Best laptop screens

Al

Al

Striker
I need to buy a new laptop for general use and I expect to use it for viewing/editing photos. I'm not a serious photo-nerd but I want to start playing around a bit more (eg just bought a Sony rx100). Does anyone have advice on which models to look at or avoid regarding colour, contrast etc quality of the display. My budget is maybe around £650 so I realise this means I won't be able to get anything really good. Am I right to only consider IPS displays?
 


At that price point, I 'd definitely think it would be IPS for the best colour accuracy, and if you can, beg borrow or steal a ColorMunki or similar to profile your display.
 
Al said:
I need to buy a new laptop for general use and I expect to use it for viewing/editing photos. I'm not a serious photo-nerd but I want to start playing around a bit more (eg just bought a Sony rx100). Does anyone have advice on which models to look at or avoid regarding colour, contrast etc quality of the display. My budget is maybe around £650 so I realise this means I won't be able to get anything really good. Am I right to only consider IPS displays?
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Not sure if you found something but if you want to do photo editing then you need to be careful on specs as much as the screen. Photoshop etc are quite resource hungry and there's a massive chip shortage which has pushed laptops up in price. You'll be struggling to get both at that price.

These are the minimum specs you need to run Photoshop for reference:
  • Memory: 8 GB
  • Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
  • CPU: Intel Core i3-2100
  • File Size: 3 GB
  • OS: Windows 10
Also remember these are desktop specs so a laptop GeForce GTX 1050 isn't the same thing, similar with the CPU.
 
Zimba said:
Not sure if you found something but if you want to do photo editing then you need to be careful on specs as much as the screen. Photoshop etc are quite resource hungry and there's a massive chip shortage which has pushed laptops up in price. You'll be struggling to get both at that price.

These are the minimum specs you need to run Photoshop for reference:
  • Memory: 8 GB
  • Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
  • CPU: Intel Core i3-2100
  • File Size: 3 GB
  • OS: Windows 10
Also remember these are desktop specs so a laptop GeForce GTX 1050 isn't the same thing, similar with the CPU.
Click to expand...
Would a high performance graphics card be relevant? - I'm not going to be doing any gaming or owt. Just want to be able to do some hobby-level photo editing along with general use. Maybe considering one of these Acer Aspire 5 A515-56G Laptop, Intel Core i5 Processor, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 15.6" Full HD, Silver
 
Al said:
Would a high performance graphics card be relevant? - I'm not going to be doing any gaming or owt. Just want to be able to do some hobby-level photo editing along with general use. Maybe considering one of these Acer Aspire 5 A515-56G Laptop, Intel Core i5 Processor, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 15.6" Full HD, Silver
Click to expand...

I bought a HP Envy a few months back, reduced from around a grand to 700 quid. I had a Lenovo before that. I bought it specifically because I do bird photography and so was hoping for something that would just give me a bit better image quality. I haven't noticed much difference between the two laptops, and I got far more from my images by learning how to post process than I did by buying a better laptop.

It's amazing what post processing can do for image quality. I bought Affinity which at the time was half price and also downloaded NX studio (Nikon's own software) for free as I have a Nikon camera and there's a compatibility advantage there.

I could give you lots of advice with post processing, but the one that would be most useful is sharpening an image. I have tried all sorts, and finally got to the bilateral blur in Affinity. Amazing results without that crunchy look when you sharpen using their methods.

I suppose what I'm saying is 650 quid and learning to post process will give you some very good images providing your camera technique is good. I have some beauty images of birds which are comparable with other people's on forums I post who have far more expensive equipment and that is a combination of camera technique and post processing. The quality of the laptop doesn't come into it that much.
 
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Al said:
Would a high performance graphics card be relevant? - I'm not going to be doing any gaming or owt. Just want to be able to do some hobby-level photo editing along with general use. Maybe considering one of these Acer Aspire 5 A515-56G Laptop, Intel Core i5 Processor, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 15.6" Full HD, Silver
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Nah should be fine tbh. That should be good enough to run Photoshop and the processor is the latest Intel so should last a few years especially if it's just basic stuff.

Acer's are generally alright aswell, I've just replaced mine a few month back as it was dying from using it too much but got a good 5 year out of it, couldn't fault it tbh. Just be careful with the hinges as they can break on some models, not sure on that one.
 
Al said:
Would a high performance graphics card be relevant? - I'm not going to be doing any gaming or owt. Just want to be able to do some hobby-level photo editing along with general use. Maybe considering one of these Acer Aspire 5 A515-56G Laptop, Intel Core i5 Processor, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 15.6" Full HD, Silver
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It would help as decent image editing programs offload some of the work from the CPU to the GPU, but if you have some patience, and for basic editing its certainly not essential.
AB22 Easy Tiger said:
This, make sure it's calibrated.
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The only problem is that everyone elses monitor/projector/iPad isn’t calibrated and it looks different on them!

Certainly important if you plan to print anything though, and want it to come out looking vaguely like what you see on your screen.
 
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Roger said:
It would help as decent image editing programs offload some of the work from the CPU to the GPU, but if you have some patience, and for basic editing its certainly not essential.


The only problem is that everyone elses monitor/projector/iPad isn’t calibrated and it looks different on them!

Certainly important if you plan to print anything though, and want it to come out looking vaguely like what you see on your screen.
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this. Photoshop for example runs entirely differently if you use the GPU (in preferences). So much better.

I’ve got a 16” MacBook Pro and an iPad Pro. Have to say, the difference in IQ and colour is minimal, but there’s something that make the images feel better on the laptop.
 

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