Laptop Advise

[adamw]

I am not sure if this is the correct forum for this. I am planning on buying a new laptop which will be eventually be used for all my astro imaging and pressing requirements, i am a complete novice when it comes to astrophotography, although I do now have an SPC900 and my wifes canon eos450d. Is there anything i should be avioding ie windows 8, 64 bit etc ? I seem to remember reading something about problems with windows 8.

Adam

[nephilim]

I'd go for windows 7, i use a 4yr old Acer running windows vista for all my astro stuff & that works fine.

Steve

[keithatrochdale]

Another vote for WIN 7, if you can go for the 64 bit it may help future proof a little; I too use an Acer and have 2 older Toshiba laptops too.

Make sure you get USB3 and gigabite LAN; of course max memory that the laptop will take.

[The Sailor]

I use a steam driven Vista machine doing all my astro work and attach the Canon 450D and SPC900 and loads more without a problem

Jim

[JamesF]

I use a 64-bit Win7 Acer i3-370 which works pretty well for me.

The biggest irritation I've found is that I've not been able to track down any calibration files for the display, so what I see on the screen after processing is not quite the same colour as produced when I view the same image on my desktop.

James

[Bizibilder]

Another vote for Win 7 (64bit in my case). All my Astro software works on it (I havn't found anything that doesn't yet). You should get a bargain if you look for "preloaded" stock as most of the big distributors have gone over to windows 8 and the old Win 7 stock is getting sold off pretty cheaply.

[nightfisher]

Another vote for win 7 64 bit, i have it on my main lappy and my little netbook

[Mcgregoraa]

Check the requirements of the imaging software you intend to use , but would agree with the above, go windows 7 64bit as its more tried & tested, you will probably be able to upgrade to windows 8 later anyway pretty cheaply (currently only £14.99) , i5 processors are pretty cheap these days too...

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[Robny]

All of the above,

But...if you also plan to do a lot of post production on it with large raw files using PS for example, also consider your RAM.

[adamw]

Thanks for the advise everyone. I think i will order the one below

http://www.tesco.com/direct/toshiba-l750d-14e-laptop-amd-a6-6gb-640gb-156-display/215-8230.prd?pageLevel=&skuId=215-8230

[Robny]

You wont go wrong with that, should what you want it to and then some

[SteveRob]

Hi Adam,

I bought a Samsung RV520 i3 laptop running Windows 7 64 bit in the period were you could upgrade to W8 Pro for £14.99, I think the promo ends this month, if you get a W7 laptop before then you could do a dual boot, which I have done, some will say you can't do it, a search on the net proves you can.

Hope that helps

Steve

[SteveRob]

Hi Adam.

Just noticed you have ordered the Toshiba, I can recommend them, I've had a couple in the past, very reliable as laptops go, usually in the top 3 reliability wise of all the makes.

Steve

[Jcousins]

Windows 7 64bit is the best option with any dual core laptop with at least 4gb hard drive. I got windows 8 but i find it a complete pain!! The metro interface just gets annoying plus there are other quirks that windows 7 does not have.

This seems a good deal at ebuyer.com http://www.ebuyer.com/398053-acer-aspire-v5-thin-and-light-nx-m2cek-003 £229 after cashback!

James

[SteveRob]

Hi James,

It seems the cpu is not very good - going by some of the reviews. I agree W8 is a bit of a pain, I hope it gets better the more I use it, at least I can default back to W7 were I know everything will work as I expect it to.

Steve

[kirkster501]

I am using a second hand Dell 630 dual core 2 duo, 4 gig ram under XP. 4 USB ports and you can pick these up refurbished on the bay with a guarantee for £130. Absolutely brilliant, built like a tank and aluminium chassis, not bendy plastic.

Highly recommended.

Steve

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