Laptop recommendation needed

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KimH said:
Thanks so much. I want to go mac but I'm just scared. The salesman at the store today said they're coming out with M4 Macbooks soon and that I should wait to make a decision until those come out.
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I think the M4 Macs are to be announced next week. If they’re a bit too pricey for your budget an M3 model will work just fine.
 
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When I was looking to upgrade from my Razer Blade i9 the latest I9 Dell XPS and Asus Pro Art 16 were not available.

I think it would be interesting to have a full comparison in performance.

At the time I was looking I had two concerns, one that with Lightroom I could work imports and surfing through a volume of thumbnails without significant lag. the other concern was that I wanted to get a 5K monitor. and perhaps one day later even a 6k.

At the time I was not able to find a pc laptop that had a sufficiently strong graphics card that could support 5k.

Does anyone know if these new laptops support 5k or 6k? If so do you have to select an upgraded graphics card to meet that standard? How does that affect price?

I know that at the time I made the shift to MAC M chips the basic model was already able to support multiple monitors which included 5k and 6k. I atlso learned the basic models were able to work large volumes of images in Lightroom seamlessly with no appreciable lag.

I think someone who is facing this dilemma needs complete comparative information. It might be out there, I have not seen such a comparison.
 
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Can’t speak for windows machines as I have never used them due to recording Pro Tools back in 1998 when it would only run on a Mac. I can say though now that I bought one of those 16in MacBook Pros last winter when B+H was blowing out the m1 max machines I am for the first time happy when I travel. I take thousands of RAW photos each day (z8) and like to burn through them at night and this machine can do that where my old Intel Mac could not. Before the download would take forever and rendering one to one previews took even longer. You need to be able to zoom in to truly see what shots you want to keep. I would say get a big fast machine with lots of ram and a decent sized ssd Hd. You won’t regret it.
 
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wotan1 said:
When I was looking to upgrade from my Razer Blade i9 the latest I9 Dell XPS and Asus Pro Art 16 were not available.

I think it would be interesting to have a full comparison in performance.

At the time I was looking I had two concerns, one that with Lightroom I could work imports and surfing through a volume of thumbnails without significant lag. the other concern was that I wanted to get a 5K monitor. and perhaps one day later even a 6k.

At the time I was not able to find a pc laptop that had a sufficiently strong graphics card that could support 5k.

Does anyone know if these new laptops support 5k or 6k? If so do you have to select an upgraded graphics card to meet that standard? How does that affect price?

I know that at the time I made the shift to MAC M chips the basic model was already able to support multiple monitors which included 5k and 6k. I atlso learned the basic models were able to work large volumes of images in Lightroom seamlessly with no appreciable lag.

I think someone who is facing this dilemma needs complete comparative information. It might be out there, I have not seen such a comparison.
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This is exactly what I want to research. Given the state of my current laptop (it is getting slower), I need to make a decision fairly soon so that I can continue to work.
 
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TomSavage said:
I bit the bullet and went with a Dell XPS 17 9730 with 64 GB ram, i9-13900H 2.60 GHz, 2TB solid state disk, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080. I was expensive but it runs Lightroom CC very well.
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Thank you for commenting this. This 17" model isn't available. It looks like the closest specs are for the XPS 16. I also want to look at an Asus someone recommended. I am hopeful that one of these will solve my dilemma.
 
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Kuau said:
I currently have a Apple M3 Max 16” and I also have the new Asus Pro Art 16 with the latest AMD processor
My baseline test is using one of my Hasselblad X2D100C raw files and run it through ACR Denoise AI here are the results
The Mac does it in 40 seconds and the PC takes 45 seconds
The cost difference is in my case is substantial the MacBook was over $3K and I picked up an open box Pro Art 16 from Bestbuy for $1850

Am I switching to the Asus… no yet it does show in terms of performance there is not a “huge” advantage from the Machook to the ASUS
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So you are saying the Asus Pro Art 16 is essentially processing in LR at the same speed as your mac? Loading photos, etc are all comparable in speed between the 2? Regarding your last comment about switching you're a mac user that would switch to the Asus. If I'm a windows user and would prefer to stay windows, you could recommend the Asus based on your experience?
 
