Laptop for photo editing. ...
....while traveling or out and about. I am in need of something portable enough to travel with. I also want to use it linked to a DSLR as a 'live view' monitor. It definitely needs to be able to run Lightroom. Below I have a cadidate that looks like it should fair well.
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13.3'' 3200x1800 good lord thats some nice pixel density. That being said according to a lot of reviews of that laptop it suffers from a poor quality color representation. Which I feel is probably the most important thing for a photo editing machine.
It is supposed to be a software issue that is fixed with a patch recently.
Is there something else that fills the bill?
For that price Id just pickup a macbook
Really depends on your budget.
The Dell XPS 13 has the best screen in the category. And overall receives excellent marks.
If you calibrate across the board, color accuracy is not nearly as big an issue. Something like the Spyder can change the whole equation.
I already own Lightroom and Photoshop and don't want to buy again.
I can spend about anything but want to keep it as low as possible. I say this because I am mainly looking to replace due to dropping my 13 month old Zenbook Prime i7, 1080p That I adapted to EVO500 on the hard c eramic floor as I was putting it in my bag last week.
I have also looked into fixing that as the bottom case is bent and the motherboard is cracked. 3bay replacement parts; $80 for case bottom and $160ish for new board. The thing making me consider new with higher resolution is that everything I print on my 13x19 Canon Pro100 looks waaaaaaayy better than on screen.
This is the other one that I like a bit better. The hinge issue is a moot point as I believe those users were too rough as the hinges haven't changed from my old machine.
Better Asus on Amazon
Is there something thin, under 4lbs and 14 to 15 inch 4K screen?
Newegg search yields Razor Blade
Maybe not <4lbs, but Lenovo Y Series has some 4k options at a decent price.
IIRC, the last version of Lightroom I purchased (5 I think) provided keys for both Windows and OS X. I doubt Adobe would do such a thing with Photoshop unless perhaps you're using Creative Cloud.
If the Yoga 3 Pro had more power and RAM I would certainly consider one but the y series are too heavy. I have decided to cap the budget at $1400 think the Asus UX303LN-DB71T has a good combination of specs and features that I won't have to even de-bloat as it is part of the bloat free Signature line.
My wife has a UX303LA-DB51T, same body pretty much as that. So, just to comment, the build quality is very nice and we have had zero issues in 11 months. I don't remember it coming with much bloatware at all. Taking it apart for a hard drive upgrade is a bit of a pain, but nothing horrendous like macbooks. Also having a touchscreen + mouse is cool. Whenever I use it I end up interfacing with both somehow and it is a pleasant experience. Enjoy your new shwag mister goat.
Thanks @PirateNinja for the info. I have had for the past 13 months a UX31A-DH71 Zenbook Prime that I adapted a Samsung EVO500 with some work, including using a dremel to make room on the inside of the bottom plate. I had then installed Mint, Ubuntu and Win 7 Pro. I have actually loved that machine after that which is why I am going to stick with a Zenbook.
I am definitely going to fix my UX31A as well.
Lenovo W540 can do what you want, has a 15.5 screen, excellent video, touch, and Win 8.1 with options in choice config to get rollback to 7 with it. AND has SSD options for HD.
@Straight_Man, Sorry John, but that is way too heavy, doesn't have high enough resolution, won't last long enough on battery and is borderline on size but I do like the power.
I certainly didn't need a dremel, just my cheap set of small torx screwdrivers. Maybe 20 screws in total, really not bad.
Um, you have video card options, the battery lasts 4-5 hours on my W520 (Lenovo's higher wattage battery for the W500 series). Go to the english part of Lenovo's main site. The SSD is for edit speed. I after-marketed a Crucial SSD into my W520 and it blazes.
Best of luck finding what you want.
@Straight_Man, The other machines I am looking at have at least 3200x1800 resolution, 8hrs battery and 3lbs or less. That is essentially a cross between a MacBook Pro and Air.
And as far as storage goes. I had just started writing all my work directly to an external drive. I actually got 2 of these Samsung T1 Portable 500GB USB 3.0 External SSD'S that I use in tandem. I simultaneously write to both with one being my storage and the other as backup, just like RAID1 but waaaayy faster. Then when I get home I transfer one of them to my home server.
Ok, I am bowing out of this thread. Good luck
Sorry for sounding difficult John. I am not always the easiest to apeize due to my job. Your input is always appreciated! Thanks
After comparing features, price and weight I got the Asus UX303LN-DB71T and it will be here Friday. I could not find anything else for under $1200 that weighs 3lbs, i7, 12GB RAM, dedicated video card and Quad HD IPS touchscreen 3200x1800 display.
I'll be in the market for something similar later this year, but ordinarily I put a lot of stock in Amazon review averages. Larry, can you convince me why this laptop is better than the 3.5 stars it rates? The specs look fantastic, but the ratings scare me off.
Personally, I'd go the Yoga 3 Pro route over the Asus. I got my grubby mitts on a demo unit recently and am in love with it. I know people like to gripe about the slow processor, but it didn't feel to me like it was an issue. Plus, it doesn't seem like CPU speed is the big bottleneck these days anyway. Also, if anything were to break, I have a hundred times more faith in Lenovo's support than I do in Asus.
Apparently the hinges break around 6 months of use for quite a few people and the yellow coloring is "mustardy":
http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX303LN-DB71T-Quad-HD-Display-Touchscreen/product-reviews/B00KTL21RA/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewopt_sr?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=recent&reviewerType=all_reviews&filterByStar=one_star&pageNumber=1
Edit: new version of the laptop here:
http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX303LB-DS74T-Touchscreen-Windows-Upgrade/dp/B00X409AN6/ref=dp_ob_title_ce
Maybe they fixed the hinge issue.
I use Amazon reviews extensively for a lot of purchases. I do however take them with a grain of salt and dive into the 1 and 2 star reviews to sort out the issues and then compare that to other reviews for the same product. In this case I already have 2 Zenbooks from last year at home (that also only had 3 stars). Last year the keyboard and track pad were what people bitched about. Both my machines have some of the best keyboards and track pads I have ever used. Now the previous year to that they did suckered and I feel a lot of reviewers got caught up in a bad mindset over nothing. The hinge issue is nothing new as the build is exactly the same on all Zenbooks for the past few years. I see @PirateNinja has had his for 11 months and didn't mention a problem as neither have I (one is 13 months old and the other is 17months old) or a friend at work that has a current model after liking my UX31A. I feel the people with hinge issues here either got a bad one or are just rough with everything they touch. As for the bad yellows, every single machine that uses the same display has had the same issue as it is native to the display itself. It has now been addressed by the manufacturer as well as the laptop makers and a new bios and drivers have been issued. Upon arrival I will closely inspect it as I always do for manufacturing defects and flaws before I even power the machine up.
I really wanted to get the 3 Pro. But the processor just cannot handle heavy photo processing and Photoshop. I just love the machine but it isn't up to my intended usage.