Updated 22/01/2017!
Over the years, I have come to consider myself as a little bit of a technology nerd. Perhaps it’s because I tend to spend many hours each day in front of a monitor, which by habit causes me to accumulate a lot of knowledge on this subject which is constantly evolving. If you’re not aware of the latest trends within just a few months, you could feel as if they had happened 10 or 15 years before noticing. In this article, I am going to take you through a series of reviews covering the very best laptops for editing and retouching.
I must admit that due to the nature of my work, I am not really known for being a fan of ergonomic laptop computers – given a chance, I think that I would choose a Dell Alienware 18″ or an Asus ROG G752VT over a more practically sized and portable option such as a Macbook Air 13″ or an Asus Zenbook NX500. Working with RAM-eating software such as Photoshop or Illustrator for my photography/design jobs (not to mention my love-hate relationship with 3ds Max for ArchViz works), having a system build that can survive the “beatings” of 10-12 hours of work in addition to good performance intense is a necessity.
Asus ROG G752VT
5 out of 5
Up to 64GB of RAM
Amazing graphics
Powerful processor
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MacBook Pro 2016 with Touch Bar
4 out of 5
Lightweight
Powerful build
OSX
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Acer Aspire E5 – 573 G
3.6 out of 5
Cheap
Low end graphics
Lightweight
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Many times friends and colleagues have asked for my advice on what would be a proper laptop for “design apps” or “the best laptop for photo editing.” Well, my first question is: “what is the ultimate goal of your work?”
As many of you know, there is a tendency to encompass a wide variety of software under what is known as “design apps”; and such assertion is wrong, since despite being related, the demand of each one is actually very different: it is not the same to compare a photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Corel Photo Paint, and several others with software like Adobe Premiere, which is dedicated to video editing. Each software within this “category” will require different hardware requirements according to task we want to fulfil – for example: Adobe Photoshop recommends that our system build needs to have a video card which optimizes the display; however, unless we use Photoshop 3D editing tools, we can work perfectly with integrated graphics (the graphics contained in the instructions of our processor chip), with the slight risk of receiving a warning or noticing that the user interface does not behave with fluency that it may give if we had a video card in our PC rig.
This can be confusing for many people out there, as it is necessary to define which are the minimum requirements to support a program of this caliber. In my opinion, it’s easier to explain this is through presenting from the “Price vs. performance” point of view. The greater the budget invested in the PC you want to have, the higher the quality of the parts we buy, and mostly will keep us from experiencing the “bottleneck” situation we would have if we are “on budget” – It is also important to note that buying high-end parts will not necessarily guarantee powerful performance unless the user actually takes full advantage of them. Considering all the above elements, I have put together a list of the best 12 laptops for photographers on the 2017 market, followed by a list of key points for any PC/Laptop intended for photo-editing use.
Best Laptops For Photography and Editing in 2017
MacBook Pro 2016 with Touch BarGo to Amazon
Apple is innovation at its best. The truth is that it was a much-expected update after leaks that showed the announcement of a newly-introduced TouchBar. However, the price has increased as well for those models that feature such improvement.
Watch video review
Overall rating:
92
Battery Life:
0
95
100
Graphics::
0
80
100
Design::
0
100
100
Speed::
0
95
100
Storage Capacity::
0
85
100
Weight::
0
95
100
Pros
Mac OSX System
Excellent Battery life
Clear Retina Display
Fast and Reliable
Beautiful Design
Lightweight
Touch Bar
Unlock with Touch ID
Touch Bar interacts with most software available to date
Cons
Expensive
ATI Radeon Graphics
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Design and Features
Lighter and thinner than the previous generation, the MacBook Pro weighs 1.37kg for the 13” model and 1.83kg for the 15” one, with an up to 17% thickness reduction.
Another change from its previous model is the removal of the traditional USB ports and the MagSafe charging port, replacing them with USB-C and Thunderbolt ports. But don’t worry, the 3.5mm headphone jack is still available!
The new feature, Touch Bar, is a long and slender touchscreen that is placed above the keyboard, replacing the function keys. Depending on the app running, a wide range of functions and control become available. Fast and extremely responsive, it's a fantastic feature to improve performance with design apps as well as common apps; and saves the user the time to switch between apps with ease. At its right end, Apple added a TouchID sensor for logging to the laptop itself and use other services such as Apple Pay or the iTunes Store.
