Laptop for photo editing

denno75uk

I know what an ideal set up would be for photo editing, but I've managed ok on a 15" Lenovo with a 4th gen i7 up til now.

It's about time for a new laptop though. I saw this:
Lenovo IdeaPad 320-17IKB, Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB Hard Drive, 17 inch Notebook
and wondered if anyone had any strong opinions on it that I should hear.

On paper, it seems like a very good spec for the money. I get that the screen is probably pretty basic. And it's not got an SSD. But apart from that, is there anything I should be particularly wary of or put off by?

Or could I manage quite well with an i5 and built in graphics for editing my 7DMkII photos?

TIA

James

=adrian=

I have went through this subject recently myself when I was looking for for a laptop for myself for photo editing. I have decided that the screen is the most important thing for me. Most laptops have terrible screens for editing. I have used my wife's laptop for tethering on few occasions and I could never fully see if photos are too dark or too light due to terrible viewing angles.

=adrian=

Here is my thread if you want to have a read

Photography laptop

denno75uk

Interesting. Seems a 3rd party GPU might not be all that necessary. Certainly won't be gaming, just usual laptop things and editing. My understanding is that the dedicated GPUs in the 8th gen chips are pretty good. Especially in the i5s and i7s.
Also good to hear you getting along with a smaller screen. TBH, 17" may be portable, but not conveniently so.
BTW, Dell isn't the only manufacturer that uses the same model numbers for items of wildly different spec. Lenovo are buggers for it. And i think they do bespoke specs for different manufacturers. For example, can find the model I linked to in several places, but not that spec anywhere else. Same for one I saw on the PC World site.

Anyway, more thinking to do. And more advice to seek.

Ta

=adrian=

If I'm honest, every time I edit photos on it I miss my main rig with the big screen. There is no getting away from the fact that the screen real estate is quite small and Photoshop tools and menus take quite a lot of space on it. I am definitely slower when retouching on the laptop. But being able to edit photos on the go is definitely a plus. So yes, as with everything there are pros and cons. One thing I do not regret though, is that I have went for a good screen. I really think this is important for photography and photo editing especially.

Anyway, I wish you luck finding your laptop

Leo31291

I really like the microsoft surface book. I take it whenever I'm away.

denno75uk

Well, yeah. I'd love one. But I just don't have that kind of money

denno75uk

Is using a 4k HDR tv an option as an external display to edit on? Obv could link via HDMI. Would this be a better screen than the average laptop? Not got said TV yet, but will soon and wondered if this would mitigate for an average laptop screen.

=adrian=

I might not be the best person to answer this question as my TV is a 9 year old plasma screen (not even 1080p). I am sure the technology has moved a lot since then.

Problem with TVs for editing used to be a different pixel density, so that if you sit close to it, you will be seeing individual pixels and jagged lines. This might be or might not be better with a 4k TV screen. I just don't know.

Also colour accuracy used to be worse than a dedicated good editing screen. Again, not sure if this is different now.

It probably all depends how serious you are about your editing. If you only use Lightroom to do basic adjustment, then I would imagine  a normal screen would be sufficient.

I sit very close to my monitor because for me, it is all about detail.

Leo31291

Resolution would only matter for your workspace no ? 1080p is fine but outputting to a 4k display would be helpful in display the image in it's full size (not scaled having to zoom in and out) and still have room to the side bars. Your main priority is colour accuracy. There's a list of the most colour accurate laptop displays for editing on google, shouldn't be hard to find.