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.

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.

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.

On 2012-10-08 20:46:50 +0000, ray said:

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.

You don't need a knowledgeable tech or any tech at all. All Macs can
run Windows. Just buy the Windows of your choice and follow the
instructions to use Bootcamp. That requires you reboot the computer
whenever you change from Mac OS to Windows. If you want less hassle,
buy Parallels or similar. It's not a "simulation" the way older Macs
ran Windows. Macs use the same Intel processors that Windows boxes use,
and run it natively. You just have to pay extra for it and install it
according to instructions. I use Windows XP on my iMac when I have to
link to my office, whose software is proprietary and runs only on
Windows, so I have about a 10 gig partition for that, set it up under
Bootcamp, and just restart in Windows whenever I need to use it.

--
Michael

On Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:47:48 -0400, Michael wrote:

On 2012-10-08 20:46:50 +0000, ray said:

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.

You don't need a knowledgeable tech or any tech at all. All Macs can run
Windows. Just buy the Windows of your choice and follow the instructions
to use Bootcamp. That requires you reboot the computer whenever you
change from Mac OS to Windows. If you want less hassle, buy Parallels or
similar. It's not a "simulation" the way older Macs ran Windows. Macs
use the same Intel processors that Windows boxes use, and run it
natively. You just have to pay extra for it and install it according to
instructions. I use Windows XP on my iMac when I have to link to my
office, whose software is proprietary and runs only on Windows, so I
have about a 10 gig partition for that, set it up under Bootcamp, and
just restart in Windows whenever I need to use it.

Yeah, whatever. The point is that you don't have to run the MAC OS on the
MAC computer. Personally, I don't use MAC or MS.

In article , ray
wrote:

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

knowledgeable tech? seriously? you must be kidding.

anyone can install windows on a mac (or a windows pc for that matter).
all that's needed is double-click boot camp assistant for dual booting
or get vmware/parallels for virtualization. you can even do both.

On 2012-10-08 22:00:30 -0700, nospam said:

In article , ray
wrote:

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

knowledgeable tech? seriously? you must be kidding.

anyone can install windows on a mac (or a windows pc for that matter).
all that's needed is double-click boot camp assistant for dual booting
or get vmware/parallels for virtualization. you can even do both.

Yup!
I have VMware Fusion installed along with XP SP3. Office 2003 Pro runs
flawlessly, and I find it functions absolutely transparently. The
advantage of using VMWare Fusion over BootCamp, is being able to have
both OSs running at the same time and being able to drag and drop files
between both OSs. Using Open Spaces I can easily move between an OSX
and an XP environment.

However once you gave me the clue to running to running Mac Office X on
an Intel Mac, I have had little reason to boot XP lately.



--
Regards,

Savageduck