Do any laptops provide a 4K output?

I need a new computer for my Photographic Society and prefer PCS as my last 3 laptops personal have been from them. I am looking to the future a bit and anicipate we'll buy a large 4K TV to replace our 1400x1050 video projector when higher resolutions become more common in photo clubs.

Ideally I'd go for a light machine and the Enigma with a large SSD only would be great, but I can't find any reference to such a video output. Is it possible to get one on this or any other PCS laptop?

Thanks.

The Detailed Specification tab on the Engima says it has 1 x Micro HDMI1.4a Port - so it will not support 4k at 60hz.

The Enigma is a very low spec laptop. In performance it's more like a tablet.

The Ultranote 14 and 15.6" have unspecified HDMI outputs so not clear if 2.0 (fine) or 1.4 (not fine).

The Lafite 14" lists mini DP 1.2 which is fine for 4k 60hz. And apparently it's 1.4kg versus the 1.49kg of the Engima.

So I'd suggest a Lafite with an i5 CPU and a decent SSD from the M.2 SSD Drive menu.

What's the budget?

Oussebon said:

The Detailed Specification tab on the Engima says it has 1 x Micro HDMI1.4a Port - so it will not support 4k at 60hz.

The Enigma is a very low spec laptop. In performance it's more like a tablet.

The Ultranote 14 and 15.6" have unspecified HDMI outputs so not clear if 2.0 (fine) or 1.4 (not fine).

The Lafite 14" lists mini DP 1.2 which is fine for 4k 60hz. And apparently it's 1.4kg versus the 1.49kg of the Engima.

So I'd suggest a Lafite with an i5 CPU and a decent SSD from the M.2 SSD Drive menu.

What's the budget?

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm not familiar with the meaning of these HDMI terms, but I know what to look for now!
The Committee would like change out of £1000, and I need to include for some software say £150, so the machine needs to come in under £850. We don't need bags, backup drives, etc, just the basic machine. It looks like I could get a Lafite for this with 8GB RAM and a 960GB Kingston SSD which is a bit over budget. We could save £140 by getting a 1TB Seagate hybrid drive rather than the Kingston and be under budget, or drop to a 500GB SSD. Some time ago I had a hybrid drive on a Mac Mini and it worked well - do you think it works well here? We definitely don't do gaming etc, just some image processing and normal office type computer work.

Avoid the hybrid SSHD as the only drive in a laptop, there have been several reports of abysmal performance from that drive for some uses when it's the sole drive. As a pure user data drive it seems to be fine.

The ideal storage config would be a small SSD for Windows and programs (128GB would probably do if your programs requirements aren't huge), and a faster NVMe M.2 drive would be best, and then a larger (1TB?) 7200rpm HDD for your user data.

ubuysa said:

Avoid the hybrid SSHD as the only drive in a laptop, there have been several reports of abysmal performance from that drive for some uses when it's the sole drive. As a pure user data drive it seems to be fine.

The ideal storage config would be a small SSD for Windows and programs (128GB would probably do if your programs requirements aren't huge), and a faster NVMe M.2 drive would be best, and then a larger (1TB?) 7200rpm HDD for your user data.

Click to expand...

That's pretty much what I have on my current PCS then. A 256GB NVMe and a 1TB 7200 Seagate total £816 so that's pretty much on the money. I'll see if I can get the rest of the committee to agree! The bigger SSD only added £10 to the 120GB.

The key factors are fast enough to satisfy me as the main user (our old Win7 Sony can be pretty slow), a display better than our current projector (1400x1050) (as some software baulks if the monitor has lower resolution than the projector, and the Sony screen is only 1600x900), a video output up to 4K as we might move to display on an HD or 4K TV, and adequate storage for our members' pictures. This seems to satisfy all those. Thanks!

Actually, to complete the story, having talked to PCS on the phone now, a Cosmos might be better for us as it has a better graphics card in it. It's a bit larger and heavier which is a shame. Too much choice!

The Cosmos does have a more powerful graphics card, but do you actually need that? What will you be using the laptop for? Are you editing, if so what, and with what software?

If the editing work is very light or people edit their own photos on their own computers and this is just to connect up to a display when the society meets or make presentations, it doesn't matter a jot what graphics horsepower it has as integrated graphics are fine.