The fingerprint login is very convenient when you use your laptop with several accounts, as the system will recognize the user's prints and automatically log into its linked account.
The trackpad size has considerably increased in size, making at least twice the size of the previous generation trackpads. This is not something that amazes me much given my hate-hate relationship with trackpads, but some users may appreciate it. The other notorious improvement is the implementation of Force Touch technology to it, although it's not surprising if we consider that Apple has added it to its entire range of products released last year. For the trackpad, it helps to the feeling of an actual mouse, meaning that when the user taps the trackpad, it won't move, but instead, react like a real click; whereas applying some force will move the cursor around. Depending on the force applied and the movement made, the MacBook Pro will detect a right-click.
The keys of this new model’s keyboard are lower to the surface than its previous release, making a shallower typing experience to the user. Touch Bar helps to improve speed thanks to its QuickType text prediction and auto-corrections that arrived with MacOS Sierra.
Performance
16 GB of RAM is much appreciated and certainly what users would expect from a high-end Apple laptop. With a 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 for the 13" model and 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 for the 15”, it's a performance improvement for photographers; yet even more so, if we consider how smoothly Adobe apps tend to run with MacOSX.
One thing that is clearly disappointing is the graphics specs. I mean, seriously Apple? Why pair such a fantastic laptop with an ATI Radeon graphics card? For most creative artists, Nvidia is the way to go, given boost performance by CUDA technologies. Despite minor software compatibility issues that still occur to date, the Graphics Card choice is the only thing that can keep me from getting this beauty.
Battery life is expected to last up to 10 hours with WiFi – but the use of heavy design apps can reduce that time span to 4-5 hours. Yet the battery life isn’t really bad and certainly is an eye catcher.
It's a lovely laptop no doubt – I certainly loved the Touch Bar so much that I wish this feature would be available to other laptop manufacturers. The 16 GB RAM max spec is still a nuisance – at least they should go up to 32 GB RAM as some video making apps like Premiere would feel the benefits of the additional RAM. Still, Apple has a long way to go to rival conventional Windows-based laptops, but is slowly getting there.
(Images courtesy of Apple.com)
Acer Aspire E5 – 573 GGo to Amazon
A pc whose features, except for the processor, reminds me of my Samsung. Laptops like this one have the advantage of being all-terrain – with an estimated 2 or more hours on average battery life (depends on the settings of brightness, the energy plan selected and apps being used), gives us both autonomy and a good level of performance for a reasonable price. The value for every dollar you spend is so high which is why this is our number 1 pick for the price concerned customer.
Overall rating:
85
Battery Life:
0
80
100
Speed:
0
85
100
Graphics:
0
70
100
Storage Capacity:
0
100
100
Design:
0
85
100
Weight:
0
89
100
Pros
Strong Processor (I7 intel Core)
1 TB harddrive
Affordable Price
Lightweight
Cons
Low-end Graphics card
Heating issues if not maintained
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My current laptop, with almost identical features, is 5 years old and the only problem experienced was just overheating, leading to a replacement of thermal paste. It is recommended that if you intend to work for long hours in Adobe Photoshop, and especially in times of heat, to acquire a dissipating base as a way of helping the performance of the system build. Of course it is a computer that can do jobs such as rendering videos in Adobe Premiere for long hours, but it will probably suffer from overheating since it was not intended for such use.
If you are used to having Windows laptops then you know they can go both ways in terms of what they have to offer. You often seek a consistent performer when looking for an amazing laptop. We think The Acer Aspire E5 – 573G is more than capable of fulfilling your needs with amazing reliability. The core strengths of this laptop are centred on 1TB hard drive, Intel Core i5, the NVidia GeForce 940M and the price. We will delve deeper into all these offerings in detail and discuss some small downsides and issues we found when we were doing our due diligence.
The major positive is definitely the storage capacity. This device is basically a mid-range laptop with gaming or media laptop like storage capability. The 1TB hard drive is more than enough to comfortably support your OS and still give you at least 700GB of room for all your other programs and data. You are probably checking out this laptop with a keen interest in photography well let me tell you, this laptop is ideal to store all your photos and videos quite comfortably. If you have an enormous amount of stuff to store you can always take advantage of google drive or even Microsoft’s one drive.
