 1TB in the laptop. That will free up your laptop choice. Also your data can stay at home, safe and secure (subject to backup).

If it is just long term photo storage, think about memory sticks. price of these is falling.

For use in the dark, take a look at the red filter stuff from FLO.

http://www.firstligh...op-screens.html

I use a sheet on my obsy monitor. Great stuff.

Hope something in there is useful.

[66mikeg]

I'd go for an external portable hard drive that gets power through the usb connection a 1TB one costs around £70 and keeps all your images safely at home. Any basic laptop will do what you require Acer or HP for well under £500 and has enough disk space for image capture and processing, store the finished images on the portable.

[Astrosurf]

Just a word of warning about external drives. Have two, one as a backup, in case one fails. I forgot to ensure the device could be removed safely using the Safely Remove Hardware icon and it got corrupted. I lost all of my files but fortunately had a backup. Never trust IT!

[jambouk]

I was thinking of using an external drive as backup, but at the same time still fancied / wanted all my pictures on my laptop so they were always there should I want them.

James

[Carbon Brush]

There is another way.

You can buy a box that contains a big hard drive (or two) and sits on a network.

Setup a wireless network at home and whenever you are within range, so are your photos.

Here is an example of the sort of thing.

http://www.ebuyer.co...re-dns-320-2tbr

I'm not saying it is best/cheapest/fasted/whatever. It is just the first I found on the web.

And you thought scope choice was difficult.....

[beamish]

Think about what you will need ,

USB 3 ??? etc as for back up use cloud based back-up or Seagate barracuda 1Tb HDD plus ext case would do the trick. £800 is an awful lot of money and frankly you could get bits to make up what you far cheaper -ever thought of Morgans computers refurbished-some absolutely stonking deals to be had there. SSD HDD's are now dropping in price like a lead balloon 120Gb internal 2.5" for under £60 !!!

I got my Lenovo from Morgans BTW and it's built like a brick S**T house with magnesium chassis, none of this plastic rubbish performs like a demon. Bottom line is you simply do not have to have a SOTA laptop unless you're planning on doing some very specialised work Brand new £400 tops and you'll be laffing

[jambouk]

Thanks all. I rally do want it to have a big internal drive. I need it to have the files on when I am away from my home wireless network.

I'm struggling to find many with matte screens too.

I think battery life is also a major factor for me. My current laptop copes fr 15 minutes without being plugged in, despite a new battery under 6 months ago. It crashes too when I run Picasa as it's a bit dated even though I re-installed Vista recently after a total re-format.

I know £800 is a lot, and I'd like to spend less, but I want it to last 4-5 years as don't want to run out of umpf in a year or two.

James

[66mikeg]

Saying goodbye to Vista will be a bonus

[Arushin]

Saying goodbye to Vista will be a bonus

I agree with this completely.

Vista seems to be Windows 7 WITH the bugs & problems. I put windows XP back on my 6 year old laptop with 2Gb memory and it ran like a dream for imaging both with DSLR & Webcam. Afterwards I upgraded to Windows 7 and this also runs with no problems.

Everyone I know that has Vista seems to have some kind of trouble with thier machine, be it a desktop or laptop.

You should find that a half decent laptop with a lower end spec will suit your purposes for capture. The only problem I find is that I can't use the laptop for stacking in DSS as it takes just too long. My home Desktop has 1gb graphics and 8gb Ram with a quad core processor so handles all that kind of stuff without a problem.

If it is just for capture there are some cracking laptop deals from most retailers at the moment. Acer, Advent & Asus all have good deals with 2-gb memory which will handle your captures. With an £800 budget you could spend say £299.00 (probably less) on the laptop and around £100-120 on a 2TB external HDD.

Like you have said, the hard part is finding one without a glossy screen, which seems to be thought of as old technology now. When my screen broke it came back from repair with a glossy one, but to be fair it hasn't caused any issues with reflection or glare at night. Easy enough to put an anti glare film over it if you have to.

[scuffer]

I recently got my lad a laptop for uni , i didnt get it from dell but i'm sure If you buy from their website you can specify the size of the drive. I got an i5 CPU , 6gb ram , 750gb hd , with a dedicated graphics card , from comet, its a Sony and was about £580 , it'll do owt you want to do and hopefully it will last 4 years , got usb3 as well