Hey All.... So I'm in the market for a new computer. I'm looking at a few but really torn - cost, needs, and other factors. So, this made me curious what everyone uses or has.... I'm torn between 16/32 gig and the hard drive size, brand, and cost on so many. My windows based didn't last long at all... and my Apple lasted 8 years, but that is a hefty cost. So, I'm currently wallowing in indecision. I know reading what you have doesn't help me directly, but maybe any insight you have too would help. If you don't mind, can you share what you use and general specs and what you would wish you had or wish you didn't have on your computer? Any insight will be helpful. I'm on a see saw. And I really want to get off and back to normal.
I know how you feel. Every time I need a new computer I do the same debating for MONTHS. I also have debated on switching to Apple because I love everything else Apple, but then I'd have to get all new programs too, so I don't switch. My youngest son wanted a new gaming computer and ended up just building his from scratch. My oldest did the same thing last year too. My computer is a desktop too that my hubby built for me in 2012. In 2017 I thought I was going to have to replace it because it wouldn't start, but it was just a power supply that went bad. I was able to replace that for $70 and it's still chugging along. I do all my scrapping on it and it hasn't slowed down one little bit. It's something to consider anyway, since if you build it yourself, you can replace just the part that goes bad. And it doesn't take long at all or that much know how. My boys both used this: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ You just start picking parts and it'll tell you if they all work together. Then you can upgrade your graphics card for instance and it'll tell you if it'll all still work. You can play around until you get the things you want AND you can afford it. Lol. Here's my older son's list (but this doesn't show his graphics card for some reason.) https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LFYyF8 I think we bought the graphics card separately for some reason? Those are pricey. Here's the one my younger son bought (it is RIDICULOUSLY over priced and more than what any normal person needs, but he had the money and was determined to have the best he could afford) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08WM28PVH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 The rest of us have 1060 versions of the same card that should be around $300, but there are shortages of graphics cards everywhere, so every that has them is selling them for about double the retail cost. Anyway if you buy a prebuilt computer, you can look for similar graphics cards and you'll want 2-4GB of on board memory on the graphics card. You don't want one with a graphics cards as part of the motherboard. I think they call it "discrete" when there's a separate graphics cards (also know as GPU). I don't store much on my internal hard drives and store all of my pictures and digi supplies on an external so that I can work on any computer without having to transfer stuff. (I do have two desktops that I work on at home. One is mainly my work computer and the other is my old faithful scrapping computer in my craft room. ) But memory is cheap, so most computers will come with 1 TB hard drive. The other thing that I highly recommend in a SSD boot drive. usually those are smaller, but I recommend at least 512GB for that one and then you can load all of your programs like your operating system and Photoshop on that SSD drive and it'll start up like lightning fast! I guess I probably should have asked... do you want a desktop or a laptop? My experience with laptops is that they don't last nearly as long as desktops and are harder to repair. My scrapping friend bought a super duper top end Macbook Pro about 3 years ago and it's already slowing down and had to be repaired twice. She cannot do PCs though... she just can't function on one. She just likes that it's portable so she doesn't have pack a desktop when we go scrapbooking at her cottage. I don't care if it's a little more to pack. I need my speedy desktop and more importantly, I NEED my giant monitor. My eyes are too old for the little screens. Lol. Ok... stopping the ramble now. If you have any other questions, let me know.
Karen has some good ideas. My advice is don’t go lower on ram, hard drive space, etc than you had before. The more the better. And definitely DON’T get windows 11 on it. 11 doesn’t show your kit or photo thumbnails on the folder icons so you have to click and look inside each folder. It’s so hard to scrap with. I wish I had known that before and I would have bought a laptop with windows 10. I’m not sure what happened to your old computer, but maybe it could be repaired or wiped and re-set up. My old laptop was running out of space on the C drive and freezing up… it has a small 256 GB SSD c drive and a 1 TB HHD for data. I figured out Dell/Windows was keeping a copy of all the updates and it was filling up my drive. I was able to remove those old update and image files to free up 71GB of space. Now, I’m going to set it up for my hubby and DD to use. Good luck
@Karen just an FYI - to switch to Mac you do not need to replace all your PC programs. If you have a valid Windows license and a program called Boot Camp, you can run all PC programs as well as all Mac programs.
