OK I’m to-tal-ly out of the hardware loop and now want to upgrade a (otherwise great) HP 12b Chromebook (N5000 8GB RAM Intel UHD 605, can’t get opencl going) to something more sinister.
Darktable and Rawtherapee are both performing decently (debian inside Chrome OS LXC) but I want a faster editor and more NR options.
The 3:2 display ratio is perfect, as is touch, particularly to avoid darktable scroll bars up/down and in general also faster for me.
I have no clue about GPUs.
I’m shooting 16MP M43 and Pentax (15-25mb ORF, RW2 and DNG) for the foreseeable future. Need some basic 1080p video editing as well, nothing fancy.
I missed seeing your post somehow, back in January…
This is maybe not applicable for your needs, but I was in a similar situation a couple of years back and ended up getting a secondhand Dell Optiplex mini tower, and extra stick of 8GB RAM and a Geforce GTX1650. The Dell was $95 AUD, forgotten what the rest cost but fairly sure it was under your budget.
Still need a monitor though.
That system is still going strong. But obviously not portable! I got lucky in that I didn’t realise how tight the mini tower was for space, but my GTX1650 just squeezed in after trimming a connector back slightly.
I did eventually end up buying a more expensive laptop when I had the means, but 80% of my photo work is done on that old desktop.
thanks Steven, I’ve seen fairly cheap more-or-less-mini desktops around and wouldn’t mind getting one if GPU requirements are called for. AFAICT now it’s relevant for noise reduction, depending on choice of editor, the free OM Workspace f.ex. So I need to figure that out vs. cost of more capable cameras and high ISO tolerance as well.
Have done light video editing before on old school i5 with integrated graphics, certainly doable with proxy files.
Good call on the monitor, that may also prompt a desktop mini tower of sorts if the only GPU laptops with real good displays are out of budget anyway.
Also in darktable, the popular, complex but powerful diffuse or sharpen module kind of needs GPU power to run reasonably quickly. Of course one can get by without DorS but it can do a superb job of sharpening and local contrast type enhancements.
Good point. My desktop monitor is a relatively affordable Lenovo 32 inch screen, with no special qualifications except 100% sRGB coverage, and I’m happy with that, especially after getting a Spyder for calibration. Although to be honest, it’s fairly close without calibration anyway, as seem to be most screens with a decent gamut coverage.
For other media projects an ipad (and some specific apps) also almost sneaked in recently so I might try to test one of those. Recent ones with bus powered USB-C aren’t as expensive as expected.
There’s a good budget and convenience advantage If iMovie (or whatever) works out fine. Still gonna get the 3:2 Linux/win laptop though to move Darktable/RAW over from the Chromebook.
The 4 core i5-8350U Dell is some €30-70 cheaper than the Surface, which has 16GB RAM vs. 8. Single Thread Rating about the same for my music software, maybe photo/video as well.
Not sure about Iris vs. UHD GPU, to be checked.
*edit:
Surface is without keyboard (€100 type cover joke), SD reader and 1x USB 3 only.
Dell is with clamp-on keyboard and 3x USB-C, micro SD reader, 1.3kg with keyboard.
Dell it is.
All parts are replaceable, there’s a simple hack for adding a 2nd nvme drive to the WWAN slot.
Maybe relevant, maybe not. One thing that will prevent me from buying a Dell laptop is lack of proper S3 sleep. Things like that can really bite you in the bum if you are mobile and away from a power source or make your own off-grid power for instance…
OTOH it’s super cheap refurbed, €200 (max €250 with shipping and pen), SSD & battery are replaceable, there’s an empty WWAN m2 slot where a 2nd SSD can be fitted.
There might be some contenders from the next generation though, I’ll try to dig them out with the notebookcheck.net perf. charts. A Matebook with NVidia MX 150 popped up f.ex. (touch but no digitizer). If they’re €400+ refurbed/used I’ll get the Dell.
Thunderbolt port would be nice to have also. There’s a i7-8650U 16 GB RAM 512 GB SSD in the Dell series with Thunderbolt, hard to find, only found one so far at about €400 (Brexit fees applied)
USB-C ipads are out of budget and/or scope for now. At least €450+ used w. Apple Pencil 2. €800+ refurbed. Still intrigued by touch video and photo editing in a super tight user interface. File management maybe not so much and I don’t want my RAW archive tied to a proprietary app db (vs. sidecar files).
For the record & FYI:
iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation or later)
iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation or later)
** Pro 11-inch (3rd g) and Pro 12.9-inch (5th g) also Thunderbolt
Huawei used to have 3:2 laptops with touch and Nvidia graphics, Intel i5 and i7, probably called Matebook. Not cheap, but you may be able to find a used/refurbished one.
I found them yesterday, lovely builds and design, NVidia MX 150 (2GB), good used prices, but Matebooks are touch only, no digitizer which is needed for pressure sensitive stylus. Last time I checked (years ago) it was night and day difference in handwriting and editing precision, for tracing and masking for instance.
I spent most of today on a borrowed Ideapad with a 15.6" 16:9 display. Very nice spread, definitely easier on the eyes and mental focus than my usual 12" chromebook.