The device comes with Windows 10 HOME installed and in some cases you can upgrade to a premium version by paying a little extra. The memory capacity is a healthy 8GB DDR3. You can even upgrade the 800 MHZ ram to 1600 MHZ to get higher performance. It’ll probably cost you an additional $30 but in the long run it could be a smart move. This might not give you lightning fast speeds while gaming but it is more than enough to achieve a respectable frame rate. This laptop can comfortably run anything like FIFA 16 or even graphics intensive games like Crysis 3.
The main plus point for us was the price. You get so many amazing features and close to top end processing power for just $573. If you exclusively use the laptop to work, store and edit photographs and occasionally game then this laptop is ideal for you. The design is quite slick with a matte black exterior that leaves a bit to be desired. The mouse pad in the device is a bit more to the left when comparing with other mid-range and even gaming laptops. This might take a bit of getting used to but the track pad is very responsive and easy to use.
The display is excellent for viewing photographs and videos. A small issue might be that when viewing the screen from a more acute angle the image and colours are not quite as sharp. This is a downside if you have a large number of people watching a movie at a sleep over then it could get a little uncomfortable. We feel that the design and he finish of the laptop could have been a bit better but the NVidia GeForce 940M coupled with a price less than half of the nearest Mac helps us forget about the exterior rather quickly. The Adobe Suite in particular ran very smoothly and quickly which made the editing process very simple.
A small downside we noticed is that you need to make sure you upgrade your drivers using ACER’s given specifications. We found that this device can be prone to a blue screen or two if you end up installing a lot of third party drivers or drivers that do not fit the actual components. If you are thinking, this is why Windows laptops are annoying well then one suggestion we can make is that you just leave the laptop untouched from when you purchase it. Enable critical windows updates but other than that do not change management engine drivers, BIOS etc. This way your laptop will run really reliably and you can confidently put the laptop into sleep mode even if you forgot to save some work.
The weight of the laptop was a positive too! Even though this device is packing a 15.6 inch screen it is quite light, weighing at just under 5.3 pounds. The dimensions are close to the standard you see for a laptop in this category which is 15.02 x 1 x 10.08 inches. If you are the type to upgrade components very often then the motherboard casing might be hard to access with parts positioned in unusual places. Like the ram for instances can be a pain to access and change.
The processing power you get is a healthy 2.2 GHz it’s not spectacular but it is more than enough as long as you are not an extreme gamer. The screen resolution is a healthy 1920 x 1080, perfect for 1080P movies. You have a few USB slots and a HDMI output which are conveniently placed so that you can connect to a TV with ease. The battery life is quite decent, worthy of an 8/10. The battery life usually ranged between the 3 and 6 hour mark depending upon your usage. You can even stretch this out to 7 hours if you are not intensely multitasking. 9-cell battery (optional, factory includes 6-cell), can stretch the autonomy of the equipment to a total of 3 hours in medium work; so it can easily become the best computer for photo editing.
Overall, we think that this is a great purchase especially if you are looking for value for money. For the $573 there are not many products out there that are essentially a bridge between the mid-range and the high end laptops. The USB 3.0 ports will help you transfer photos, videos and other files to an external hard drive should you have one, quite quickly. A major downside for some people is the lack of the DVD drive but nowadays a blu ray drive could be quite handy. We think for a few extra bucks if they had included a Blu Ray drive it wouldn’t have hurt and only bettered the product. Also if you love using Windows 7 still this laptop will allow you to do that with ease. The hardware should definitely be stable enough to work in an older version of Windows 7.
Dell Inspiron i7559-2512BLKGo to Amazon
Stunning design and unique features at a great price. One of those surprises on the market because of it's Intel generation core i7, 960 M (medium-range) range GTX video card and a decent amount of RAM. The only downside is the touchscreen display.
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Overall rating:
85
Battery Life::
0
80
100
Graphics::
0
95
100
Design::
0
82
100
Speed::
0
85
100
Storage Capacity::
0
85
100
Weight::
0
85
100
Pros
High End Graphics Card
Fast Processor
Good Price
Cons
Small SSD Drive
Touchscreen
Battery Life
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The Dell Inspiron i7559 is a high end dell laptop which amazing processing power. Its versatility is something that really caught our eye. Unlike other dell laptops of the past this particular model has a lot to offer especially if you are unclear about what you intend to use your laptop for. In the following article we are going to delve into the specifics of why we have given this laptop an 8.5/10 rating. So let’s get to it.
