New Laptop Advice - Please

[Peajay]

I have decided to get a new laptop, I want something that is good for photos and editing with a big memory. I dont really want to spend more than £600.

Any advice please....................

[Peajay]

Sunday morning bump

[GL1Blue]

I strongly recommend getting something with an SSD Drive as opposed to a traditional Hard Drive. The speed difference is well worth the extra money.

SSDs are smaller, in terms of capacity, so you'll probably need an external hard drive for your photos. These are cheap enough and at least if your laptop is lost when you're out and about you'll still have your photos on the external drive.

As for recommendations I'd look to get something that's a second generation i5 processor, 16gb RAM if possible (8 as a minimum) and as said an SSD drive.

I looked for someone the other day and Dell had 15% off on their online store which should get you something at or around your budget.

[GL1Blue]

Just had a look around and found this:

https://www.ebuyer.com/818882-lenovo...top-81ax00cbuk

[Peajay]

Just had a look around and found this:

https://www.ebuyer.com/818882-lenovo...top-81ax00cbuk

Cheers, I'm leaning toward Dell. I dont really understand the SSD bit, does this fit the catagories:

http://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lapto...laptop/cn77012

[GL1Blue]

Cheers, I'm leaning toward Dell. I dont really understand the SSD bit, does this fit the catagories:

http://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lapto...laptop/cn77012

It all depends on which machine you go for.

SSD stands for Solid State Drive, so there are no moving parts, an old hard drive has platters that spin and a number of discs stacked, these need to spin and be read by the drive, therefore it takes a lot longer to find what you're looking for.

This video is a comparison of boot times between SSD and HDD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYm07UpLiTo

[Peajay]

It all depends on which machine you go for.

SSD stands for Solid State Drive, so there are no moving parts, an old hard drive has platters that spin and a number of discs stacked, these need to spin and be read by the drive, therefore it takes a lot longer to find what you're looking for.

This video is a comparison of boot times between SSD and HDD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYm07UpLiTo

Thanks.

[blue matt]

SSD stands for Solid State Drive, so there are no moving parts, an old hard drive has platters that spin and a number of discs stacked, these need to spin and be read by the drive, therefore it takes a lot longer to find what you're looking for.

While a SSD is a nice option, when you say " it takes a lot longer to find what you're looking for " in real terms you rarely see any difference, while you have taken the bottle neck of the Drive away, we are not taking the time to make a cup of tea, it is more like a blind of a eye

[lardy]

While a SSD is a nice option, when you say " it takes a lot longer to find what you're looking for " in real terms you rarely see any difference, while you have taken the bottle neck of the Drive away, we are not taking the time to make a cup of tea, it is more like a blind of a eye

Would agree on that. Windows defrags so well nowadays that hard drive churning is quite rare. However, my first boot up with SSD amazed me, it was so fast. About 20-30 seconds quicker than my previous computer.

[Gofer Blue]

I would always go for a Dell laptop. We have two at home and I used one at work before I retired. Never had a problem with them.

[GL1Blue]

While a SSD is a nice option, when you say " it takes a lot longer to find what you're looking for " in real terms you rarely see any difference, while you have taken the bottle neck of the Drive away, we are not taking the time to make a cup of tea, it is more like a blind of a eye

"In the real World" - it all depends on what your doing.

As for defeagging - I don't use Windows.

[PhyllisStant]

I strongly recommend getting something with an SSD Drive as opposed to a traditional Hard Drive. The speed difference is well worth the extra money.

SSDs are smaller, in terms of capacity, so you'll probably need an external hard drive for your photos. These are cheap enough and at least if your laptop is lost when you're out and about you'll still have your photos on the external drive.

As for recommendations I'd look to get something that's a second generation i5 processor, 16gb RAM if possible (8 as a minimum) and as said an SSD drive.

I looked for someone the other day and Dell had 15% off on their online store which should get you something at or around your budget.

I'm write software for a living and often get asked PC / laptop advice.

My 100% best tip (as others have suggested) is a solid state drive. There are sooooo many benefits to getting one. To the point where a quick processor isn't even more important than a solid state drive for 90% of home applications.

Any of these would do the trick - start at 450 quid:
https://www.ebuyer.com/store/Compute...rice+ascending

[Wales-Bales]

While a SSD is a nice option, when you say " it takes a lot longer to find what you're looking for " in real terms you rarely see any difference, while you have taken the bottle neck of the Drive away, we are not taking the time to make a cup of tea, it is more like a blind of a eye

SSD drives boot Windows and open apps far quicker than a mechanical drive. Once you have SSD you can never go back.

[blue matt]

"In the real World" - it all depends on what your doing.

As for defeagging - I don't use Windows.

SSD drives boot Windows and open apps far quicker than a mechanical drive. Once you have SSD you can never go back.

I am not against a SSD Drive, far from it, they are great, BUT ( and this has happened to me when i have supplied PC's ) when people talk of " Far quicker " and " it takes a lot longer to find what you're looking for with a non SSD Drive " then that leave the end user expecting the world, in reality, in real world terms, it doesnt make that much of a difference if you are not doing anything to specialist ( your average PC users )

[GL1Blue]

I am not against a SSD Drive, far from it, they are great, BUT ( and this has happened to me when i have supplied PC's ) when people talk of " Far quicker " and " it takes a lot longer to find what you're looking for with a non SSD Drive " then that leave the end user expecting the world, in reality, in real world terms, it doesnt make that much of a difference if you are not doing anything to specialist ( your average PC users )

I disagree, they are most certainly a lot quicker than a spinning hard drive and a lot quicker to read/write files....something everyone does whether they realise it or not!

Whenever anyone asks me about buying a new laptop most of the time I'd suggest not to and install an SSD.

[Toadstool]

2nd hand apple mac.

[Duggie]

As the OP has said that he intends doing photo editing with large files, an SSD is going to make a significant difference to this. I have a few different laptops (work and home) and now only use those with SSDs for work on large image files. When you are working on files over 20Mb (for example as lots of image files are if you are setting them up for printing) in size there is a big difference when you are loading/saving/moving these files in an SSD. Just my opinion based on my experience.