laptop/netbook for the photographer?

[hillbillyjake]

my wife is really starting to take some good photos. i woul dlike to get her a laptop or net book to use fro her pictures. i thinkthat she would mainly be using it fro her pictures and the internet. the one thing she said the she definitely wants is wi-fi. i would like to stay in the $300-$350 if this is possible to do and get a good machine. thanks in advance.

[nwoods]

Um, that price seems a little low for a good machine. If you aim for $900 you have a lot more competent options.

[ywen]

buy a used IBM thinkpad T-series.. those things are built like tanks.. you can probably get one for $350 that can be adequate for photo editing.. The larger the T-number the newer the model.

[hillbillyjake]

i was worried that my budget was going to be to low. i was hoping that i could get into something adequate for that price but i guess not. i may try to find one of the thinkpad t-series. thanks

[FLYFISHEXPERT]

I picked up a used HP netbook for $400 prior to our trip to Chile. It doesn't do everything that our full size laptop can do, but it did allow us to travel and share photos with home.

If you would really like to have the capability to edit photos, you will need to spend more than your budget. That said, we picked up our Lenovo Thinkpad from Office Max at the Black Friday sale for ~$350, so watch the adds.

[Lost Canadian]

I've spent over $4 grand on the computer setup that I use just for picture editing and that's excluding the printer. So don't feel too bad saving up a bit more for your wifes photo machine, it'll be worth it. Try to find something with a good resolution display, and preferablably of the backlit LED kind.

[Lostmanifesto]

Editing raw files requires power, memory and space. Do yourself a favor and save up. I just spent $3,200 on a new MacBook Pro for photo editing. I need every ounce of it to do my job. Good luck!

[hillbillyjake]

from my research i was concerned that my budget wasn't going to cut it and you guys have confirmed it. the bad part about saving up is i was hoping to get her the computer for Christmas this year. maybe next year. thanks for al the info guys.

any Christmas ideas fro the photographer in the $300 range? ideas?

[Every Miles A Memory]

I agree with the others about the Lenovo series of laptops.

I've tried Acer, Dell, HP (Worst by far) and finally after needing things fixed and repaired on each one, moved up to a Lenovo.

Funny part is I searched around a bit and found a great deal $400ish range on Newegg.com. Ordered it and noticed 2 days later it was actually $70 cheaper. Called them and they refunded me the difference.

I have a desktop cpu, but it hasn't even been turned on in months because I'm usually working on images at the tiki bar, with a client or on the road. So I wanted a bigger laptop with a 17" screen.

This Lenovo is lighter than all my other laptops, is larger (Others were 15" models) and uses less power because it has a LED screen. It's got 6gigs of RAM, a 500gig HDD, and is pretty awesome for working on my images.

All that for under $500. I'd watch Newegg.com for deals this week and next. They had a ton of good stuff for Veterans Day and keep advertising the Black Friday deals already.

[PirateMcGee]

from my research i was concerned that my budget wasn't going to cut it and you guys have confirmed it. the bad part about saving up is i was hoping to get her the computer for Christmas this year. maybe next year. thanks for al the info guys.

any Christmas ideas fro the photographer in the $300 range? ideas?

is your wife an amateur photographer? what does she prefer to shoot (portraits, landscapes, etc.)? What gear does she already have?