berchman Loc: South Central PA

Yes, Dell sells a laptop with an SSD drive. Last December I bought this model:
https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/dell-xps-15

leftj Loc: Texas

You need at least 16 GB of Ram. Although you don't want to go Mac just know that you will be happy with it at least twice as long as with a windows machine.

berchman Loc: South Central PA

My wife has a Mac and I have Windows and that statement is pure baloney.

leftj Loc: Texas

Which statement?

berchman Loc: South Central PA

"Although you don't want to go Mac just know that you will be happy with it at least twice as long as with a windows machine."

leftj Loc: Texas

When you finally realize that you've had it with your windows machine just remember my baloney statement. Moving on from the denial stage is liberating.

lbrande

I haven't purchased a name brand computer in 15 years. I either build my own, or have a shop build it for me. That may be a way to get for you to get more bang for the buck.

berchman Loc: South Central PA

You know the term "Apple fan boy"? My first computer was a Macintosh II, bought in 1987. When it came time to purchase my next computer in 1995, Apple looked like it was not going to survive so I shifted to Windows. Granted that Windows was not problem free for me until Windows 7, but from then on I have had no trouble with the Windows operating system. Moreover, I have been able to use software that was not available for the Mac and I have gotten more computing power for less money. Unlike you, I have an open mind concerning which hardware to adopt. I chose to have an iPhone X because I judged it best for photography.

leftj Loc: Texas

Yes, I will gladly accept the title "Apple fan boy" as long as Mac retains it's superiority over Windows. I will admit that I use Microsoft Office products on my Mac since Apple's competing software pretty much sucks.

cdayton

Can we move on from the iOS vs Windows feud to the Canon vs Nikon feud but definitely stay away from politics?

copladocus

I have had Dell computers and HP. The one HP, a large top of the line desktop unit has been the most problem prone computer I have owned going back to the early 1980's. My next one may be a custom build or Dell. I would research the best monitor screen for photo work and then figure out what to plug that into. For my own purposes I would look at the fastest processor (i7 i think), minimum of 16 MB of RAM and the largest hard drive you can afford. An optical drive with write ability is also a must for me. Nice to have things would be multiple USB ports and perhaps a multi-card reader to directly insert media cards of all types. My first PC outfit cost me $5,000 in the early '80's, used a 5.25" floppy and a gargantuan 10MB hard drive and had an amber colored text screen (an upgrade from green color) and a dot matrix printer. By comparison computers are cheap today. If you shop around you can get a screamer for less than $1K. Good luck

Jesu S

Totally agree.

woodsliv Loc: Tehachapi,CA

I have a Lenovo (Ideapad 110) with Win 10, 8gb ram, I5 processor, 1tb SATA HD. I use PS and LR and everything is fine.

LeoDK

Try downloading a free copy of Malwarebytes and run it on your laptop, sometimes malware and hidden bloatware from certain websites gets on your computer and forcefully slows it down. My mother's laptop had the same problem, I came in defragged and cleared all caches and cookies, still was slow as molasses. After running Malwarebytes, it found 1000 + unwanted items. after cleaning it up, her laptop is in tip-top shape and now my dad uses it. She got a new one for Mama's day couple years back. Just a suggestion to try before running out and spending money on a new machine. Or at least making it work, as back up for trolling the interwebs, while using your new machine to do P.P. and what not.

If you need help, feel free to message me and I can help walk ya through it.

Leonidas

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Other responses suggesting more RAM are correct. Both Lightroom and Photoshop might run slowly with only 4GB... but really should have 8GB minimum and, depending upon the operating system, will likely run much better with 12 or 16GB. Most newer computers offer this and use faster acting RAM, too. If at all possible, get a computer that has room to expand, because it will likely become necessary to do so sometime in the future.

It also helps to have a fast, powerful processor such as a quad core, which all but the cheapest newer computers will include just as a matter of course. Intel, AMD... I've used both and really don't have a preference.

An upgrade that's often available is an SSD or "solid state drive". That adds quite a bit of cost, but an SSD as your boot drive will definitely help with rapid startup and overall system performance. The boot drive is the one that contains your operating system and software such as Lightroom and Photoshop. And SSD is much like RAM, except come in much larger sizes such as 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB. The bigger they are, the more they cost, but they can greatly increase computer performance.

