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Question

Buying a laptop to run only one specific piece of software

Feb 7, 2015 5:03AM PST

Hi folks,

I'm a photographer, and in an effort to expand my business somewhat I'm planning to offer a photo booth as part of my services. It's my intention to build a kiosk that will house a camera and a touch-screen monitor connected to a laptop running the photo booth software.

I'm not too savvy when it comes to laptop specs, so I'm wondering what I should be focusing for in order to best meet my needs. Basically, the laptop that I choose will be used for one purpose only, and that's running the photo booth software. I suppose my number one priority is speed. The software needs to be able to run smoothly without any hiccups, and I would need to be able to power it up and/or restart it with minimal delay. Another important factor is the actual physical size of the laptop. If it's going to be in an enclosure it can't be too bulky (or heat up too much, if that's a problem that some models potentially have). Storage isn't too much of an issue, as I think I'm going to use an external hard drive to store the photos.

What I'd like to know from you lovely, lovely people is what laptop specs you think are the most important for my purposes. From my (very) limited knowledge I'm guessing the higher the RAM the better, but there may be other factors I'm not considering. Secondly, if anyone knows of a specific make and/or model of laptop that would fit the bill I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
What application will you be running?
Feb 7, 2015 5:17AM PST

Off the cuff I'd say something with 4 GB of RAM and maybe something like an I3 processor would probably be more than sufficient. However this is really a stab in the dark without knowing what your application is and what its specs are. You may or may not need to add RAM, it's not that expensive, so maybe you'd want to get something with 8 GB that would cost around $75 more, but again all this is stabbing in the dark without knowing anything about your software application.
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Good luck.

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Answer
Let's state that this won't take much to run.
Feb 7, 2015 5:26AM PST

How about that Asus x200ca which we snagged for about 200.
As to startup delay I took one and swapped in a cheap 240GB SSD which was on sale for 99 bucks. It starts in under 15 seconds not.
Bob

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Answer
More details
Feb 7, 2015 2:00PM PST

Thank you!

I'm not 100% decided yet, but more than likely I'll be using software called Sparkbooth. Looking at their website, they say "4GB or more RAM, and Core 2 Duo processor or better (2.0 Ghz or faster) is recommended."

This is where my knowledge gets really poor (so my apologies in advance for any stupid questions or statements). Will additional RAM significantly improve the way the software runs, or can I expect it to run more or less optimally at the suggested 4GB? Also, I think it's in my best interests to have a SSD, although R. Proffitt mentioned having to buy one and then swap it in. Can I assume from that comment that SSDs aren't too commonplace yet? Does it generally work out cheaper to buy a laptop with a HDD and then replace it?

So... a small laptop, with 4GB of RAM, a 2.0Ghz processor and a SSD. Does such a thing exist? If so, does anyone have any recommendations? Would I need to pay significantly more if I wanted slightly more RAM and a slightly faster processor? What would be considered a reasonable price for such a product?

Sorry for all the questions. but thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it!

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Since my wife has the x200ca with SSD, it does exist.
Feb 7, 2015 11:10PM PST

You can compare CPUs at CPUBOSS to see which wins the CPU race.
Bob