List of Laptops with Windows for photo processing – 2020

This is a list that is slowly becoming outdated as new designs and processors are constantly emerging. Some of them may not be available, and subsequent versions may differ, because under the same name as hp Pavilion may hide different series of 15-dk… 15-ec… with different numbers (e.g. 15-dk0001nw and 15-dk0021nw), which have different components, they can also have different screens.

Still, I’ll leave this list, because you don’t always want to buy something new, and used Windows laptops quickly get cheaper. Particularly affordable are the series of laptops such as Dell XPS or HP zBook, which start within PLN 10,000.

I refresh this entry in 2022, when more computers with M2 processes have already appeared, so it’s worth taking a look at this list for 2022. If you don’t want to play on a laptop and you don’t have to work with Windows, then I don’t think there are any better laptops for photo editing right now. Even if you need to put a little more money to start, it’s a good investment in your development and peace of mind, because of The Mac OS.

Laptop for photo processing up to 4000 thousand.

HP Pavilion Gaming 15-dk0021nw

You will get a laptop for approx. 3500 zł without Windows 10, but you can buy it for about 500 zł or sometimes hit a good key for approx. PLN 150 per Kinguin.net.

It’s a basic gaming laptop, so we have good components and good cooling. Although it is a gaming computer, the IPS matrix has a standard 60Hz which does not matter when photographing, but it has very good colors for a laptop at this price. In the future, we can connect an external monitor to it thanks to HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort.

At this price we have only 8GB of RAM but we can add a second cube, or change the whole to HYPERX Impact RAM 32GB 2666MHz for about 700 ZŁ.

On board we have only a 256 GB SSD on the M2 connector, but inside there should be a SATA connector into which you can insert an HDD or, for example, a SAMSUNG 860 EVO 1TB SSD for approx. 700 zł or SAMSUNG 860 EVO 500GB SSD for 400 zł.

• Intel Core i5-9300H, 4 cores/8 threads, clocked at 2.4 – 4.1 Ghz
• 8 GB RAM 2666MHz DDR4, but we have one more free slot to add another 8GB of RAM
• Dysk SSD M.2 PCIe 256 GB
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4GB Graphics
• HDMI 2.0, USB-C 3.2 with DisplayPort and USB A 3.1 support, Gigabit Ethernet
• Matte Full HD IPS 60Hz panel giving approx. 95% sRGB, delta E at 1.3 level (after calibration about 1.1!), with brightness of 300 nits and backlight uniformity of approx. 86%
• Wi-Fi Intel Wireless-AC 9560 802.11b/g/n/ac (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5 module, which gives approx. 1Gbps over Wi-Fi

Laptop for photo processing up to 8000 thousand.

HP Omen 17-cb0043nw

A large laptop aimed at gamers, but it will also work well in photo processing and even video editing due to the very efficient graphics card. Unlike Pavlion, it is already a 17.3″ matrix and a slightly more interesting housing with an aluminum palmrest, a more efficient cooling system and an even better matrix. For this equipped with two B&O speakers.

On board we already have a 512 GB SSD on the M2 PCIe connector and a free SATA connector, into which you can insert an HDD or SAMSUNG 860 EVO 1TB or SAMSUNG 860 EVO 500GB SSD, as an additional storage space.

The laptop weighs 3.21 kg, and it has a large 220W power supply (in the RTX 2080 version up to 330W), but I chose it because of the quality of the screen and performance.

For very mobile people I would probably recommend  Surface Book 2 13.5 i7-8650U/8GB/SSD256GB/GTX1050/Win10 Pro, which has worse parameters, but is much lighter because the whole is 1.5 kg, but we can disconnect from it the entire keyboard, which contains an additional battery and graphics card, besides it has an amazing bright screen (96% sRGB, 400 nit), with stylus support.  

• Intel Core i7-9750H, 6 cores/12 threads, clocked at 2.6 – 4.5 Ghz
• 16 GB (2x8GB) RAM 2666MHz DDR4
• Dysk SSD M.2 PCIe 512 GB
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB Graphics
• Thunderbolt 3, Mini-DisplayPort, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB 3.0
• 17″ matte Full HD IPS 144Hz panel, giving approx. 96% sRGB, delta E at 1.9 (after calibration approx. 0.8!), with brightness of 300 nits and uniformity of backlight at the level of approx. 91%
• Wi-Fi 6 AX 200 (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5
• Windows 10 Home 64

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Laptop for photo processing up to 12000 thousand.

