Help, which notebook to buy and when?

Dell XPS 13 + photoshop

 

Well as you are in macrmours I assume you fancy a Mac over any other make of PC, I would go for the retina MacBook Pro 13 inch, for the best compromise on portability, battery life, ports and performance.

I would also reccomend you wait for the next update if you can, it should be out sometime in fall.

As for software try out photos and see what you think it's very simple and has very few tools but it is included with your Mac. Then maybe pixelmator for a cheap simple but fairly useful editing program at $30 it's a bargain.

After that you'll have to research more professional options based on what you want to spend and how complicated you want it to get.

 

Depending on how much editing you are going to do i would say that lightroom will be enough for a most people out there.
I would go with something in the rMBP line up.

 

I say the 15" if you want to work anywhere, but I use a 13" MBPr but 80% of the time I have it hooked up to a 24" monitor. 13" is capable to do some photoshop work but 15" is a more open to work on.

 

Another vote for Lightroom. It does a nice job of organizing photos and presenting them to you in a light box format. Great to handle the hundreds of shots people take now that there is no additional cost to an additional shot. You can also rate the 20 shots of Aunt Martha you took over the holidays and filter on ratings to make it easy to find your best shots. Finally, all changes are non-destructive. That is, they do not effect the original photo file. There are just "played" on top of the original photo to get your final results.

I have this installed on my rMBP 15" and it works well. I had it on my previous 13" classic MBP and it worked well there also. But, I find the extra screen real estate is really handy.

 

Depending on what kind of photo work you are wanting to do, check out affinity photo. I find it more capable than pixelmator and wayyyyy less expensive than photoshop.

 

Get a 1-2 year old 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro

 

I prefer the 13" rMBP because it's more portable than the 15" model.

What do you want to do besides scrapbooking and photo editing? Most computers can handle those things.

Pixelmator is great for basic editing, anything beyond that you'll need something like Photoshop.

If you need a computer now, buy one that meets your needs now. If you can wait then you should wait.

 

15" is quad core. 13 is more portable but comes at a big cost. New MPB's are less than 3 months away. You should wait unless you want a cheaper current one. Apple is handing out Beats headphones or wait til markdowns later.

 

If you mainly use your iMac, I'd get the 13. If you are wanting to replace your iMac, get a 15.

Definitely go to an Apple Store if that's possible. You'll quickly know which one is for you.