capt2575 Loc: New York City

Hello Fellow Hogs. Getting ready to purchase a new Laptop but unsure of which (Windows or Mac) platform will work best. Could use any help you might have. Will be running Lightroom and would like to know what Ram, Hard drive size and any other accessories. Try to keep the budget under $2500.00. Thanks in advance for any replys.

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

Get the Mac, if you don't like OSX you can always ask it to run Windows for you, just use bootcamp, that way you can the best of both worlds.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

No matter which platform you choose I'd go with an SSD hard drive that is 1TB, 16GB ram and HDMI high def video. You will get a lot of Mac owners recommending Mac and vise verse. I would stick with what you know.

Wendy2 Loc: California

I would go with the Mac desktop if correct color and vividness are important to you. You should also calibrate the monitor.

Laptops are difficult to get a good, vibrant color, even when calibrated. I have a iMac desktop and an HP laptop. I calibrated both and there is no comparison between the two, the Mac wins.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

uh? Try to keep the budget (YOUR budget) under $2,500.00?
My latest toy, a laptop cost me $4,200 + 300.00 upgrade...

There is no middle ground in computing, you take the 'ordinary stuff' or the 'screamers'. Your choice.

Difference?
My previous 'screamer' lasted me 7 years. This one? I expect about 10 years.

slc66 Loc: Arlington, Texas

I use a Windows laptop, but I replaced the hard drive with a 2 TB SSD, because I handle a lot of RAW files, and I need the space to store my catalogues until I can transfer them over to my external drive stacks. SSD drives work much faster than standard hard drives. My LR and Photoshop programs operate at lightning speeds with SSD's.

capt2575 Loc: New York City

Rongnongno, if I go with the screamer what would be the specific components. Hard drive (type) ram and other accessories.

capt2575 Loc: New York City

Jeep daddy, thank you for the advice. Should it also have a DVD included?

capt2575 Loc: New York City

Wendy 2, the advice on calibrating is important thank you for reminding me.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

CPU 2.97
RAM 32 DDR4
Video Dual 980 6GB each 12GB total, not shared
18.1" display
1 MS2 128 gb (OS)
3 MS2 512GB
1 SATA 3 1TG
Blue ray

Every part the main board and CPU is up-gradable by the user.
Battery is a *** to remove (internal)

Battery life? Bad (30 minutes)
Weight? 10.1 lb Case is pressed aluminum so hard rock.

blackest Loc: Ireland

DVD drives can be handy once in a blue moon, you can mount a dvd image file as a virtual drive on Windows, OSX and Linux. You can make a usb installer which will run faster than a DVD drive.

So if you have an existing DVD drive around I see no need to duplicate it.

Maybe you want a blue ray drive instead...
It isn't an essential that's for sure. They are likely to go the way of the floppy disk.

roicead Loc: delaware

i bought a gaming laptop just for playing video games on the go. ended up installing photoshop, lightroom and illustrator. still pretty fast and cost me under $1600.

17"
windows
32 gb ram
1 256 ssd
2 1.5tb hard drives
nvidia geforce graphics card
blueray, sd, hdmi, 4 usb

Rongnongno Loc: FL

1 x MSI GT80 Titan SLI-263 () = $4,221.00
Display 18.4" (60Hz) WideFHD WLED (1920x1080) Matte-Type Screen
Dead Pixel Warranty Standard No Dead Pixel Policy
Processor 5th Generation Intel® Broadwell™ i7-5950HQ (2.9GHz - 3.7GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache)
Graphics Video Card SLI (2x) - NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 980M (16.0GB total) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 (Maxwell) (SKU – GPU001X)
Ram 32GB DDR4 1600MHz [SKU-818CP] (Dual Channel Memory (4x8GB SODIMMS))
XOTICFX Logo Backlight (Back of LCD) MSI Logo [White] - Stock
mSATA / M.2 SSD Drive - Configuration Option M.2 Option: Operating System Installed [Default] w/ M.2(s) selected below
mSATA / M.2 SSD Drive ( Slot 1 ) 128GB Solid State Drive [M.2] SSD - Stock
mSATA / M.2 SSD Drive ( Slot 2 ) 500GB Crucial MX200 Solid State Drive [M.2] SSD (Read 550MB/s - Write 500MB/s)
Second Hard Drive 1TB 7200RPM (SATA III - 6GB/s) - Default (SKU - HDD025)
Optical Drive Bay Slim - Blu-Ray Reader + DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive (SKU - ODD710)
Wireless Network Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Dual Band Wireless-AC N1525 - 802.11 AC/A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module + Bluetooth 4.0 [M.2 Chip] - Default (SKU - WIFI74)
Wireless Network Accessories No Network Accessory
Memory Card Reader Internal 3-in-1 Card Reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC)
Sound Card Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
AC Adapter - European/UK Power Cord Standard US Power Cord

Fuller description as per the bill of sale.

joe west Loc: Taylor, Michigan

i have a toshiba touch screen, 16gb memory, good graphics card, 1tb harddrive, 17in screen all for under $600.00 at best buy
and no trouble running anything

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

MAC