With old ThinkPads, it’s usually very easy to expand the memory. You also need as much memory as you can get: 8GB is the minimum, 16GB is good and 32GB is better. (See last week’s answer for more details about choosing a processor.) Either way, look up the PassMark score of your partner’s laptop and make sure you get something faster. A recent Core i7 is the best option on refurbs, but you may have to settle for the more common Core i5. With Photoshop, you need the fastest processor you can get.

In some cases, such as the T420, you can upgrade the processor from a Core i5 to an i7, though overheating might be a problem. On the T540p and W540, for example, you can change the memory, hard drive, optical drive, wireless card and battery. Much as I like the X1 Carbon, I’d avoid the X range, which is optimised for portability.īefore you buy a machine, download the hardware maintenance manual and make sure the memory and drives are FRUs (field-replaceable units). However, keep an eye open for ThinkPad workstations such as the W540 and W541. Prices range from under £100 to around £400 for a machine with a Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory and a small SSD. You may find something suitable in the ThinkPad T range, such as a T420, T510 or T540p. Portable workstations sometimes have Xeon processors and Nvidia Quadro graphics cards. To generalise, laptops usually have Intel Core processors with integrated graphics. However, Precision workstations are excellent, and you can sometimes pick them up quite cheaply on .uk. ThinkPads are very common so you should have a wide range to choose from. The main alternatives are Dell Latitude laptops and Dell Precision portable workstations, and HP EliteBook and ZBook laptops.

These are now supplied by Lenovo, which bought IBM’s PC division.

Your best bet is probably an IBM ThinkPad. This rules out thin-and-light consumer laptops, which tend to be sealed boxes with storage chips soldered to the motherboard. If you adopt this strategy, your refurb must be a model that can be upgraded, and you will probably have to do the upgrades yourself. This early iteration of the ThinkPad won’t run Photoshop.

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