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  • Buying A Laptop for Digital Photography


    04 November 2008

    There are 2 different types of laptops favoured by digital photographers:

    1. Small, light laptops you can carry around in a backpack while you're shooting.
    2. High-performance laptops you can use as a 'desktop replacement' for photo editing at home / in the office.

    We're going to take a look at the first - small, light laptops you can use out in the field & what you need to look out for.

    Small Light Laptops

    If you're looking for a laptop to carry around with you, key things you'll want to look at are:

    1. Start-up time. Some laptops take an age to start up/shut down/hibernate. This is something that's often forgotten but, if you're going to be unpacking & repacking it every 15 minutes you need something that you can use instantly.

    2. Durability. You need something that you can throw in a backpack and forget about. Some newer machines are made from durable aluminium. Some are designed specifically for industrial environments (eg. the Panasonic Toughbook).

    3. Storage. Perhaps not such a problem if you're just loading photos from memory cards to take a look at & email. But, if you're looking to dump files, the bigger the hard drive the better. Something else to look out for is hard drive speed: over 10,000rpm is your best bet.

    4. Screen Resolution. It doesn't matter so much how big the screen is, but the resolution is very important. If you're going to be doing any editing, an 800x600 resolution would be totally useless.

    5. Screen brightness. If you're shooting photos you'll probably spend some time in brightly lit areas. A dim laptop is going to be useless. Many laptops now come with brighter screens (eg. BrightView, X-Black, etc). Look out for one of these.

    6. Connectivity. Ideally, you probably want high speed USB 2 ports (for your camera or card reader, for extra storage devices, for printers), a fast built-in card reader, a firewire port (depending on your storage devices), fast wireless (802.11g or 802.11n)

    7. Mobile Connectivity. Important if you're a journalist, or for posting lower-res images to the web, many laptops now come with built in mobile connections. These allow you to connect to the internet wherever you are using mobile phone networks.

  • Top 10 Things To Ask When Buying a Laptop


    04 November 2008

    Here is a simple checklist of things to know before you buy a laptop:

    1. How long does the battery last?
    2. How big is the monitor?
    3. What's the processor speed?
    4. How much memory does it have?
    5. How big is the hard drive?
    6. How heavy is the laptop?
    7. What's the warranty period?
    8. Which operating system does it use?
    9. Does it come with any software pre-installed?
    10. What kind of wireless/network/usb/firewire/CD/DVD features does it have?

    Ask these questions about any laptop you plan to buy and you'll have a good guide to compare it against others.