latest netbook of choice

[soboyle]

Anyone running lightroom on a 2GB netbook?
Use will be occasional photo download and review.
Was looking at one of the dual core ADM anthalon gateway LT31 series netbooks for on the road use, something that I don't have the need of often, so a netbook will have to do the trick for a seldom used computer.
Any thoughts on this or recommendations for other netbooks, for occasional use on the road?

[Doug Fisher]

With the new crop of AMD and Intel offerings that have been announced at CES over the last day or so, the netbook game could be changing quite a bit.  These new processors should be showing up soon and have the potential to transform netbooks into devices that are much more capable, especially for more demanding applications like PS and LR.

Doug

[soboyle]

Thanks, I'd be interested in reading about the news relevant to the netbooks.
Do you have a link to a good new feed from CES?

[Steve Weldon]

Is it the price, or the size/weight leaning you towards a netbook?

Really.. the current crop, even the dual core atoms and the such, are inadequate for LR or CS5.  They might be okay for a viewer of some type, but they're just irritating to use imo..

If its the size/weight.. how about a 2.5 pound i7 mobile (dual core) with a 1440x900 12 inch matte screen driven by a HD Intel video chip, carbon fiber reinforced plastic, 8gbs or RAM, a fast 256gb SSD, BT, A/G/B/N wifi, full size Thinkpad keyboard/pointer/touchpad, runs 8 hours on a 6 cell battery (total of 2.7 pounds), and is MILSPEC for dust/water/shock?  Even has 3 USB ports and an SD card reader.  This little gem has become my new best friend over the last few months and it's plenty powerful for on the road editing in CS5 or LR..  

Sorry to be so verbose, but I'm still in the honeymoon phase..  

[gamezway]

I use Lightroom on an Asus netbook and while not the speediest thing in the world it works great for me. I don't mind giving up the processing power for the portability of a netbook when traveling. The other nice thing is having a place to store all your photos on long trips when you run out of memory card space

[Mike Bailey]

For far less than the ThinkPad x201s - specs for that sound great - you might consider the ThinkPad x100e, but only the dual-core L625 model, which starts around $500.  I recently looked at any number of netbooks and finally decided the screen size and the extremely slow speed of all of them wouldn't be acceptable for anything.  The x100e is fine for occasional work, but for anything more serious you'd of course need more power.  The Lenovo website usually has deals running so it's possible to get a good price with more RAM or a better hard drive than the default one.

And the keyboard is very good, along with the touchpad.  The screen, 1366x768, is about average as far as laptop screens go, but okay.

Mike

http://mhbailey.com

[SeOc]

Even if you can run these apps on a Netbook , can you really live with the puny 10" (and under) LCDs? I can't. How can you really see what you're doing? For any graphics work, I can't imaging anything less than a 15" display.

[soboyle]

I'll look into these suggestions.
Regarding working on a small monitor, this is not a primary computer, so it just to confirm focus, and store and sort images while traveling.
No editing will be done.
I think the tablets and ipads will be the ticket in a year or 2 when they mature a bit - small, light, excellent screens for image review. Just need some apps that will read raw files and a version of lightroom or similar that will run on them.
Will anything like that run on current ipads?

[Steve Weldon]

If you're just doing viewing and confirming focus, then Lightroom is too top heavy for this sort of notebook.  Try something lighter like FastPictureViewer.  This will operate far faster on lesser powered machines and has hot keys and settable zoom levels for confirming focus.

There were plenty of Win7 tablets announced at CES which will run this.. and they should be hitting the market soon.

Lenovo also just announced the X120e.. the updated replacement for the X100e recommended above.  IMO these are far superior to your average netbooks and very near the same price.

[usathyan]

I went this route a while ago, and have now abandoned it. There are several challenges - First, they are small, not enough screen size to do any real editing. In fact, you may end up getting an additional laptop for editing.  2nd - unless you select a device that has good enough resolution, you may or may not be able to run all apps. Some apps have a requirement in terms of minimum resolution and your netbook may or may not have them.

For shooting tethered - You have other choices, even an iPad or even a new Android tablets. Its been done before, but not necessarily elegant for everyone to use in all situations. For now - I am sticking to a 13" macbook. It is at least usable for other things besides just tethered shooting.

[jasonrandolph]

I don't want to sabotage this thread and make it a Mac vs. PC post, but I have the 11" MacBook Air with 2GB, and it's running LR, PS, and all the plugins I use, and doing so quite nicely (and super-fast with its solid state storage).  It's got a full-size keyboard, but is still roughly the same size as an iPad.  One of the reasons I got it is that it can easily fit into my camera bag for use on-the-road.  Complemented with a 500GB passport drive, it offers a great field computer.  Yes, it's a mac, but it's perfect for a roadtrip.

[soboyle]

I ended up getting an Asus 13.3" laptop. After doing my homework I thought the netbooks were too much of a compromise in performance for what I need. The 13" laptops are 4 -5 lbs, very powerful, running the i3 intel processor, 4GB, dedicated graphics cards, decent hd size. And they are about $500 cheaper than a macbook pro. This will be replacing a macbook pro 13, so will be interesting to compare the 2.