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Laptop Specs

littlekiwi

littlekiwi

I charge by the hour for anything before noon
Joined
Jan 21, 2012
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If you could choose a laptop for digital scrapbooking, what specs would you want? I may need to look at a new windows laptop sooner rather than later unfortunately and am totally out of touch with latest and greatest as this laptop is nearly 5 years old and the last time I actually chose a laptop was 7 years ago.

What I do know is gaming laptops are good for digital scrapbook?

The one thing that concerns me from the laptops I am looking at is.....while they have got SSD instead of HDD, the SSD's are much smaller. How do you all manage the lack of storage? In this particular model I'd be going from 1TB in my current laptop to 256GB in the new laptop.

Anything else I should consider? I'm kind of locked into the idea of HP again (thats what my last few have been) and staying well away from Toshiba but again I'm not up with whats latest and greatest.
 
My laptop is almost 3 years old, but I've upgraded some of the memory and storage in the last year. Here are the stats that might still be relevant. (I'm not going to bother to talk about processors or anything, since mine is outdated.)

Gaming laptops tend to be good for scrapping because they have good processors and a graphics card with dedicated graphics memory. My graphics card is outdated, too, but it has 4 GB of graphics memory. Some gaming computers have a fast monitor refresh rate, but that doesn't matter for scrapping.

My laptop came with dual hard drives. There was a small SSD (came with 128 GB, upgraded to 512 GB in Dec 2020) and an additional larger HD (came with 1 TB but I immediately swapped it out for a 2 TB and put the 1 TB in a different laptop). I definitely wouldn't be able to manage with only a 256 GB.

Mine had 8 GB of RAM for most of the time I owned it. Last month I upgraded it to 16 GB, and for me that has been plenty.

Have fun choosing!
 
Thanks @rach3975 - its still kind of a far off idea at the moment because coming up with over $1500 easily is going to be a bit of a stretch though its probably necessary sooner rather than later given I've already sunk over $400 into my laptop already and potentially need to sink another $300 into it soon.
 
littlekiwi said:
Thanks @rach3975 - its still kind of a far off idea at the moment because coming up with over $1500 easily is going to be a bit of a stretch though its probably necessary sooner rather than later given I've already sunk over $400 into my laptop already and potentially need to sink another $300 into it soon.
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I'm sure it doesn't help that everything is so expensive right now. Pre-pandemic you could buy a moderate gaming computer for about $800-$900 in the US if you watched sales, but I have no idea what they're going for now. I hope one of the jobs comes through and things get easier!
 
rach3975 said:
I'm sure it doesn't help that everything is so expensive right now.
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thats exactly the issue on top of no extra money available - 7 years ago for the laptop before this one I was paying $800-900 for a $1200 (I bargained hard for that deal by price matching and taking a lovely bright blue laptop!), 5 years ago a similar specc'd laptop was around $1400, now for what I truly want I'm looking at $1600-1800
 
I have a Dell G5 15 gaming computer (March 2019). It's got a smallish SSD to put your programs on, then a larger HD. I however keep my scrap supplies on an EHD. 16GB RAM and a separate graphics card. I love it, well except for the red keyboard lettering ... didn't notice the red letters on the website photo and they weren't mentioned in the description ... now I know. :)
 
@Memaw2Wm colors don’t matter to me much (says the person whose previous laptop was bright blue), I go for use ability and performance over looks.
 
littlekiwi said:
@Memaw2Wm colors don’t matter to me much (says the person whose previous laptop was bright blue), I go for use ability and performance over looks.
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Oh, I don't care about the case colors, but the red lettering on the keyboard is hard on my old eyes ... I'm a lousy touch-typist, so I look at the keyboard way too much.

I cannot for find my print-out of my computer's specs. I ALWAYS print one out, usually two copies, one for the office and one for home, but I don't have one in my office file, nor where I usually put them at home ... I'm sure it's somewhere "safe" though. :)
 
Next question, at what point do you cut your losses with technology? For context, my laptop is just under 5 years old, is a mid range laptop as such. In the past year I’ve doubled by RAM, had a new HDD installed when it failed in June/July. I’m now at the point of needing another new HDD cause I was dumb enough to try and save money and got a refurbished one that only had a 3 month warranty and its already failing, I need a new power supply as I bent the part that goes into my laptop last month by accident (it’s still working for now though) and potentially a new fan as my laptop periodically makes super loud grinding noises on start up and shut down to the point family have asked what is going on! I have a real dilemma as I don’t really have money for the $300-400 repairs on top of the nearly $400 I’ve already spent on repairs but I also don’t have $1500-2200 for a decent laptop either. Going without is not an option even if I didn’t scrap as I’m always applying for jobs which need a working laptop. To make matters even more complex my laptop is the only computer here as well.
 
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littlekiwi said:
I have a real dilemma as I don’t really have money for the $300-400 repairs on top of the nearly $400 I’ve already spent on repairs <snip>
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I'd cut my losses now.