First and foremost, we have to mention the processing power. This particular Inspiron is packing a healthy i7, capable of 2.6 GHZ of processing power. This is ideal especially if you are accustomed to multitasking and using high end editing and designing software. The Quad core i7 is tailored made for multitasking at a very high level. You can quite comfortably run Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator with multiple tabs and the laptop wouldn’t slow down much at all. Processing power is backed up by the amazing NVidia GeForce GTX 960M, a medium - high end graphics card that even avid gamers would endorse. The graphics ram itself is a whopping 4GBs. These elements coupled with the price is a major bonus.
Moving on to another positive, the battery life. The battery life according to the manufacturer is on average 10 hours. Significant developments in lithium ion technology is key. However when using this laptop we found that it is more in the 8-9 hour range when not utilizing too many graphic intensive tasks. When the NVidia takes over and you open up a high end game, the battery tends to drain much quicker. Playing the latest games is quite easy as long as you provide an additional level of cooling to extend the life of the laptop. If you live in a hot country it might be better to purchase an additional cooling device.
We mentioned versatility earlier and this laptop has quite a few features that embody that. Firstly, the hard drive is a strange one. The storage capacity is an amazing 1 TB but it is a hybrid hard drive which has a small 8 GB embedded flash cache. You can think of the flash cache as a tiny SSD that speeds up the performance of existing programs once it is called up. So if the terminology confuses you, just think of it as a tiny SSD that complements the 1 TB hard drive. It is quite a nice idea but we think that programs are getting so much bigger the 8 GB is too much of an in between solution. We feel the better solution might have been to include a small SSD of 64 GB even though the cost goes up slightly the performance benefits increase to even rival some major gaming laptops.
Second, the presence of a touch screen/ normal screen option. You get this laptop in 2 models essentially with the non-touch full HD screen priced at $869 and the UHD touch screen proceed at $1256. The price is extremely affordable considering the specs on offer. You typically find NVidia 960Ms housed in $2000 plus gaming laptops. So from that point of view it is a freaking steal. If you are looking for something really different and are very comfortable with using the touch screen for majority of functions then the UHD might be the way to go. These offerings are not something you typically see in laptops or even gaming laptops for that matter. It is probably more of a sign that dell intends to explore the Ultrabook space in the near future. . If you are at any point uncertain about the touch screen, we would recommend choosing the normal option. The laptop touch screen is not as smooth as a tablet or phone. Even the positioning can be a bit annoying to use.
The trackpad similar to Acer models is not very centred, which could be a pain to get used to. The exterior is not something that is very special also with a standard finish to the design. The product dimensions are pretty standard but it is extremely light for the features it is packing. This device weighs a mere 4.6 pounds. The exterior is a matte black finish features elements of red. The device comes with Windows 10 pre-installed and much like all windows laptops the specs can vary a lot in regional models. The presence of USB slots, Media card readers and Bluetooth capability are standard additions which are present. A proper backlit keyboard might have added to the experience even more.
Other issues are something that is probably standard for any dell user, heating for instance. Even though the laptop does possess adequate air vents it is better to clean and maintain the laptop on a fairly regular basis in order to extend its life. If you are an avid gamer, it might be better to buy a cooling pad or a suction cooling device to remove all the hot air from within the casing. Overheating issues must not be ignored and should be addressed as soon as they arise if you want to keep you laptop functioning in a healthy fashion for a very long time.
Despite these small issues, the laptop does perform admirably and we have given it healthy 8.5+ all across the board. Especially if you love photography and editing this laptop from dell is ideally suited for those tasks.
If you have been reading through and are still a bit uncertain, then all you have to do is figure out exactly what you will be using the laptop for. If it’s primarily for work and photo editing then this laptop is a very affordable high end option. If you are uncertain and you have the habit of lending it to your kids to play games or watch movies occasionally then this laptop is the perfect fit. The versatility takes over thanks to its immense processing power and your kids can experience high end gaming on the go
ASUS ZenBook 3Go to Amazon
Considered as an update of their ZenBook line, Asus crafted their most close competitor to an Apple MacBook without featuring OSX and the Apple logo. A fast and versatile ultrabook that is no doubt a worthy investment.
