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I am using a digital SLR and want to be able to back up and burn on to CD the pictures I take when I am away. Also I have recently got into portrait photgraphy and want to be able to show people when I go to photograph them the results, rather than muck about with contact sheets days later.
I have decided a laptop is the way I want to go but I am not sure which one to get. It seems for around 1000 you can get a pretty good spec, I have been looking at the big names like Mesh, Evesham, Time and various sites specialising in laptops.
Do any of you out there use laptops for what I am thinking of using one for? If so and you have purchased fairly recently so specs havent changed too much, what did you get??
Thanks
David.
I use a laptop for the same (similar) purpose as you do, in addition I have used it to connect my DV video camera and edit movies, and I've got to say that it's been fine. I use a Toshiba Satellite 1800 which I've had for about 18 months now, so it's well out of date !! The point I am making is that it works fine and you needn't necessarily have to buy the latest or best machine available to do what you want it to do, this machine is a Celeron (cutdown pentium) 800Mhz with 128Mb ram. I will concede that the ram could do with an upgrade but that's not going to break the bank. You will find a laptop with CDRW for less than 1000, without any problem, I had mine from 'Staples', not being very keen on the likes of Pc World because of their over pricing policy. I would recommend Toshiba laptops, never had any trouble and if I need to reload windows and reconfigure it I can do it with the supplied disks, so no bills from computer shops for that either. 
hi there
if ur going to go to a large company for a laptop, try dell. i have used a few of their laptops recently and they r very very good. they allow u to configure the machine to your spec or u can buy a pre-defined one. i would seriously reconsider buying from the 3 companies u mentioned. i am fed up with my friends asking me to sort out their computers because of problems and they just so happen to be from..... u guessed it, the 3 companies u listed (well, 4 if u add viglen). in my opinion they r over priced, low quality systems, and most of the time their after sales service is terrible.
i deal with all sorts of makes of computers and i hear nothing but good reviews about dell and i cant fault them either.
hope that helps.
neil.
Just to put some degree of balance here, I have a Dell desktop and found their customer service so bad that I have vowed never to use them again and have since bought from Evesham and found their degree of support to be exceptionally good.
I have seen Dell make frequent returns to PC Plus's campaign pages over the past few months, but haven't noticed any similar complaints over Evesham in the same period.
At the end of the day, all of the companies hack off some of their customers and are good to others - you eventually have to take the gamble. (Ubnless you were an unlucky Tiny cutomer!)
DP
Thanks for the advice everyone! I suppose it can be a bit confusing sometimes, I am not over keen on the Dell's as the graphics capabilities look a bit feeble and they dont seem to have firewire ports as far as I can see. They also dont offer any 6 or 9 month interest free deals!! The Mesh ones are very well featured, also I have been looking at a few sites, this one in paticular seems good
http://www.laptopsuperstore.co.uk/
Thanks
David.
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