Do you happen to know which i7? They're not all quad core. I'm only looking at units sporting the i7-7700. I will google a bit about the i5 vs i7....thank you for that input.

I've been shopping for a new laptop which will be used for photo and video editing as well as business use. A deal has popped up on an Inspiron 15 7000 that fits my desired specs and budget. I'm not familiar with their displays, hence my question. The one on this unit is described as: 15.6" IPS Anti-Glare LED-Backlit FHD (1920 x 1080) Display.

I almost jumped on a deal for a Lenovo Legion gaming machine, but reviews seem to consistently pan the display on that one.....

Also, if anyone has purchased something similar to the specs below and are happy/not happy, let me know!

Core i7-7700 or i7-8550
15.6" screen size
Nvidia 1050 or 1060 graphics
SSD primary and HDD storage

Thanks in advance,

-Ed

I have Luminar on a Windows machine. It's not quite ready for prime time. I like it, but am still using LR as my primary processing tool. I just renewed my CC membership for one more year, which will be my last if Luminar's asset manager is decent and everything is stable.

One detail that can be easy to miss is the generation of the processor. For example, the performance of a 7th gen Core i7 can be had with an 8th generation Core i5. 8th generation Core i7's outperform the 7th generation impressively. 8th gen i5's can be had for less than 8th gen i7's without a big performance hit, and still outperform 7th gen i7s admirably. Here's an article that lays things out: https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/kaby-lake-refresh-8th-gen-vs-7th-gen

There is some confusion in current offerings as they often specify i7 without making the generation obvious. Dig a little deeper and look at the actual processor, and the model number will tell you....i7-7xxx is 7th gen, i7-8xxx is 8th gen.

Yea, I guess that's getting into the weeds a bit for a thread ranging from Chrome Books and iPads to high end gaming machines, but since the OP stated he wants to do everything on the road that he does at home, it seems worth mentioning.

What kind of protection are you looking for? Malware? Performance? Anti-Virus or all of the above? I haven't found a single product I like for everything. I like Bit Defender or AVG for anti-virus, MalwareBytes for malware scanning and I use System Mechanic to keep the machine clean (registry, hard drive, memory hogs, startups).

I've been looking for a while myself. Effectively, the machine I use is a desktop replacement (though going on 4 years old now), which is what you describe wanting when you say you want to do all of the post when traveling that you do at home. I'm not sure how comfortable you are with technology, so I'll offer my opinion on technology, and then by "category". For the processor, I would suggest i5 (current generation) or better, as much as good as you can afford (budget is everything here). Internal Ram, no less than 16gb. For storage, the ideal configuration would have an SSD for the operating system, applications and potentially swap space, and a hard drive for storage of photos and other data.

From a category perspective, when you're looking at brand offerings, machines with these specs tend to fall into gaming machines, desktop replacements, mobile workstations, or "high end" business laptops.

Once you have figured out your price range and narrowed the models, you might want to try googling "brand model xyz display photography" to see if there are any comments about the display when used by photogs.

Just another opinion.....best of luck!

-Ed G.

My next machine will have a primary SSD for the OS and apps. I need a laptop as I tend to move around a lot, and usually live on a boat. I'm hoping Black Friday deals yield something in my price range. For those that already have SSD's have you setup your applications to use the SSD for swap space? If so, is the difference notable?

I ordered it as well after playing around with the beta for PC's. There's a lot of functionality missing in the Beta, and stability has been an issue, but my experience with Aurora 2018 has been pretty good, and for the price, I'm looking forward to giving it a try, and hoping it catches up to the Mac version relatively quickly.

Are you using a Pluto for these? I picked one up to play with but haven't tried droplets yet.

I picked up a Pluto trigger that I can fire from an app on the phone. I like wireless for getting shots from a "blind spot". As an example, I setup the camera close to a hummingbird feeder, and triggered it from inside the house where I could see the feeder through a window without running the hummers off.

I got it primarily to try lightning photography, but have found other fun ways to use it.

The horizon was closer to straight in the original. I chose to "level" the boat and bring her nose up a bit because it felt right, and there's nothing interesting on the horizon.

So far, so good, I like it! Before and after, this image is a neighbor in the mooring field of my home marina. Sadly, the boat has not been located post storm. One quirk I noticed is that Aurora rotated the image 90 degrees clockwise upon export. Don't be too critical...It's a handheld shot from another moving boat!

(Download)

Recuva is a great starting point. Depending on how far you want to go, there are some very technical tools out there that do wonderful things. I lost a hard drive once that had become "unreadable". Using a linux boot CD, I was able to run a couple of tools...one that imaged the drive to a file as a backup of my current state, and then another that worked for about 30 hours to try to piece files back together. I got nearly everything back, except the filenames. What a mess. If you want to get your hands this dirty, let me know and I'll try to recall the tools I used.

I hope their servers are up for the release! I may wait until later in the day.

I didn't catch this in the video....is there an "optimal technique" to capturing a single raw that would work "best". In other words, a bit over, or under exposed? Slowest possible shutter speed?