I have an HP Omen Desktop Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz Installed RAM: 32.0 GB (31.9 GB usable) Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
I just got a new computer- my old desktop (almost 10 yrs old) was just starting to not run very well- over the years I had maxed out it's memory capacity & had upgraded a lot of it, but it was just done I think! I got a new one for my bday/christmas! My previous machine was a Dell & we had great support & results, so we went that way again. My specs: Processor- 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900 @ 2.50GHz 2.50 GHz Installed RAM- 32.0 GB (31.6 GB usable) Graphics- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060Ti 8GB Hard Drive- 2TB SSD + 1 TB HDD (I also put almost everything on my external drive too) I do have windows 11- came that way- but I actually really love it all- EXCEPT the stupid folder preview thing- so hopefully that'll change in a new update because that part does really stink.
I am in the market for a laptop. Unfortunately, I do not have space for a desktop... or I will be relocated to the basement, and it's a bit cold and mostly a teenage rec room (darts, ping pong, couches/TV... and laundry, lol). I had a previous souped up Dell Omen... the hard drive broke. A friend said it was not going to be repairable. It was hit or miss. I'm thankful that most of my pictures are on my phone or backed up on a separate drive/smugmug. I had an Apple previous to the Omen. The only thing I do on my lap top is internet and photoshop. I use my phone for all other things, mostly. (I do have an old iPad as well if I need a bigger screen, but usually my phone is sufficient.) Thank you guys... I love seeing what you have and what you think!
I have an ASUS ROG Strix Gaming laptop 17" (a must for me) 16GB RAM (it was great in the beginning, but I'm planning to upgrade to 32) 1TB HDD and 256GB SSD (I'd like a larger SSD) It's been a great laptop, just needs a couple of upgrades.
Now I'm prefacing this by saying my laptop is almost 5 years old so not the latest and greatest on the market by any stretch of the imagination & I also didn't 100% choose it (it was an insurance replacement as my previous one got stolen) HP Notebook - 15-ay148tx 15.4" - if I was doing it again I'd include a 2nd monitor and I may still look into that Intel® Core™ i5-7200U (2.5 GHz, up to 3.1 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores) AMD Radeon™ R5 M430 Graphics (2 GB DDR3 dedicated) 16gb of RAM - was 8gb preinstalled, I maxed out in July to 16gb and am totally happy with it 1TB HDD - again totally happy with it
I second what @keepscrappin says about don't downgrade with specs. I was lucky when mine got stolen the words in the insurance policy were something to the effects of "same or better specs" and as my laptop wasn't available anymore I got a slight upgrade I think
I have a Dell gaming laptop, a G3 17. It's already almost 3 years old. Usually by the 3 year mark I'm starting to think about upgrading, but this one is still going strong. In the last year I've upgraded my SSD and my RAM, and the computer definitely runs PS better since doing both of those. I'm a laptop scrapper--I need my portability too much to consider a desktop. But I've always shelled out the extra money for a 17" laptop. After buying a 27" monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse this summer, I wish I'd done it years ago. In the future I'll be satisfied with a smaller screen laptop (probably 15") and can use that extra cash for another upgrade instead of screen size. Graphics card is NVidia GeForce 1050 Ti with 4 GB graphics memory 8 GB RAM recently upgraded to 16 GB originally 128 GB SSD and 1 TB HD, now 512 GB WD Blue SSD and 2 TB HD I cheaped out on the processor and got an i5 8th generation Intel instead of my usual i7 because promo materials convinced me that this range of i5's performed like my older i7. (At the time i7 was the highest for laptops--no idea if it still is.) That's the one choice I regret, though the SSD and RAM upgrades have improved the performance enough for me not to care as much as I used to. My 18 year old son is a gamer, and he has the 15" version of my laptop with a slightly better graphics card and the same SSD and RAM upgrades made. (He does the research, I split the cost with him, and we do the upgrades together. It's worked wonderfully for me, LOL!) He loves his, too. He'll be going to college in the fall for engineering, so I'm expecting we'll have to replace his laptop then.