It made me reconsider 3:2 hard spec slightly, at 15.6" it doesn’t feel half as narrow as my old Asus 13.3" where vertical space is constantly crammed.
Adjacent ratios are 16:10 (1280x800 (WXGA), old school thinkpads and macbooks.
3:2 is 1280x854 and 1920x1280 (WUXGA)) and 4:3 1600:1200 (UXGA)
A 11" ipad pro in good condition popped up during the day, priced some 30-40% below rest of the used market. I bought it. With a pencil 2 added total should be around €375. Should be an easy resell if it’s not for me after all.
everymac.com lists geekbench scores for all devices, I’m not sure how to pull up comparisons there so here are passmark scores instead. Vs. my current hardware it’s +500 single thread perf. and +muchomax for apps that knows how to get all 8 (!) cores going.
Everything inside this closed box is so locked down (doh) and I just don’t have the bandwidth to merge another OS workflow and figure out file import, export and formatting workarounds. If a true killer app emerges I might consider getting an older model or iphone.
The display quality is stunning so that’s been valuable to discover at least. The HP 12b chromebook is so dull next to it while the Lenovo 500e (16:9) isn’t too bad. The old 2012 Macbook Pro still kicking to my surprise.
There’s a great free windows wifi/usb display driver from https://www.spacedesk.net that turns ios/android devices into an external touchscreen monitor. On macOS that’s an option with thunderbolt 3 macbook pro/air (sidecar, Use your iPad as a second display for your Mac - Apple Support). I’ve also tried a generic HDMI capture card through a USC-C hub with no issues but then you loose touchscreen capability.
Scrubbing the timeline in iMovie with the touchscreen suits me fine but should also be possible on a windows/linux laptop. M1 or later models are required to extend ipad desktop to an external display (and all apps aren’t full screen compatible yet, Move, resize, and organize windows with Stage Manager on iPad – Apple Support (MY)).
If my retro hardware can’t handle large video projects there’s a proxy editing workaround.
I didn’t even consider the ergonomics beforehand either, even as I discarded the 2-in-1 Dell for the same reasons (Surface models are the same). Without a rigid keyboard hatch it’s almost impossible to adjust to anything but a flat surface in front of you.
I would invest in a slightly pricier laptop than my budget would allow and then use the heck out of it for more than a decade. Such a strategy would broaden your options.
Agree, however, any possible excess budget will be used on camera or optics. My current DT performance margin is quite low so I’d prefer to test a slight CPU and RAM upgrade first. But might splash x% extra for above average display quality if such an option appears on the used/refurbed market.
It also depends on my audio setup (w/wo Thunderbolt 3, adapted to host older (and excellent) firewire interfaces), I might get a x86 SBC with PCIe slot for that and use the chromebooks as display(s) with spacedesk or HDMI capture card.
I’ll ask the local refurb shop for test units with return shipping allowed first.
The only other 3:2 or 16:10 touch and pen laptop I found in this round was a 12th gen Yoga 7. There are surely others out there but that’s for another time then. Most Yogas seems to be 16:9 nowadays to my surprise.
The Asus Zenbook duo with the extra half-sized display crammed in was a nice surprise, hope to see some more of those later on.
The 13.5" Surface Book 2 is great hardware, ‘almost perfect’ ™. The feature set is perfect for my needs as discussed above at the beginning of the quest.
The display is excellent. It makes me want to look at images all day long and makes any edit session so much more enjoyable.
Linux support is solid for this series, I’ve tried pop, LMDE, Pika OS and settled on CachyOS.
The old 2GB Nvidia GPU is surprisingly capable. I have no prior reference but have had no issues with its performance for both photos and a bit of video.
The ‘reverse display half-tent’ mode is great for pen usage in any editor.
For DT I’d prefer some kind of controller for the left hand when using the pen, with access to most used shortcuts and a dial for scrolling and zooming. I haven’t tried such a setup yet with my Surface Dial, only pen plus touchscreen.
Note that the Surface Book 2 also can be powered from USB-C.
The Surface Dock 2 is bulky with extra bulk and is capable of USB 3.1. gen 2 speeds, 10gbp/s IIRC.
I haven’t found anything else like it in this category, ie. larger than 16:9 and above average display with touchscreen.
Later on I came across a slightly beaten and cheap Macbook Pro 2012 15" from the first retina display series. The 15" screen estate was a re-revelation (as per earlier comments above) and 13" suddenly felt way too crammed.
Then I found a super cheap good condition 15" Surface Book 2!
Same specs as the 13.5" plus 6GB VRAM on a GTX 1060.
Quite a gamechanger for video editing in DaVinci in particular. I haven’t tried any of the heavy load Studio features and can probably live fine without them, so far it’s flying at any task given.
I’ve also been testing a basic Wacom One M pen tablet which was another surprising revelation in terms of workflow and usage of brushes and masks.
There are decent DIY drivers for Linux and some great alternatives as well with native Linux drivers, see Huion and XPPen for example.
So! My 2026 setup is a 15" Surface Book 2 in ‘half-tent’ mode controlled by a 15" MacBook Pro 2015 retina (2GB VRAM AMD R9) with https://deskflow.org.
The next quest is to find a good VNC or HDMI capture card solution between them.
And I’ve spent way too little time editing and learning but so it goes.
