laptop monitor

[Anbesol]

I am in the market for a new laptop around the $500 price point, with a 11-14" screen. My primary purpose is school work, however I was curious about making it a photoshop machine as well (which will also help with school, but not required). My only concern is the quality of contrast and color accuracy on the monitors, which in previous experience has been pretty sub-par compared to standard monitors. How are current laptops monitors in regards to such qualities? Is there a specific brand or type of monitor I should look for? I know Toshiba and Sony have, in the past, held their laptop monitors to higher than normal standards. Another thing I am worried about in them is their ability to display the 0-10 and the 245-255 level tones.

Anyway - I was also hoping to get a tablet, but that is not crucial, if color accuracy is better on something else that would take priority. The specific tablet model I currently have my eye on is the HP TouchSmart tm2-2050us. I was also looking at a Lenovo.

Any input, advice or thoughts are much appreciated. Thanks!

[OldClicker]

I'm also looking in that price range. One thing I've seen is that the 15-16" are much cheaper than the 14" and less.

I haven't found much about the screen at this price except, "connect it to a real monitor" for any image editing.

The advice I have received the most is to maximize the RAM (as much as you can get) and run 64 bit OS.

Terry

[gryphonslair99]

You would be better served to get a separate free standing IPS monitor to use with the laptop you choose. There are very few IPS, S-IPS laptops out there, and those that are; are quite a bit out of your price range. The best would probably be the HP EliteBook 8740W with the Dream Color IPS upgrade. Most laptops have TN screens which run a poor third for photo editing in a two screen field.

A nice laptop in your price range and a nice little IPS monitor could be had a lot cheaper than a good laptop with the proper screen. This would be a good addition at a fraction of the cost.

[n8]

I personally have a dell studio xps 1640. While it was out of your price range when I got it, it...or it's equivalent might be in if you consider the cost of an extra monitor. My monitor is plenty good for photo editing, blu-ray playing, etc...

[Anbesol]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

My desktop will remain my primary photo editing machine, I would only use this laptop secondarily. I also wouldn't be making any prints off the laptop either, so being exceptionally accurate isn't necessary. I was only wanting something that was color accurate enough to make it so that editing images was not a waste of time, which I think unfortunately it probably will be, your responses seem to indicate that too. Sounds like I should just stick with the tablet idea.

Terry - the 15-16" laptops have much lower battery life and are bulkier and more cumbersome to take around a classroom environment. I know the 14 and under have a premium, but I just need that premium. Fortunately, I have a microcenter right down the street, so I have a huge, good selection of well-priced laptops. I won't be getting ripped off at best buy :P.

I'm actually running 32-bit with 2.5 gigs of memory now. Most people would gasp at my super-low amount of ram, but I'm a computer geek and I manage the 2.5 gigs well, right now I'm only using 825MB of it . I've found that most of the time its excessive and wasteful using more than that. Of course, I'll need more when I decide to upgrade to a 24 Megapixel full frame camera. Right now it handles the raws and multi-layers of a 12MP just fine.

[ksbryan0]

I just read about a new HP model that might be worth looking into. It is a Pavilion dm1 and the base price is $450. It is sized like a netbook, but seems more like a laptop. 750 GB hard drive, 11.6 inch Bright View display for 1080p HD viewing, 10.75 hour battery and it weighs 3.5 pounds. Not sure about the RAM capacity or processor, as I haven't had time to research this yet.

[Anbesol]

That actually looks like a pretty nifty setup, right at what I want and perfect on all the specs. I may have to check that out at the local shop, bring a print in and the original file on a flash drive and see how close to the general ballpark the monitor gets. Win 7 already has a pretty good hue adjustment utility.

I've heard some pretty good things on the AMD E350 too, but can't find much in way of benchmarks. My main PC is only a humble athlon x2 3800, I wonder if it will outperform it... Some silly salesmen told me that the Atom A330 would, and it didn't even come close... haha. Guess I won't ask the guy trying to sell me the laptop :P.

The Ram starts at 3GB, expandable to 8GB with 2 (very expensive) 4GB SO-Dimms (two more 4 GB So-Dimms would cost as much as the entire laptop itself). The CPU is one of those low-voltage ones, with the video hardware placed on the CPU die. 1.6GHz dual core, 1MB L2 cache which I assume is shared, I couldn't find the system bus specs but I'm going to wager its probably something like 2.1 MT, 1.06GHz main bus on a 266 base. Video has DX11 support too, should play blu-ray and 1080p digital files too. HDMI and VGA outputs a plus!

Oh yeah and the monitor is 720p, not 1080p, with a 1366x768 resolution, which I think is PLENTY for that tiny monitor anyway.

[Anbesol]

Ended up getting this. Except I payed a lot less, brand new too .

I've been using it a few weeks now. Its great, the 12 cell battery is awesome.

But the monitor, not so awesome. Oh well, it is absolutely perfect for me on everything else. The color quality is good *enough* to do a lot of photo work, would require more print proofing though.

However - I just connect it to my home monitor (great color) and it is my new photoshop powerhouse. I've switched over to an all raw workflow now that it won't stress my resources so much.