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John Woodworth said:
I faced similar problem of replacing my windoze laptop this spring. I photograph a 5-day festival every year and the post processing burden was not going to be a happy event with my old computer. After thorough consideration (including switching to Apple) I bought an Asus ProArt Studiobook 16:

Mine is the version with 32 MBytes and RTX4070 graphics accelerator.

This has been a great upgrade. Lightroom and Photoshop now work with no lag. Enhance, which took tens of minutes on the old machine, is now near instantaneous. It has a calibrated OLED screen with near 100% Adobe color and low delta-E.

It includes an active stylus which works both on the (touch) screen and on the track pad, so I no longer need a Wacom pad which took valuable desk space. The pen has no discernable latency and is amazing.

I use Topaz Photo AI on almost every photo now (I usually shoot in low, uneven light) and it takes about 10s to render and output a full-size tiff (Z8/9 sized).

It is supposedly built to near military standards.

Downside is: Performance degrades when unplugged from power; The power BRICK is enormous. Good news is that it comes with a backpack.

There is a new version out called the Asus P16. There are not many reviews of it yet. It uses an AMD processor instead of an Intel i9. Same graphics card available. In early reviews it performs better than the old version when unplugged, but surprisingly is behind the previous version when plugged in.

The transfer from my old computer was easy. I use the internal ssd during processing, external storage for intermediate/long-term storage and backup, and also Backblaze, and have no problems.

I am very happy with this.

Hope this helps.
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not that I wouldn't go this direction for only this reason, but exactly how giant is the power brick? Any idea what it weighs? I'm just curious when traveling for packing purposes.
 
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KimH said:
So you are saying the Asus Pro Art 16 is essentially processing in LR at the same speed as your mac? Loading photos, etc are all comparable in speed between the 2? Regarding your last comment about switching you're a mac user that would switch to the Asus. If I'm a windows user and would prefer to stay windows, you could recommend the Asus based on your experience?
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My point of my earlier comment is that there are several things you will want to test when comparing computers. Speed of handling denoise is one thing. A second test is how long it takes to import a volume of images and create thumbnails. A third test is to bring up your whole catalog and surf through a volume of thumbnails. Does it move smoothly or does it bog down and you have to wait for the equipment to catch up. Finally can it handle 5k or 6k monitors.

I don't know the answer to any of those questions when looking at the newest Asus and Dell computers. As I stated earlier, I was in your exact situation a little more than a year ago. Had I found a PC laptop that could have handled all of those things listed above I would have stayed with PC. I looked then but did not find what I wanted. Maybe it is available now I don't know.

This is not about advocating for one system or another, this is about giving you information based on our personal experience for you to consider that will help you make the best decision for yourself. People here did that for me when I was trying to decide and they helped me make a decision that was right for me.

What ultimately made me go for MAC was that I was able to buy a used/reconditioned base level M1 MacBook Pro 16 for $1400 and test it out. I was able to check all the boxes with that unit. It handled denoise quickly. It could do 5k and 6k monitors. Most importantly to me I was for the first time able to surf through my Lightroom catalog with no bogging down. It imported volumes of images quickly and created the thumbnails.

That was my personal experience.
 
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wotan1 said:
My point of my earlier comment is that there are several things you will want to test when comparing computers. Speed of handling denoise is one thing. A second test is how long it takes to import a volume of images and create thumbnails. A third test is to bring up your whole catalog and surf through a volume of thumbnails. Does it move smoothly or does it bog down and you have to wait for the equipment to catch up. Finally can it handle 5k or 6k monitors.

I don't know the answer to any of those questions when looking at the newest Asus and Dell computers. As I stated earlier, I was in your exact situation a little more than a year ago. Had I found a PC laptop that could have handled all of those things listed above I would have stayed with PC. I looked then but did not find what I wanted. Maybe it is available now I don't know.

This is not about advocating for one system or another, this is about giving you information based on our personal experience for you to consider that will help you make the best decision for yourself. People here did that for me when I was trying to decide and they helped me make a decision that was right for me.

What ultimately made me go for MAC was that I was able to buy a used/reconditioned base level M1 MacBook Pro 16 for $1400 and test it out. I was able to check all the boxes with that unit. It handled denoise quickly. It could do 5k and 6k monitors. Most importantly to me I was for the first time able to surf through my Lightroom catalog with no bogging down. It imported volumes of images quickly and created the thumbnails.