As I mentioned, I would personally choose the new MacBook Pro 16 so as not to have problems with color calibration and external monitors. If this does not bother us or we want to work, we will find some really cool laptops that can have even better specifications and by the way a similar weight and size. The HP ZBook 15 G6 Mobile Workstation weighs only 1.6 kg and the DELL XPS 15 7590 approx. 2kg, but it has an8500 mAh battery.

Dell XPS 15 7590 Used Tractor

• Intel Core i7-9750H, 6 cores/12 threads, clocked at 2.6 – 4.5 Ghz
• 16 GB (2x8GB) RAM 2666MHz DDR4 (2 slots zajete)
• Dysk SSD M.2 PCIe 1TB
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4GB Graphics
• 1x Thunderbolt 3, HDMI 2.0, 2x USB 3. 1
• The 15″ glossy 4K OLED matrix covered with Gorilla Glass NBT covers 100% sRGB, brightness of over 400 nits and very even backlight compared to LCD panels, because each pixel shines on its own. Equally good parameters can be found in versions with an IPS matrix.
• Wi-Fi 6 AX 200 (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5
• Windows 10 Home 64 bit

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Laptop HP ZBook 15 G6

HP ZBook Workstations are hardware for professionals. Zbook and Zbook Studio computers are also very solid constructions. It is worth looking for Dream Color models that have the best screens for working with graphics.

• Intel Core i7-9850H, 6 cores/12 threads, clocked at 2.6 – 4.6 Ghz
• 32 GB (2×16 GB) RAM 2666MHz DDR4 and still 2 free slots!
• Dysk SSD M.2 PCIe 512 GB
• NVIDIA Quadro T2000 4GB Graphics
• 2x Thunderbolt 3, Mini-DisplayPort, HDMI 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, 3x USB 3. 1
• 15″ Matte 4K IPS 60Hz matrix giving approx. 97% sRGB, delta E at 4.4 (after calibration about 1.8!), with a brightness of 400 nits and uniformity of illumination at the level of approx. 90%, there are also versions with a matrix with a brightness of 700 nits, but I did not find more detailed information about it except that it also displays almost 100% sRGB.
• Wi-Fi 6 AX 200 (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5
• Windows 10 Pro 64 bit

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HP ZBook Studio G7 with DreamColor screen

In 2020, one of the best workstations for the creative industry appeared on the market. In addition to the great specification that I propose here, you can also look for versions with Intel Core i7 or with Intel Xeon processors, but that’s a matter of your preferences and budget. The specification presented below is a great competitor for the 16 inch MacBook Pro, especially for people who are going to render video.

HP DreamColor 4K display

The first thing that interests us the most will be DreamColor screen in 4K UHD resolution (3840 x 2160) in IPS technology offering HDR400, 100% DCI-P3, 100% sRGB and 77% AdobeRGB, and its ΔE is 1.4, and after calibration only ΔE 0.5! The screen can be very bright (over 600 nits) and still can keep it backlight uniformity of 92% which places it at the forefront of laptops and workstations.

HP Vaporforce Thermals

An interesting solution is also the HP Vaporforce Thermals cooling that can be found only in top-shelf equipment. So far, it has been used in the aviation industry or server solutions with very high performance. How does it work? Instead of solid copper plates in combination with heap pipes, a material is used inside which is a very low pressure chamber, where the evaporating water transfers heat to the cool part which then transfers the heat through the heat pipe to the heat sinks with the fan. It is a very efficient solution, thanks to which the computer reaches a temperature of about 50 degrees under load, which is a very good result with this specification.

In addition, the equipment is equipped with AI technology that automatically selects the voltage and manages the performance of components so that in tasks that require more work for the processor or graphics card, it allocates resources.

Most of all, workstations are reliable equipment. Z Book Studio G7 is equipment with a 3-year warranty made of aluminum and meets the MIL-STD 810H standards. By the way, it includes corporate-class security, which is missing in the equipment on the shelves of supermarkets, i.e. Sure Start BIOS security which, upon detection of changes, restores the safe copy.

• InCore i9-10885H , 8 cores / 16 threads, clock speed 2.4 – 5.3 GHz
• 32 GB (2 × 16 GB) RAM 2666MHz DDR4 in dual chanel technology (on motherboard)
• Dysk SSD M.2 PCIe 1TB NVMe
• NVIDIA Quadro T2000 4GB Graphics
• 2x Thunderbolt 3 , HDMI 2.0, USB 3.1
• 15 ″ Matte 4K IPS matrix giving 100% sRGB , delta E at the level of 1.4 (after calibration, about 0.5 !), With a brightness of 600 nits and a backlight uniformity of about 92% . (there are 3 other versions of screens that are not from the DreamColor series so it’s worth paying attention to that)
• Wi-Fi 6 AX 200 (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5
• Windows 10 Pro 64 bit

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