Recommended Laptop Specs for Astronomy

[richardalan]

Hello! I am asking for help in selecting a new laptop suitable for all the astronomy apps I have. I have just received a hitecastro usb lead from FLO and successfully connected my HEQ5 Pro to my laptop, and guided successfully for the first time last night  ,  a giant leap for me lol, but this old slow laptop running Vista cannot cope with eqmod, Carte du Ciel and metaguide all at the same time, and after 10 minutes of guiding it crashed and that was the end of my fun.

I would be grateful if anyone could offer advice on what windows system (8 or 10) and ram size, dual / quad or amd processor, etc, before I go out and buy the wrong laptop!

Here are the programmes I will be using , untill I can afford Maxim DL   :Registax, Deep Sky stacker, GIMP, Autostakkert, Metaguide, Carte du Ciel, EQMod, EQAscom, Hitecastro usb to heq5 lead, PhD Guiding, Sharpcap and finally wxAstrocapture.

Thank you !

Rick

 

[Grotemobile]

http://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-GP72-2QE-Leopard-Pro-Notebook-Review.150724.0.html

This is the laptop I am running . It runs out to about £700. U need USB 3. This laptop

really kicks butt on imaging. Depends on what u want to pay.  Very pleased with it.  

My Laptop is the MSI GP70 2QE Leopard 17". Gives U some idea.

[Scott]

I'm using a laptop that must be around 10 yrs old if not more. It's as slow as a wet week but everything works. I removed vista and replaced it with w7 and running 0n 3gb ram.
I would never dream of using it for processing etc but its perfect for what it does. If I put it on ebay I might get a tenner for it . 

edit:- sorry, just checked and it's 4gb, not 3gb

[DarrenH]

Any modern laptop running:

 2ghz+ Intel i5 or i7 cpu

minimum 4gb memory (8gb is the sweet spot though)

IntelHD graphics is fine unless you play games

[richardalan]

Hi and thanks for the replies, its most helpful. Any ideas on the windows type, is 7 the best or will windows 10 run the astro apps I have? All the new laptops at pcworld are loaded with 10. Thanks again.. 

[ampleamp]

there have been a couple of win10 threads lately; like most things, some are complimentary, some not so.

My own experiences would say stick with Win7 if you can as it is robust and reliable and pretty much everything works with it. When i had my SW mounts, i had CdC, EQMOD, Maxim and ASCOM in the background, plus whatever else i might be looking at and no issues. Reliability is everything, especially on cold/damp nights so when you find something that works, you won't be in a hurry to change ;-) and make sure you control when updates happen!

[richardalan]

Thanks ampleamp i will lookout for win7 and with specs that everyone has recommended Cheers guys.

[Grotemobile]

I think U can still buy new laptops with Win 7 pro.

2 minutes ago, richardalan said:

Thanks ampleamp i will lookout for win7 and with specs that everyone has recommended Cheers guys.

 

[richardalan]

Oh great thanks Steve, I only found win 10 laptops at pcworld, but I will have another look around. There are some decent refurbished laptops around as well which I might consider. Thanks

[Grotemobile]

I got my lappie on Amazon. Dell sell referb lappies. Have a look on there site Rick.

@ least it will come with a warranty.  

[DarrenH]

what's your budget?

You probably won't find win7 machines for sell in large chain shops these days. Microsoft are really pushing Win10 now. If you don't like Win10 you can always wipe the drive and install Win7.

[Grotemobile]

3 hours ago, DarrenH said:

what's your budget?

You probably won't find win7 machines for sell in large chain shops these days. Microsoft are really pushing Win10 now. If you don't like Win10 you can always wipe the drive and install Win7.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-Home-Premium-English/dp/B00H09BB16/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1462112841&sr=8-5&keywords=windows-7

The trouble is, it adds the price of the disc, on to the laptop.

[DarrenH]

Try Windows 10 before you write it off completely. They learnt from their mistakes (windows 8), so it should be more desktop friendly again. 

[Grotemobile]

That is what I am using on this laptop. It came with Win 8.1, which was a dog.

Works very now on Win 10 , now  the bugs have been ironed out. Recommended .

[richardalan]

12 hours ago, Grotemobile said:

I got my lappie on Amazon. Dell sell referb lappies. Have a look on there site Rick.

@ least it will come with a warranty.  

Ok great idea, I will have a look now Cheers Steve!

[richardalan]

11 hours ago, DarrenH said:

what's your budget?

You probably won't find win7 machines for sell in large chain shops these days. Microsoft are really pushing Win10 now. If you don't like Win10 you can always wipe the drive and install Win7.

I was hoping to get something decent with £250? I have seen some fine ones for £340 ish though, which would do the trick! 

[richardalan]

7 hours ago, Grotemobile said:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-Home-Premium-English/dp/B00H09BB16/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1462112841&sr=8-5&keywords=windows-7

The trouble is, it adds the price of the disc, on to the laptop.

Ta for that Steve, my mate runs win 7 and he says its fine. But win10 doesnt sound too bad now. ?!

[VSOP]

I7 CPU, 16GB RAM and as much hard disk as you can afford. A reasonably large screen is also recommended.

[DarrenH]

£250 will be a struggle tbh. £350-500 is your bargain range prices generally.