Thank you so much ladies!!! I'm leaning toward making the big plunge. Looking to see which I can get - 32GB, and a 1 or 2 TB SSD storage (I'm trying to get as much as I can). But, if I go apple... I might go up to the new 16" rather than the 14". My current broken laptop is 17",
Following... my hubby broke his laptop. (Knocked it ) It ws 10 years old a dell and super for 7 years or so before things started going wrong 1 by 1. He has taken over my I pad ...I want it back ...lol....My own computer is a desktop large monitor,and custom built. So not so many fancy bits. The Graphics card was the most expensive part of it lol.
I hope you find exactly what you want! Getting a new computer is exciting but also nerve-wracking. I don't think casual or business users get that the way scrappers do--and since so many of performance users who review them are focused on gaming, it's hard to take the plunge and hope PS will work the way you want! If you have the option to do the 16", I think you'd be happier with that (unless you plug into a monitor a lot). My kids have 13" laptops for school, and their screens are pretty small. I'd hate to scrap on that size, or something close to it.
I just got a new MacBook Air after my Macbook, which I bought in 2009, finally died. It's definitely a huge upgrade from the Macbook in the sense of processor (Apple M1 chip with 8‑core CPU, compared to Intel Core 2 Duo on the old Macbook) and RAM (16gb compared to 4gb). But in terms of size, it's the same as the Macbook (13") while the storage space is a downgrade (256gb SSD compared to 500gb HDD). However, the SSD obviously performs faster than HDD so that's its plus point. My reason for going with the Macbook Air instead of an iMac (with a larger screen size and more power) is because of its weight and small size. I want to be able to scrap wherever and it is so light for me to carry around, compared to my old Macbook which I think is kinda heavy. So portability is my main criteria. The processor is also powerful enough for scrapping. As for the smaller storage size, I compensate it by using a portable SSD with 500gb storage. It's actually the SSD that I installed on my old Macbook shortly before it died. I use it solely to store scrapping files (layouts, supplies, photos) so it's enough for this purpose. With that said, I hope you'll find what you're looking for!
I’m still loving my MacBook Pro. 2014 model with 16gb of ram and 500gb SDD. It was my first Mac and it took me a while to get used to it, and honestly sometimes there are things that I still have to google, but I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a Windows PC. I do dread the cost of replacing it when it’s time. But I was replacing PC’s every 3 years so I guess ultimately the price for the Mac is worth it.
I have a Desktop Mac and MacBook (the MacBook was my sons but I have it now since he had a gaming pc for Christmas) My Desktop Mac is 2011 Model and only now am I getting a message to say unable to update my Adobe photoshop anymore as operating system not compatible. The MacBook Air is early 2015, Processer 1.6 Ghz Dual-Core Intel Core i5. Memory 8GB. I tend to swap between both depending on where I am sitting. Tonight I am sat in bed using the MacBook Air to scrap.
I had a 17" Macbook Pro previously. Loved that thing. Lasted about 8 years. This is what I hope will happen again if I do go the Apple Route. After that one broke, I tried the Windows.... lasted 3 1/6 years and just petered out. If I'm being nice, 4. Ugh. The cost is the only thing holding me back. Ugh.
We have an HP version, but this is similar laptop specs to what we have. We upgraded the HDD to 1TB, and the SSD is 128GB. We bought it in 2013, and the kid still uses it to play his games. It will run Photoshop, although slowly. I upgraded it to 16 GB, because it came with 8gb. If you go Windows, I would say make sure you have the slots to upgrade to 32GB if you don't buy that to start with. I really like the large screen. It made it way easier to scrap and such. My computer is a desktop. We, (okay, I paid, my brother built it,) in 2015/2016. I can't quite remember if it was winter or spring. It has 16 GB RAM. It has 3 Hard Drives right now: 1TB SSD (the one I upgraded), 128 GB SSD (the one we originally built it with), and a 4TB HDD. The Graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 with an Intel Processor. I was insistent that it have a Memory Card reader for my camera, and I really love that. I replaced it once, and it was $6. It also has a CD/DVD ROM. And a bunch of USB 3's and such. I wish it had Bluetooth sometimes, but overall it doesn't bother me. Nick has an AMD processor and uses his for gaming. We bought it customized and prebuilt from Costco. It's been really good for his gaming and when I was trying to show him Photoshop on it.