Overall rating:
86
Battery Life:
0
80
100
Design:
0
85
100
Storage Capacity:
0
80
100
Graphics:
0
90
100
Speed:
0
90
100
Weight:
0
89
100
Pros
Strong speakers
Excelent battery/performance relation
Fingerprint reader
One of the thinnest laptops in market
Great cooling performance
Cons
Just features a USB-C port
Fans always on
Slippery touchpad
No dedicated Graphics Card
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Design and features
Asus ZenBook 3 is available in two colors: its traditional silver and a blue with golden accents schemes. Its aluminum body feels as sturdy as most conventional laptops, giving us the confidence to work with this computer wherever we are.
With a 12.5” Full HD display, weighing almost 900g it’s the ideal solution for carrying it at our portfolios or backpacks; and foremost it fits the tables at airplanes seats. Even if some people may complain at not having a 4K resolution at a 2016’s laptop, it doesn’t have much to envy as it isn’t intended for heavy gaming or performing tasks that demand high-end graphics, but more an on-the-go solution for professionals.
Its backlit keyboard works with a white toned LED lighting, delicate considering that keys are a bit wider than their current height, giving us the feeling of a fluid typical laptop interaction.
Fan noise may become a nuisance, but nothing to take too seriously given its tight packing and performs the task for which is meant more than proficiently. The touchpad, on the other hand, feels way too slippery – Perhaps you can get used to it over time, but requires practice. With a fingerprint reader on its top right corner, we can log quickly without much hassle.
Only featuring a USB-C port at its right side, there’s nothing to praise in what connectivity regards. It also lacks the Thunderbolt 3 port, mostly seen on several laptops these days, and immensely helpful for transferring RAW files or 4K videos without losing much time. Taking this matters in consideration, Asus features as well a mini dock with a USB 3.1 port and HDMI entry.
Performance
Its 512 GB SSD is cool for a laptop meant to be used for traveling, and with 16 GB of RAM surprised me, as you don’t usually expect such a vast amount of RAM for an ultrabook.
Featuring an i7-7500U processor, with Intel HD 620 graphics integrated, we can experience a smoothly performance for streaming YouTube videos and doing light editing work; however, we will suffer the struggle of the lack of dedicated graphics – mostly with Photoshop – so various 3d tools offered by Photoshop won’t be available on this laptop.
Its battery performance is astonishing! Up to 12 hours with video streaming included: going way far from recent MacBook Pro models.
Razer Blade ProGo to Amazon
For those who aren’t familiar with Razer, it’s a US-based brand that was founded back in 1998, targeting their market to gamers. And this new Razer Blade Pro takes the experience of the high-end 17” laptop to a much sleek design outcome.
The compact build is the core element of this mode, featuring prime quality elements from the mechanical keyboard to high-resolution 4K display, but there are several elements we need to analyze in depth to reach a conclusion on this laptop.
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Overall rating:
93
Battery Life:
0
80
100
Design:
0
95
100
Storage Capacity:
0
85
100
Graphics:
0
100
100
Speed:
0
100
100
Weight:
0
95
100
Pros
A truly powerhouse
Compact design
4K display
Mechanical backlit keyboard
Cons
Just 512 GB included
Adding extra HDD space is pricey
Tends to overheat
Noisy fans
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Design and Features
You can’t deny that it looks like the most elegant laptop you have ever seen. A black aluminum chassis that barely weighs over 3.5kg, which despite not being labeled as a ultra-portable laptop, it’s lighter than most of the high-end models in the market these days.
With a maximum space usage, the display looks breathtaking. 4K resolution with Adobe RGB color support and IGZO technology for a more vivid display experience; we just need to add the G-Sync technology by Nvidia, meant to reduce screen tearing, and we end up with the perfect quality/portability relation that market has seen so far.
A mechanical keyboard helps users to broaden their experience with laptop interaction, as anti-ghosting features act to avoid keystroke issues during gameplay and provide a fast, satisfying receptive experience. Each key is individually illuminated via LED outputs so that you can customize it to your needs with a large scale of tones and effects thanks to Razer’s software Chroma.
What we might find odd – in particular, I didn’t enjoy it myself – is the touchpad location. Okay, maybe because I’m old-school myself and tend to see touchpads as nothing more than a decorative item (try to draft blueprints in Autocad with a touchpad and you’ll meet the definition of nightmare as detail scale keeps increasing), but the thing behind Razer’s innovation relies to a gamer-induced mindset: having a mouse right next to your ke