Seeking recommendation for Laptop (Windows) suitable for photography

Am retiring the old ThinkPad and looking for a replacement.

The new PC laptop should be fast enough to run Lightroom v4. And the
display should be suitable for photography -- wide screen NOT
preferred but may be OK as long as it has approx 1050 pixels or more
vertically. (The old display was 1400x1050).

It would be nice if the new computer was not too heavy, not too
expensive, decent battery life, big HD, etc... but the most important
requirements seems to me are speed for the software, and the display.

Wally

In article , Wally
wrote:

Am retiring the old ThinkPad and looking for a replacement.

The new PC laptop should be fast enough to run Lightroom v4. And the
display should be suitable for photography -- wide screen NOT
preferred but may be OK as long as it has approx 1050 pixels or more
vertically. (The old display was 1400x1050).

It would be nice if the new computer was not too heavy, not too
expensive, decent battery life, big HD, etc... but the most important
requirements seems to me are speed for the software, and the display.

for the best display, it's the macbook pro with retina display. the
pixel density is higher than what your eye can resolve, so you won't be
able to see any jaggies, at all.

for less money, there's the normal macbook pro, and for less weight,
the macbook air.

lightroom will run extremely well on any of them.

battery life can be as much as 10 hours on a single charge, depending
on which model and what you do. hard drive is however big you want. you
can always swap in a larger drive later.

i'd also wait a week or so, as there are rumours of some new models
coming soon.

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:48:22 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Wally
wrote:

Am retiring the old ThinkPad and looking for a replacement.

The new PC laptop should be fast enough to run Lightroom v4. And the
display should be suitable for photography -- wide screen NOT
preferred but may be OK as long as it has approx 1050 pixels or more
vertically. (The old display was 1400x1050).

It would be nice if the new computer was not too heavy, not too
expensive, decent battery life, big HD, etc... but the most important
requirements seems to me are speed for the software, and the display.

for the best display, it's the macbook pro with retina display. the
pixel density is higher than what your eye can resolve, so you won't be
able to see any jaggies, at all.

for less money, there's the normal macbook pro, and for less weight,
the macbook air.

lightroom will run extremely well on any of them.

battery life can be as much as 10 hours on a single charge, depending
on which model and what you do. hard drive is however big you want. you
can always swap in a larger drive later.

i'd also wait a week or so, as there are rumours of some new models
coming soon.

That's the second recommendation for the Retina.

I thought you had to have religion to buy a Mac.

But I have to admit the display looks amazing. It's expensive but not
totally out of reach.

Browsing a bit on the web reveals there are Retina issues with
software support and some other things. Will keep an eye on this...

Wally

On 9/10/2012 9:18 a.m., Wally wrote:
On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:48:22 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Wally
wrote:

Am retiring the old ThinkPad and looking for a replacement.

The new PC laptop should be fast enough to run Lightroom v4. And the
display should be suitable for photography -- wide screen NOT
preferred but may be OK as long as it has approx 1050 pixels or more
vertically. (The old display was 1400x1050).

It would be nice if the new computer was not too heavy, not too
expensive, decent battery life, big HD, etc... but the most important
requirements seems to me are speed for the software, and the display.

for the best display, it's the macbook pro with retina display. the
pixel density is higher than what your eye can resolve, so you won't be
able to see any jaggies, at all.

for less money, there's the normal macbook pro, and for less weight,
the macbook air.

lightroom will run extremely well on any of them.

battery life can be as much as 10 hours on a single charge, depending
on which model and what you do. hard drive is however big you want. you
can always swap in a larger drive later.

i'd also wait a week or so, as there are rumours of some new models
coming soon.

That's the second recommendation for the Retina.

I thought you had to have religion to buy a Mac.

But I have to admit the display looks amazing. It's expensive but not
totally out of reach.

Browsing a bit on the web reveals there are Retina issues with
software support and some other things. Will keep an eye on this...

Wally

Anandtech:
http://www.anandtech.com/
Might be a useful site, at least for weeding out possible contenders.
At least some of their reviews will identify laptops with IPS display
panels, and provide some performance measurements for those panels.

There were issues with getting MBP retina displays calibrated properly
with available colorimeter hardware/software, I don't know if that's
been sorted.
Calibration is going to be a bit hit and miss anyway, as backlight
brightness on most latops varies with power (saving) settings etc, and
ambient light is going to vary depending on where you're using it.

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:18:34 -0600, Wally wrote:

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:48:22 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Wally
wrote:

Am retiring the old ThinkPad and looking for a replacement.

The new PC laptop should be fast enough to run Lightroom v4. And the
display should be suitable for photography -- wide screen NOT
preferred but may be OK as long as it has approx 1050 pixels or more
vertically. (The old display was 1400x1050).