That said, my office desktop will be 10 years old this summer, and my home desktop is nearly 9 years old, both are running Windows 7, so I'm not one to buy a new computer every couple of years. What I do do though is to buy the most RAM and fastest chip that I can afford.

Could you switch to a desktop computer? Seems to me they are cheaper than laptops.
 
Memaw2Wm said:
Could you switch to a desktop computer? Seems to me they are cheaper than laptops.
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I'm guessing she uses the laptop when she does get to travel for job interviews.

Another thought about a desktop though. Maybe having a desktop to do your main scrapping on at home would be the way to go. Then only use the laptop when you are away from the house. Maybe not using it so much and for less intensive software would extend the life of it somewhat. My laptop is older as well but since I don't scrap on it, it suits me just fine if I take it when I go somewhere (which hasn't been for a long time). I could scrap on it if I wanted as long as I use an older version of PSP. Not sure it would handle my current version that great.
 
@Memaw2Wm @HavaDrPepper Actually my laptop doesn't go very far at all (like it hasn't seen the outside world in a couple of years) but its more practical for me to be able work while in bed when dealing with fatigue plus its all I've ever had.

I can't really complain too loudly as the last time I physically bought a new laptop was 7 years ago....this is the insurance replacement for the one that got stolen (from home while we were at home in bed) and until like a month out of extended warranty last year it was a perfect laptop
 
HavaDrPepper said:
Maybe not using it so much and for less intensive software would extend the life of it somewhat.
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I actually don't use it that much if I'm not scrapping, sometimes I might only be on it a few hours a week. Unfortunately there isn't a huge difference in how it behaves if I'm only doing light internet browsing and/or working in Microsoft Office or in Photoshop CC/ACDSee Photomanager - today for example, I think it took about 3-4 hours from the time I first turned it on to be able to physically use it properly, it was making all sorts of racket when I turned it on so it took a few goes of it being restarted before it finally kicked into gear where it wasn't making loud grinding kind of noises and the screen freezing (no blue or black screens of death luckily yet)
 
Such a tough situation! I know the laptop you really want for scrapping is out of your price range, but what are the most inexpensive productivity laptops selling for? Rather than sinking more money into a laptop that may still fail on you at any moment, I think I'd look into spending that repair money on an inexpensive "good enough for now" laptop or an iPad with a keyboard. You're not going to be able to save for a new one if your money is all going into this one, but it wouldn't suprise me if your current laptop dies no matter how much you spend repairing it. I hope you're able to figure something out!
 
rach3975 said:
Such a tough situation! Rather than sinking more money into a laptop that may still fail on you at any moment, I think I'd look into spending that repair money on an inexpensive "good enough for now" laptop or an iPad with a keyboard. You're not going to be able to save for a new one if your money is all going into this one, but it wouldn't suprise me if your current laptop dies no matter how much you spend repairing it. I hope you're able to figure something out!
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yeah that’s my worry that it’s still going to die even after I spend another $350ish. There’s a huge gap in cost now compared to what I have spent previously on laptops. I’ve generally in the past spent $800-1000 on a $1200-1400 laptop (good deals and/or price matching). The $1200-1400 laptops from then thanks to increased costs specs wise are now $1500-1800 minimum. If I save super well and cut back on all extra spending I’m looking at 2-3 months with no guarantee my laptop won’t die in the meantime
 
I think I have an idea but could require a bit of family cooperation temporarily. My grandmother (who moved into care two months ago) no longer uses her laptop or go online so I’m thinking of temporarily asking her if I can borrow her laptop at least for doing job applications (it would never run PSCC, that much I do know as it’s too slow). For now I would keep using my laptop as normal but I’d at least have a “plan b” for when it does act up. In the mean time, I cut all non essential spending (aka as all scrappy spending) down to just a tiny bit for BYOC and when I earn my challenge discount - talking maybe $20-40 a month and just use what I have.
 
Cut your losses,and try to get a new one (perhaps a payment plan ? ) HP Pavillion 15" has 8 GB Ram and 256GB . Saying this because you said you wanted HP.
Minimum. Requirements for Photoshop is 8GB ram.
Here in Malta that laptop is 775.00 Euros, but on the HP website it is 699.00. There is a better model that has touchscreen too, drooling here, but that is double the price.
You might consider a desktop built to your specs, ( easier to replace parts too if needed ) and a tablet (you can get a Samsung one for reasonable money,) for when you have to stay in bed. Just a thought, it would work out cheaper in the long run,and it is super easy to up specs at a later date.
 
littlekiwi said:
@Memaw2Wm @HavaDrPepper Actually my laptop doesn't go very far at all (like it hasn't seen the outside world in a couple of years) but its more practical for me to be able work while in bed when dealing with fatigue plus its all I've ever had.
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I wonder if working in bed is making the laptop overheat leading to the various issues?

Fingers crossed that you can borrow your grandmother's laptop while you save up for a new one.
 
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