Spec for Laptop

[David Smith]

I'm looking for some guidance as to minimum spec for a laptop. I'm probably looking at a second hand one but if I can stretch to it I would prefer to go for a new one as I have had a few second hand ones that have not lasted very long. Budget is still being calculated and to some extent the responses to this thread will guide me - I hope!

The tasks I need this machine to complete are as follows:-

APT / BYEOS or similar - for capture with my DSLR

PIPP - for processing of raw files

GIMP - for post processing

AS2 / Registax and possibly others in the future - as above

CdC (Skycharts) / Stellarium

I am probably looking for Windows 7 but not afraid of 8 (so long as it will run the stuff I need) and I will almost certainly end up dual booting with some flavour of Linux as this is what I use currently and much of the above will run in Linux anyway. I consider myself pretty savvy with desktop machines and have a reasonably efficient / quick machine but I cannot use this at the scope.

I'm finding it very difficult to judge what breed of processor to go for and also have very little idea of how much memory I will need on a Windows machine. I'm thinking at least 2GB of memory as this would be plenty for Linux but is this too little for Windows? I can check the system requirements for Windows but these are usually horribly optimistic specs.

Any guidance would be much appreciated as I find myself looking at specs and really not having a clue!

Thanks

[AlexB67]

I don't know much about the apps and what memory the eat up, best for others to comment, but typically 2 GB for Windows 7 or more and it runs just fine an smoothly in my experience, and leave enough for most every day common apps. Beyond that you need to factor in how much memory the apps eat up on top. I would think, mostly if they are still 32 bit apps, 4Gb would be plenty, and probably overkill, unless they are large address aware or 64 bit apps, they will not go above the traditional 2.5Gb or so anyway, no that they would eat that up anyway.

IMO for your windows concerns anyway, I would not worry too much. It is a bit of a myth these days that Linux is so much faster when you run a windows manager on top of linux. I run a dual boot Linux with KDE desktop and windows 7 in dual boot configuration. Windows performs just as well, largely due to the GPU drivers for the graphics card being better optimised for windows. The latest desktops in Linux can be pretty resource hungry too, using Qt/OpenGL and so on, as KDE does for example, just as windows uses DirectX for the desktop, both Gnome KDE are pretty resource hungry.

Unless you run one of the older cut down X window managers of course, like XFCE perhaps, you can free up quite a bit, But if you plan to run a laptop with Gnome or KDE with all its features anyway, windows will run fine on it too.

I even run KDE with the proprietary ATI driver btw as the open source driver I certainly notice slower performance in KDE and openGL apps, not only that, the hardware acceleration performance lags behind by about a factor of 5 in 3D performance on AMD cards with the open source AMD drivers, and the graphics card runs about 20 degrees hotter with them too and that is with the GPU fan spinning about twice as hard . I would add that it is not uncommon to hear about overheating issues in laptops with the some of the latest linux desktops using the open source graphics drivers, something to be aware of and a reminder that it is useful to use the proprietary drivers for NVidia / Intel or AMD, whatever you onboard graphics chip your laptop will turn out to have, that helps a lot with the temperatures and improved hardware acceleration.

I should add that I do run KDE with all the bells and whistles turned on, it looks nice and pretty indeed, nicer than windows IMO and arguably as nice as a MAC these days in appearance, but I would not call it lite anymore, as it used to be in the old days of older Motif X windows clones

[AlexB67]

I should have add if you install something like Ubuntu you'll probably get those proprietary drivers included anyway on installation. I run Fedora which by default only uses Open source drivers, but the proprietary drivers can be made to run on Fedora with a bit of extra effort.

[johnno]

Hi David, this can be a hard one as everyone has their on preference's. I'll tell you what I use and its about 14 months old, and has you know things seem to move on pretty quick in the computer world so there will be a lot of higher spec machines out there, but this does everything I need and its pretty quick, you can always look at different configurations.

Intel core i5-2430 cpu @ 2.40ghz auto overclock to 2.8-2.9 when needed. Its a twin core with 4 logic cores. Some of theses ''i'' series of chips have built in graphics and I opted for a 2gb graphics card instead .I have it set on eco mode when on batteries @ about 1 ghz and it still runs fine but a bit slower.

6.00 GB of ram...but you could opt for 4...... 650 gig hd...2 usb2 and 1 usb3 port, hdmi port...wireless...Bluetooth....Lan....vga port... cd writer /blu ray .

The only thing I don't like about it is the screen. One of those shiny ones and the glare is terrible in daylight if the sun catches it..

It set be back £449 back then so no doubt this sort of spec could be cheaper now..

you could go for i3 series with built in hd graphics and maybe 4 gig of ram, but ram is quite cheap nowadays.. hope some of this will help..John

[Bizibilder]

You don't need huge performance for Astro work so you can get something without all the "bells and whistles" if you wish. I would certainly go for Win7 as almost all astro software seems to run on it - Win8 is a pain at the best of times (we have to suffer it at work on a few machines) and not all astro programs/drivers will run on it. One thing to look for is a machine with lots of USB ports!! Some are very lacking in this department.

Try taking a look at these folk: http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/default.asp as they seem to have sensible kit at reasonable prices - both new and second hand, which is often little used or even unused! (usual disclaimer).

[LukeSkywatcher]

I've just bought an Acer Aspire E1-571:

Intel core i5 processor (2.6-3.2 GHz)

Intel HD graphics 4000

4GB RAM

750 GB HDD

3 USB ports,HDMI,Ethernet.

6 cell Li-ion battery (about 6 hrs use)

It is lightning fast. It has no problem running Gimp or Stellarium. It also runs Windows 8 which i am really starting to enjoy.

[Gib007]

I'll be honest here, I do all my pre-processing and capture on a netbook - Acer Aspire One D270. I bought it, formatted it, installed 2GB of RAM (replaced the 1GB it came with), installed a 64GB SSD and then installed Windows 7 Ultimate on there. The netbook has about 9 hours battery life as standard (with brightness turned all the way down and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth turned off) and I have a larger capacitor 15 hour battery with me as well. On an imaging session, I run PHD Guiding, Nebulosity, EQMod and Stellarium all at once. At times I also have Alignmaster going. If I do planetary imaging, I have Backyard EOS running there instead of Nebulosity. Overall, no performance problems, no battery problems and best of all, very cheap, very lightweight and very effective. All my post-processing is done the next day on my powerful desktop though, so if you want to do the post-processing on the same laptop, then you'd obviously benefit from both a larger screen and a more powerful laptop overall.

[JamesF]

I do all my capture and processing with a laptop using a Core i3 mobile processor and 3GB RAM. You don't need anything bleeding edge, so as Roger says, Morgans are definitely worth a look.

James

[endure]

Don't forget that if you get a 32 bit edition of Windows it cannot address more than 4GB (actually about 3.5 in reality) of memory.