It would be nice if the new computer was not too heavy, not too
expensive, decent battery life, big HD, etc... but the most important
requirements seems to me are speed for the software, and the display.

for the best display, it's the macbook pro with retina display. the
pixel density is higher than what your eye can resolve, so you won't be
able to see any jaggies, at all.

for less money, there's the normal macbook pro, and for less weight, the
macbook air.

lightroom will run extremely well on any of them.

battery life can be as much as 10 hours on a single charge, depending on
which model and what you do. hard drive is however big you want. you can
always swap in a larger drive later.

i'd also wait a week or so, as there are rumours of some new models
coming soon.

That's the second recommendation for the Retina.

I thought you had to have religion to buy a Mac.

But I have to admit the display looks amazing. It's expensive but not
totally out of reach.

Browsing a bit on the web reveals there are Retina issues with software
support and some other things. Will keep an eye on this...

Wally

A knowledgeable tech should be able to install MS on it for you if that's
what you really want.

In article , Wally
wrote:

Am retiring the old ThinkPad and looking for a replacement.

The new PC laptop should be fast enough to run Lightroom v4. And the
display should be suitable for photography -- wide screen NOT
preferred but may be OK as long as it has approx 1050 pixels or more
vertically. (The old display was 1400x1050).

It would be nice if the new computer was not too heavy, not too
expensive, decent battery life, big HD, etc... but the most important
requirements seems to me are speed for the software, and the display.

for the best display, it's the macbook pro with retina display. the
pixel density is higher than what your eye can resolve, so you won't be
able to see any jaggies, at all.

for less money, there's the normal macbook pro, and for less weight,
the macbook air.

lightroom will run extremely well on any of them.

battery life can be as much as 10 hours on a single charge, depending
on which model and what you do. hard drive is however big you want. you
can always swap in a larger drive later.

i'd also wait a week or so, as there are rumours of some new models
coming soon.

That's the second recommendation for the Retina.

I thought you had to have religion to buy a Mac.

no.

But I have to admit the display looks amazing. It's expensive but not
totally out of reach.

you don't have to get the retina model. the non-retina models are also
good, just not as good. basically, you get what you pay for.

Browsing a bit on the web reveals there are Retina issues with
software support and some other things. Will keep an eye on this...

there are two manufacturers of the retina panel itself and one of them
seems to have more image persistence than normal. in actual use you
probably won't notice it. as for software support, not all apps fully
support the retina display, but that's quickly changing. those that
don't look like they would on a non-retina display unless they do
something stupid internally about how they render.

it looks like apple will be moving to retina displays across all
products, although that will take time for the larger desktop displays.
pc makers will soon follow.

In article , Me
wrote:

There were issues with getting MBP retina displays calibrated properly
with available colorimeter hardware/software, I don't know if that's
been sorted.

minor ones, no different than any other new product.

keep in mind the retina display is srgb, whereas other laptops are not.

Calibration is going to be a bit hit and miss anyway, as backlight
brightness on most latops varies with power (saving) settings etc,

which can be disabled.

and
ambient light is going to vary depending on where you're using it.

same as any other system.

In article , tony cooper
wrote:

That's the second recommendation for the Retina.

I thought you had to have religion to buy a Mac.

But I have to admit the display looks amazing. It's expensive

Damn. I can hear nospam's keyboard clattering from here.

can you, now.

On 10/8/2012 4:18 PM, Wally wrote:
On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:48:22 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Wally
wrote:

Am retiring the old ThinkPad and looking for a replacement.

The new PC laptop should be fast enough to run Lightroom v4. And the
display should be suitable for photography -- wide screen NOT
preferred but may be OK as long as it has approx 1050 pixels or more
vertically. (The old display was 1400x1050).

It would be nice if the new computer was not too heavy, not too
expensive, decent battery life, big HD, etc... but the most important
requirements seems to me are speed for the software, and the display.

for the best display, it's the macbook pro with retina display. the
pixel density is higher than what your eye can resolve, so you won't be
able to see any jaggies, at all.

for less money, there's the normal macbook pro, and for less weight,
the macbook air.

lightroom will run extremely well on any of them.

battery life can be as much as 10 hours on a single charge, depending
on which model and what you do. hard drive is however big you want. you
can always swap in a larger drive later.

i'd also wait a week or so, as there are rumours of some new models
coming soon.

That's the second recommendation for the Retina.

I thought you had to have religion to buy a Mac.

But I have to admit the display looks amazing. It's expensive but not
totally out of reach.

Browsing a bit on the web reveals there are Retina issues with
software support and some other things. Will keep an eye on this...

My main objection to that display is the glassy finish. While your
images will look good, you want to consider glare and lowered ability to
see tonal differences n the darker portions of your images. (If that is
important to you.)


--
Peter

In article , PeterN
wrote:

My main objection to that display is the glassy finish. While your
images will look good, you want to consider glare and lowered ability to
see tonal differences n the darker portions of your images. (If that is
important to you.)

it's not as glossy as other glossy displays (definitely less than other
macbooks), but unfortunately, glossy is what sells.