Help
I live in the UK so please make sure your suggestions are available in my part of the world. Also worth noting that i'm a bit wary of Acer stuff, a mate of mine has had two of their laptops die on him with motherboard problems, both after only about 18 months use.
Despite having an extra 2GB of RAM (2.5GB in total), my 8 year old Dimension 4600 with its P4 2.66GHz processor seems a bit slow and creaky when working with RAW files. Time to get something new perhaps?
First question; Desktop or Laptop? The only upgrade i've made to my desktop since i got it was to stick some extra memory in it and i have neither the confidence nor inclination to do much else in the way of internal hardware tinkering, though i probably could if i really had to. In the past I haven't felt the need to get something portable, though i'm now wondering if something i could take with me to process pictures with when i go out snapping might come in handy, possibly even getting a mobile broadband dongle so i can upload stuff when i'm away from home.
Not really essential but possibly nice to have, what are the pros and cons?
My budget is about £400 though i could manage a bit more if it really made a big difference, it would be interesting to see the luxury options, if only to drool over...
The primary use of this machine would be Processing and editing RAW picture files, with web browsing and e-mail a close second. I sometimes watch streaming videos using the BBC iPlayer, watch DVDs and play music CDs, i also rip CDs to MP3s. I sometimes do a little word processing too.
Software used: Firefox, Thunderbird, Avast a/v, Comodo firewall, Superantispyware, Spybot SD, CCleaner, Silkypix Raw processor, Canon ZoomBrowser, Gimp, Photoshop Lightroom, OpenOffice, other odds and ends that could be changed or replaced without too much trouble.
Games? No games!
Do i have a lot of programmes running at the same time? Yes, sort of, usually Firefox and Thunderbird with Silkypix and ZoomBrowser. (edit) Oh and i'd like to be able to listen to music on the media player while i'm editing photos, is that a bit to much to expect without getting too expensive or unuseably slow?
Do i store a lot of pictures or music on the computer? Most of my stuff is stored on external hard drives, i use the computer mainly for current, working stuff and temporary downloads, that amounts to about 80GB at the moment and could probably do with another good clear out and backup.
So, what should i look for and where might i find it?
This post has been edited by Roadscum: 27 June 2011 - 01:38 PM
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