mundy-F2 Loc: Chicago suburban area

Thanks Linda. I also was going to suggest looking at the software requirements, just as Linda suggested.
Mundy

Ed D Loc: Virginia

Thanks!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

It's the specs that matter, not the brand.

Laptops -
https://makeawebsitehub.com/best-laptops-for-photo-editing/
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/167185-best-laptops-for-photo-editing
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2017/sep/07/which-is-the-best-laptop-for-photo-editing
http://www.techradar.com/news/photography-video-capture/cameras/best-laptops-for-image-editing-2016-1329234
https://laptopunderbudget.com/best-laptops-for-photo-editing/

Memory -
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-much-ram-does-your-pc-need-probably-less-than-you-think/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-much-ram-does-your-pc-need/

Processor -
http://gizmodo.com/dont-waste-money-on-intels-top-processor-1791426602
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404674,00.asp
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-core-i5-vs-i7/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/intel-core-i9-vs-i7-vs-i5-cpu/
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-core-i5-vs-i7/
http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/core-i5-vs-i7
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/210703-intel-core-i5-vs-core-i7-which-processor-should-you-buy

Caspian45 Loc: Florida

I use a surface pro 4 it comes with a pen that allows you to do wonderful editing in Adobe products. I took some great photos of Portland Headlight. Loved them but discovered a speck on every one because of some dirt on my mirror and was able to wipe it away on all of them with the pen
Each to his own but I love my pro 4 best computer I've ever owned

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I don't like Apple's prices either, but I've loved and used their products since 1984. The sting of poor quality or bad design lives on long after a low price is forgotten! The PC hardware market is a race to the bottom.

During 35 of those same 37 years, I've also used DOS or Windows PCs. Both platforms have had their high and low points. Overall, though, I have to give the nod to the Apple user experience. I've had some problems, but fewer problems than with PCs.

My personal and professional long term costs have been lower with Macs, due to less need for repair, replacement, and support. PC hardware is often much less expensive up front, but more expensive to live with.

At work in a photo lab, we had one part time support person (me — it was a small part of my job) for up to 45 Macs in 2000. We had three full time support people for PCs. They worked late nights and weekends during our busy seasons, just to keep up with the "issues."

Most of the Macs were worked HARD, up to 20 hours a day, rendering images from scanners or automatically building portrait panel pages for yearbooks. Most of the PCs were office machines running a few lightweight apps such as Office, FileMaker Pro solutions, web browsers, and AS/400 Client Access. On the lab floor, we moved to Dell dual ZEONs because the generic PCs rendering images broke down frequently. They couldn't handle prolonged heavy workloads because their builders didn't design in proper thermal protection (not just fans, but proper ducting to move lots of air over hot components).

In 2000 to 2003, we had 50 Gateway E series PCs that came with defective hard drives. We gave seven customer service workers new E series PCs that all failed within a month! They were livid! Gateway grudgingly sent us a box of replacement drives, but WE had to image them and install them! Unh-unh. Our labor to do that was more than the drives cost Gateway to replace. (No wonder they aren't really around any longer!)

Our IT guys were always looking for cheap solutions. After four cheap home brew servers destroyed about 200,000 film scans, we replaced them with HP servers that actually worked. Lesson learned... Vet the vendors and buy quality, and unless you're an engineer with the right skills, don't build PCs that have to work 24/7 under heavy loads!

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Yep, Gateway is long (and deservedly) gone - but you can't blame them for the faulty HDs (Apple buys the same HDs from the same manufacturers as PC companies do), but you CAN blame Gateway for the lousy service (depending on what service agreement you had). Now I do have to take issue on cooling. Apple has traditionally had much worse (if any) cooling than your run of the mill PC desktop. The reason is simple - that thin, stylish case just hasn’t the room for a decent sized fan or airflow, and the CPUs often don’t have any dedicated fans at all. When it comes to fans, diameter and speed matters (and speed = noise), I’ve been inside IMacs, and since I now work in the thermal management business, I was surprised at the lack of cooling. I think they got away with it because they typically used slow CPUs that didn’t consume as much power. The last 21.5” older IMac I opened had an anemic dual core Intel CPU which was just dog slow compared to the quad core CPUs that were shipping with PCs at the time. Fortunately for Apple with their ultra thin cases and poor cooling, the M1 is a very low power, low heat CPU - maybe that was one of Apple’s design objectives for exactly that reason - the thin packaging of their products. Very stylish, but limited in cooling and power dissipation

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Speaking of Apple cooling, their new 24" base model has just one fan, so the processor slows down when it gets hot. Pay $200 more, and you get two fans and more speed.

chrisg-optical Loc: New York, NY

I use a Dell XPS 15 - 16GB, i7, NVIDIA graphics, SSD -OR- a mid/high end MacBook Pro - any laptop with enough RAM (16GB+)/SSD and dedicated graphics chip is fine.

For VIDEO processing a desktop is the only real way to go, 32 GB++, high end processor, optane memory (for intel processors).

Ed D Loc: Virginia

Thanks for the info. I’m not into video processing so I can consider the laptop.

POVDOV

Its all about speed. Get the most RAM, Storage, Fastest Graphics card you can afford. If you have the best camera in the world and don't have adequate computer components then you will waste a lot of time. New cameras with super fast continuous shooting with lots of Megapixels requires a robust computer. The camera just takes the picture the real work is done by the computer and you.