However, DO NOT use an SSD to store your images. If you get an SSD boot drive, plan to install or have installed a second, standard hard drive for your images and any other data you need to archive. SSDs simply aren't reliable enough to store irreplaceable files and data. They ARE great for things that can pretty easily be reinstalled, if need be, such as an operating system or a program like Lightroom or Photoshop. (The recommendation to not trust your images to an SSD are not from me... but from a friend of mine who is a managing engineer at one of the biggest SSD manufacturers, who knows I'm a photographer and has recommended I not use them for image storage. SSD are better now, but still not as reliable as traditional HD, especially the "enterprise" class drives I use.)

Another thing that can help Photoshop run a whole lot better is a "scratch disk". This is a separate drive (a smaller SSD would be great, but may be overkill) that Photoshop uses while you are working on images, to temporarily store versions of the image, it's history and more. I might overdo it a bit, but set aside 100GB exclusively for Photoshop to use. This "drive" doesn't need to actually be a separate one... I just use a partition on a much larger drive (the rest of which I use for image storage).

Yet another thing that can help a lot is a graphics card. This has a separate processor and it's own RAM, just for the graphics and takes a load off the computer's built in graphics and processor. There are many different graphics cards available (sometimes called "accelerators"). Some gamers looking for extremely high performance even install two of them to run parallel, but not all computer motherboards support this arrangement. Dual graphics cards aren't needed for image processing, but you should look for one with about 2GB of it's own RAM and a reasonably fast processor. If you order a computer, the manufacturer may have be able to recommend one.

Something that's often overlooked is a backup. At a minimum, I would recommend a backup for your photos. It doesn't need to be fancy... a simple external drive will work fine. Modern computers with USB3 connectivity and an external drive that can use that type of connection is plenty fast. It may come with or your computer operating system may have built in backup capabilities, which can be set up to run each night while you sleep and keep backups up to date. Some people like to back up everything, just in case. And some like to use two external drives, which they swap out every week or so, to be able to store one off-site for another level of security. How far you want to take it is up to you. I'd at least recommend you get one to back up your images.... but there may be other important and irreplaceable stuff on your computer you will want to protect by backing it up, too.

I use an internal 3TB drive for my photos (and the partition dedicated to Photoshop as a scratch disk), and mirror that with a 3TB external drive as backup, saving copies of all the original files there. I'm still using a slower USB2 connection, since that's the fastest type my particular, older computer supports. USB3 which any newer computer will offer is MUCH faster. I also use five Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices for longer term storage and safe backup of images. But I take around 50,000 images a year and have been shooting digital since 2004, so I have a lot of images to store.... More than most people!

If you are serious about your photos and especially if you do much printing (either at home or sent out), consider getting a bit larger and more graphics oriented type of monitor. Also think about getting a monitor calibration device to use regularly... since most monitors are too bright by default and not all that precise how they render color. This causes you to mis-adjust your images in LR and Photoshop. If you do much printing, a calibration device will actually pay for itself in savings of paper and ink, or the cost of having to reprint images if you send them out for printing.

I DO NOT recommend a laptop for image editing and optimization. For one, they are difficult to maintain calibrated, as described above. Moving a portable computer around and using it in different ambient lighting conditions, you basically need to re-calibrate it each and every time you relocate it! Laptops also have smaller screens that are a lot less useful for image editing. A friend of mine had a 20" laptop, but it was big and heavy! Plus, laptops usually don't support additional internal hard drives, future expansion of RAM, and may not be able to add a graphics card. I use a rather heavy 17" laptop myself (also pretty large and hefty), maxed out with 8GB of RAM and unable to fit a graphics card, but with a second 1TB hard drive for image storage (which makes for rapid battery drain). I DO NOT try to finish images on it. In fact, I don't even have Photoshop installed... just Lightroom to be able to quickly review and sort images. After a remote on-location job where I've used the laptop, I connect it to my network and transfer the images to my desktop, where they are backed up and further finished using its larger, calibrated monitor, etc.

I won't get into what brand to buy. There are a lot of different possibilities, each with their pluses and minuses. There may be some advantages to a build-to-order such as Dell offers. I happen to use an HP now and have had no problem adding RAM, additional and bigger drives, and a graphics card to it. It's pretty much maxed out now, though... so I'll be updating in the not-too-distant future. I may build a custom machine... or just buy one off the shelf and customize it as needed. I've done both in the past.

I've also used both Macs and PCs over the years. I only use Windows PCs now, because they are less expensive and easier to customize and upgrade myself, if and when it's needed. But someone who doesn't mind the price and prefers to leave any and all work on the machine to someone else may prefer a Mac.

Hope this helps.