Lightweight Notebook for a dive trip

[Mike]

I am off to Palau at the end of August. I want to replace my heavy laptop with a lightweight notebook. I will install PS software, so I need some capability for managing images. Amy suggestions? Please

Notebook or 'netbook'?

Netbooks are the perfect travel computer, small, light, cheap, run full versions of software, operate like a notebook but smaller and lighter version and the batteries last twice as long. Usually worth paying for one 1 step up from the basic, with double the ram and a bigger hard drive. Do idiot apple products even have a usb port or a SD card reader? I bought an Ipad once, took it back after 2 weeks and bought a Surface. Can't believe how apple makes you jump through hoops to get files on their products, forcing you to use itunes for file management, ridiculous.

 

[Aquavelvet]

The MacBook Air has a built-in SD card reader and a USB3 port. Even the iPad has a simple accessory for reading SD cards. Plus Macs, iPhones and iPads can sync files wirelessly between each other through iCloud (free) without use of iTunes.

Since the non-volatile storage in the Air is Flash memory, it's less susceptible to traditional hard drive failures, yet it's still a good idea to have a back up plan. That could be an external drive or through iCloud file storage (5 GB free).

 

[dmoore19]

I had an Acer aspire netbook that worked pretty good until I tried running PS on it. Not near enough horse power, slow as hell.

The solid state drive on the MacBook Air is the reason I bought it, no moving parts and hanging out around saltwater air seemed like a good idea. That and the fact it syncs with my wife's Ipad and both of our Iphones.

The Surface looks like a great tablet though. I have a friend that has one and he likes it, but I don't think he uses it for photo editing.

 

[Mike]

All I know is that we spent 2 weeks trying to use an ipad as a simple portfolio displaying device for our business, 3 trips talking to 3 separate 'geniuses' at their store over 2 weeks and the conclusion of all of them was, 'can't do it'. Bought a surface and 30 minutes later we were done and we can actually maintain it all on the device instead of having to do it all on another device and syncing it. Apple's file management limitations boggle the mind.

Anyways not to beat up apple all day.

---------- Post added July 8th, 2014 at 08:00 PM ----------

I had an Acer aspire netbook that worked pretty good until I tried running PS on it. Not near enough horse power, slow as hell.

If I was planning on running processor heavy programs like PS or edit HD video on a net book I wouldn't buy the entry level one with 1GB of memory and a slow Atom processor, I'd want the one with 8GB of memory, a 500gb hard drive and fast dual processors and then you're good to go.

---------- Post added July 8th, 2014 at 08:02 PM ----------

The solid state drive on the MacBook Air is the reason I bought it, no moving parts and hanging out around saltwater air seemed like a good idea.

That is a interesting set of specs and I can see the logic in that.

 

[flareside]

If I was planning on running processor heavy programs like PS or edit HD video on a net book I wouldn't buy the entry level one with 1GB of memory and a slow Atom processor, I'd want the one with 8GB of memory, a 500gb hard drive and fast dual processors and then you're good to go.

At that point, it is no longer a netbook, its an ultrabook.... and the price has tripled, in which case you might as well spring for a macbook. Netbooks were defined by a low power atom (or similar) processor and 2GB max ram. Those were the limitations set by microsoft in return for their agreement to provide bargain copies of the windows OS to keep the cost low.

 

[spoolin01]

The Acer V5-171 - as an example - is a 12" ultrathin with good battery life and decently light weight. They can be had with 3rd and 4th gen i5 CPUs, and are not so expensive. There are tons of similar laptops of various brands, just get an i5 or i7 from the 3rd or 4th generation. You can do anything you like regarding RAM and drive upgrading with any but the lowest end Windows laptop. By the way, it's not often you see anyone recommend a solid state drive for a reliability improvement over a platter drive. They have vastly higher failure rates from what I can tell. Laptop platter drives are pretty bullet-proof nowadays, but a backup of some sort (thumb drive, SD card, portable HDD) is always advisable for any setup.

 

[dmoore19]

My personal experience is certainly different than what you are saying. In the 2-3 years I have had it I have had zero problems with anything. In that same time I have had a hard drive failure in the PC laptop I have for work of the same vintage.

Certainly the netbook I had did not have the horsepower needed. My Air has an I 7 processor and has 4 GB Ram. It runs Lightroom 4 without problems.

The OP asked for a lightweight notebook to run PS for file managing images. Under those requirements I can wholeheartedly suggest the MacBook Air. I also highly recommend backup if that is a portable drive (I have a 1TB drive I store photos on) and online storage (Adobe offers something that does that, though I don't use it), I have a photobucket account for that. If the OP wants something to manage images they could also use iPhoto which has some pretty descent ways to manage to files and is included at no additional charge.

I don't pretend to be on top of all the specs but I do know what works well for me. It also syncs effortlessly with our iPhone and my wife's iPad. YMMV

The Acer V5-171 - as an example - is a 12" ultrathin with good battery life and decently light weight. They can be had with 3rd and 4th gen i5 CPUs, and are not so expensive. There are tons of similar laptops of various brands, just get an i5 or i7 from the 3rd or 4th generation. You can do anything you like regarding RAM and drive upgrading with any but the lowest end Windows laptop. By the way, it's not often you see anyone recommend a solid state drive for a reliability improvement over a platter drive. They have vastly higher failure rates from what I can tell. Laptop platter drives are pretty bullet-proof nowadays, but a backup of some sort (thumb drive, SD card, portable HDD) is always advisable for any setup.

 

[spoolin01]

I'm no expert either, and have never had a platter drive fail, despite having used some of them upwards of 10 years. They do fail though even if at a very low rate, which is why anecdote doesn't tell the story. SSDs are very popular now, but still newish technology by comparison and there have been some real stumbles even in recent times. That they cost 10x/GB compared to platter drives probably only heightens the bad rep brought on by the still absolutely low failure rate.

The Air is a fine item, but under the hood there is a lot of equivalent hardware out there now. It seems like laptops broadly are finally hitting the sweet spot of horsepower combined with battery life.

My personal experience is certainly different than what you are saying. In the 2-3 years I have had it I have had zero problems with anything. In that same time I have had a hard drive failure in the PC laptop I have for work of the same vintage.

Certainly the netbook I had did not have the horsepower needed. My Air has an I 7 processor and has 4 GB Ram. It runs Lightroom 4 without problems.

The OP asked for a lightweight notebook to run PS for file managing images. Under those requirements I can wholeheartedly suggest the MacBook Air. I also highly recommend backup if that is a portable drive (I have a 1TB drive I store photos on) and online storage (Adobe offers something that does that, though I don't use it), I have a photobucket account for that. If the OP wants something to manage images they could also use iPhoto which has some pretty descent ways to manage to files and is included at no additional charge.

I don't pretend to be on top of all the specs but I do know what works well for me. It also syncs effortlessly with our iPhone and my wife's iPad. YMMV

 

[PeterNBiddle]

I really like my Lenovo Carbon X1. It's better than a MacBook Air for my purposes. The touch screen is really really handy for flying and it has a screaming CPU, plenty of slots and lots of RAM. The battery lasts for at least 4 eps of a Breaking Bad in HD.

I do like the MacBook Pro sitting on the kitchen island beside me from a HW perspective but I prefer Windows to Mac OS, although I don't like Windows 8 very well.