That was my personal experience.
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I’m on my phone so I don’t have the entire thread in front of me so perhaps I’m not remembering the discussion correctly. I was curious how your Asus was handling other tasks in LR such as the things you mentioned above. I thought you had an Asus and a Mac. Apologies if I misunderstood. Your point about all of the tasks in Lr are exactly what I’m trying to find out.
 
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wotan1 said:
When I was looking to upgrade from my Razer Blade i9 the latest I9 Dell XPS and Asus Pro Art 16 were not available.

I think it would be interesting to have a full comparison in performance.
Click to expand...
I found a comparison of the Pro Art vs an M3 Pro but not an M3 Max which you can get if you go to the 16 inch model…but it was just the typical benchmark score and I learned a long time ago not to take those with much regard and look at comparisons running the apps you want to run. Personally I'm not interested in a 16 inch laptop for size/weight purposes but the comparative review indicated the Asus was cheaper albeit with less RAM and less battery life…and the unified memory in Macs makes for more efficient memory use so the more RAM is accentuated…but realistically for anything less than 8K video either one is going to run LR and PS just fine. The choice largely comes down to what OS one wants to be in rather than performance between those two…and whether the walled garden at Apple for HW/SW which does improve their security over Windows machines is important to you…and the lower futzing with the system intangibles.
 
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Anjin San said:
I found a comparison of the Pro Art vs an M3 Pro but not an M3 Max which you can get if you go to the 16 inch model…but it was just the typical benchmark score and I learned a long time ago not to take those with much regard and look at comparisons running the apps you want to run. Personally I'm not interested in a 16 inch laptop for size/weight purposes but the comparative review indicated the Asus was cheaper albeit with less RAM and less battery life…and the unified memory in Macs makes for more efficient memory use so the more RAM is accentuated…but realistically for anything less than 8K video either one is going to run LR and PS just fine. The choice largely comes down to what OS one wants to be in rather than performance between those two…and whether the walled garden at Apple for HW/SW which does improve their security over Windows machines is important to you…and the lower futzing with the system intangibles.
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Do you know if the Pro Art is compatible with 5k and 6k monitors?

I got a 5k Studio monitor when I switched over and I really enjoy working with the higher resolution in photo editing.
 
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wotan1 said:
Do you know if the Pro Art is compatible with 5k and 6k monitors?

I got a 5k Studio monitor when I switched over and I really enjoy working with the higher resolution in photo editing.
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No idea…I'm a macOS guy since I was still a Windows sysadmin and I retired in 2012. I find today's Windows user interface to be so inscrutable that it's unusable…the last MS UI I liked was the XP/Win7 one because it worked pretty similar to macOS and didn't get in your way. I did read the blurb and reviews about it on the4 B&H site and it's got terrible battery life, gets hot but nothing about external display port beyond HDMI and Thunderbolt.

If I was interested in Windows…I would take a look at it…but the 16 inch size is too big and heavy to comfortably travel with…that's why I went from the 15 mBP to the 14 as the latter has the same pixel dimension display.
 
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KimH said:
This is exactly what I want to research. Given the state of my current laptop (it is getting slower), I need to make a decision fairly soon so that I can continue to work.
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One site that does fairly comprehensive, and useful laptop reviews is here: https://www.notebookcheck.net/ . Searching for a particular mode is a bit clunky, but I find the reviews are quite good, and they address a lot of factors that are considered when choosing a laptop.

--Ken
 
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KimH said:
I rarely use Denoise in LR because it takes too long to process (this is not new, it's always been this way.) But for the past 1-2 weeks, LR has been buggy. What is new is that LR gives a message that it's "not responding" but eventually it does. There are multiple other issues but another one is that it takes 20-30 seconds for a photo to load when I'm switching between photos in the filmstrip.

(snipped)

Please dumb this down for me. :) Thank you!
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On the Denoise time issue I upgraded to a Mac with M2 chip and upgraded GPU about 2 years ago.
When de-noise arrived - I found my laptop does a preview in under 5 seconds and makes a full new file in about 12 seconds.
I have 32 GB memory and 4 GB capacity, keep my files on this lap-top - though with separate hard drive back-ups.

I know several others who report Denoise takes several minutes on older equipment.

While not a computer expert it seems to me to take take advantage of the numerous recent rapid AI advances requires a computer no more than about 5 years old.
 
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