Another Laptop Question...

[HollyJo]

Hi Brian, I've read through here often to try to figure out what I need to know when choosing a laptop but it's honestly all Greek to me and constantly changing. I just wanna run Photoshop and waste time reading celebrity gossip and shopping on Amazon on a screen that's not too small. Would this do the trick? I'm a bit wary of the touchscreen, flip around thing. Seems like a potential "jack of all trades but master of none" situation.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-spectre-x360-2-in-1-15-6-4k-ultra-hd-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-512gb-ssd-32gb-optane-dark-ash-silver-sandblasted-anodized-finish/6364582.p?skuId=6364582

Thanks so much! If it's not gonna make the cut do you have any rec's under $1500?

Edited December 26, 2019 by HollyJo

[Brian]

Personally, I'd skip the Touchscreen / Flip around thing. They are a bitch to calibrate. If you did go that route, plan on buying a calibrator like the SpyderX Elite, so add a few hundred for the total cost. The problem is the US Tariffs for imports from China. All the computer stuff comes from China. So things are averaging $300-$500 MORE than they did last year, so your budget should be closer to $2000 these days. Since the manufacturers don't want to eat those costs, they are forwarding them down to the consumer.

I will say this laptop seems to tick all the boxes, so it's not off the table. I would just try to calibrate it and see how that goes before the 14-Day return period expires. Have a set of test prints ready to use. If you can't get it calibrated, then return it. Here is a link to the SpyderX Elite on Amazon.

[HollyJo]

Thanks for the feedback, Brian! I appreciate you taking the time!

I ended up biting the bullet and going for it. Calibrated today and just posted my first WB check for Damien, so fingers crossed. 

I haven't owned a laptop in well over a decade. What do people do nowadays to share their images across multiple devices? We don't own Apple anything but my recently installed PS here on the laptop is prompting me to save to the Adobe cloud. Is that the way to go? My desktop is what backs-up regularly and I'd ideally like to load my photos to the desktop but then access them from the laptop. I've just used Dropbox for the moment but it is slow and cumbersome. Advice on best cloud setup?

[Brian]

If you want speed and don’t want to use a cloud service, a Synology NAS unit might be on your short list. Or setup a Windows Workgroup and share a folder on a computer and Map a Network Drive to it.