Early Impressions on my Laptop PC Upgrade for Image Editing

Reviews seem to often consist of glowing reviews of lists or specifications by people who didn't actually use the product for long, and they're often done by people who accept advertising or sponsorship from the company involved, which creates an editorial bias and may make them reluctant to fully disclose issues.  I just tell you how the products I actually bought actually worked.

With my laptop, the main thing I wanted to upgrade was disk space, since I can generate over 125GB of data in a weekend.  I need to work on those files for a week or more, and I may go out and shoot another 125GB, exactly like I did at Big Sur and then Death Valley in the last 2 weeks.  Working on time-lapse sequences can create another 80GB from those consecutive trips.

I was coming from a laptop with a 500GB drive, so 1TB was the minimum.  I also require a full 1080P resolution display: 1940 x 1080, to best fit multiple programs and windows on the screen, and to be more productive when removing dust spots (see more of the photo and dust spots when using Lightroom 4 fully zoomed in).  My eyesight isn't the sharpest, so best if that resolution was spread out across a large 17" display (the tradeoff being that large displays suck battery and will reduce battery life).  I also wanted a price under $1000, if possible.

I worked for computer companies for years and configured CPU/RAM/disk and external RAID configurations for various applications, and I've built a number of custom Windows PCs over the years.  I'd love to build a custom laptop with fast disk drive, fast solid state disk for the operating system and programs, but I'm on a photographer's budget.  I found few 1080P models with 1TB disk for under $1k, but the Sony SVE17127CXB with 17.3-Inch display seemed to fit the bill.  I've sold computer animation systems to high end studios.  Sony is a strong player in the professional video production industry Sony Trinitron monitors been the standard for reference monitor in studios for decades.  I'm skeptical about LED screen technology in general, but when faced with tradeoffs I trust Sony to make decisions favoring higher quality.  While I try to do a market survey each time I buy, I've had four consecutive Sony 17" laptops with 1940 x 1080 resolution, and I've been satisfied with the displays on three of those four (my prior model PCG-81312 seemed to have dimmer whites and a reduced color palette, either due to a lower quality LED display or an inadequate graphics processor).

How's it working?

Pros: 
– I'm so much happier with a 1TB drive, and the USB 3.0 port helps move data on and off quickly for backups.
– Screen resolution, quality and size
– Fast for a laptop: 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7-3632QM quad-core processor (3.2 GHz with Turbo Boost Technology; 6 MB L3 cache)
– The AMD Radeon HD 7550M graphics co-processor doesn't make this a screaming gaming platform, but it's far better than using on-CPU graphics, as many laptops do.  I don't notice any 
– Back-lit keyboard, great for working in the field at night (sitting or parking outside of a Starbucks after they close, lol)
– A similar Sony E17 model was tested at a very low average power consumption of 40 watts, so it should work off a power inverter plugged into your car's accessory plug.  I'll only try this after buying spare fuses for the car though… been there, done that… car fuses are designed and intended to blow before the 15 amps x 12 volts they're rated for, but you can't expect too much precision from a $1 auto part and expect a full or continuous 180 watts (or 150, or perhaps even 120 watts).  Don't run your laptop for hours while the car isn't running… I've drained a car battery that way!

Cons:
– Windows 8 – Difficult to get used to, seems to impact performance (I hear that I may be able to downgrade to run Windows 7, intend to look into that)
– 8GB max RAM – That worked fine on my last Sony laptop running Windows 7, seems less desirable running Windows 8
– Reported battery life of 2 hours 45 minutes.  A 15" model would deliver better battery performance.

Other Tradeoffs:
While Windows 8 supports touch screens, but they add cost and this laptop leaves it out.  I can cover the whole screen with a 2" move of my mouse, and I can accurately place a cursor between two letters.  I can't imagine why I'd want to move my whole arm to do something on screen, or obscure what I'm doing with my fingers.  A touch screen on a laptop screen seems like a gimmick except in laptop/tablet hybrids, but that's not what I want at all for applications like Lightroom, so I don't need it.

People with heavy Photoshop workloads, big panoramas or huge files with lots of layers, probably need more RAM.  This is a high capacity, high resolution, relatively low cost travelling machine, but it's faster than my old desktops, so I use it for my daily use as well.  I find this configuration fine for Adobe Lightroom 4.2 and Premiere Elements 11, and I'm starting to use Sony Vegas 11.  After using Lightroom for years, I use Photoshop so infrequently these days, Photoshop Elements 10 does everything I need it to do.  

I'll upgrade to a desktop if or when I outgrow Sony Vegas and need to use the latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro.  Then again, the added screen real estate of 2560 x 1440 on the 27" IPS LED displays would make dust removal even more efficient, and the added processor speed of a desktop i7 would save some time when rendering time-lapse videos and combined sound/video edits.  I'm gradually gathering information on latest hardware for Premiere Pro in case I decide to move forward on that.  Benchmarks on CS6 are a little scarce so far, but the basic principles of system design for a performance in a video editing station have remained fairly constant, so I'm not too worried about niche improvements (like light rendering in 3D models in Adobe After Effects in CS6).

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Amazon.com: Sony VAIO E17 Series SVE17127CXB 17.3-Inch Laptop (Black): Computers & Accessories
Amazon.com: Sony VAIO E17 Series SVE17127CXB 17.3-Inch Laptop (Black): Computers & Accessories

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