MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Just after some thoughts...
I am currently trying to decide between 2 Dells, either a fully loaded Studio XPS 16 (i7 CPU, 8Gb Ram, 500Gb HDD, 1Gb Radeon, RGB LED Screen) and an almost fully loaded Precision M6400 Covet (Q9100 CPU, 12Gb Ram, 1Gb ATi Fire, 2x320Gb HDD, RGB LED Screen)
I am swaying towards the Precision, partially as it is anodised orange, partially as it has a proper docking station. Either way it is going to cost a bloody fortune, but this is to be the ultimate Photoshop machine for editing my landscape work... oh... and possibly venturing into HD Video at some stage.
Any thoughts/comments??? The big things in favour of the more sensible XPS are battery life (useful on occasion) and weight.
I have been out the IT game too long and am well out of touch with technology 😉
Why laptop ?
Much better deals on the desktops, especially for that sort of job.
I use a Dell Precicion as a desktop replacement at work as i need to travel with work and need the grunt on site but i wouldnt want to buy one myself.
Cos at the moment I split work between a desktop and laptop, which means running 2 machines, having email split between them both and the laptop aint much good with photos (I can run Lightroom on it for use in the field, but once the database starts getting large it keels over!)
What I want to do is run just 1 machine, so a desktop replacement, that I can take with me when I go away. It needs to be a bit of a beast for obscene file sizes too 😉
I was liking the Precision mainly as its display will cope with a full Adobe RGB colourspace, and I aint seen that on a laptop spec list before!
(And there is plenty of cash in the company account that the Government is eyeing up!)
Well dont look at the consumer level ones then, look at the precsion M6 business series, mine runs heaps of development software and some fairly graphically heavy stuff all fairly well.
I am sure somebody will be along in a mo to tell you to buy a Mac, they may have a point ?
Not "au fait" with the latest tech, however I have one regret when buying technology: Buying bleeding edge!
I once spent in excess of £1500 on a 733Mhz Pentium with 30Gb and 512Mb RAM. It came with a good Sony 17" CRT monitor and had a TV card. I recently sold the £220 monitor for around £20 and kept the base unit. The current base unit value is also around £20, but I just can't bring myself to throw it away.
I have bought several PC's since and all have been just adequate for my needs, but still relatively expensive compared to today's mid to low range equipment.
I shall never buy an all singing all dancing specced machine as the lesson learned with almost all my early purchases is that I should have a) bought a lower spec and b) older technology.
I was thinking Mac, but I have several hundred quids worth of mapping software (whole UK & Ireland) that doesn't run on a Mac... plus add in new versions of Lightroom and Photoshop... It would wind up costing me about as much as the new machine (or more) in software!
I have a quote sitting in my inbox for one of these:
Which is running at £3246.56 inc VAT and delivery. Just wanting to gather any thoughts from others before phoning them with card details!
Spongebob - I take your point entirely... my desktop was bleeding edge when I got it... it's still pretty decent now, but getting tired (and I am getting annoyed with the 2 systems set up, though love the 28" monitor I am running so that will stay for the docking station!)
However, when it is company money being burned through....
oooohhh thats a lot of money, i what OS are you going with ?
Whatever you do make sure you get at least 3 years warranty\service on it, we have seen a few screen and HDD failures in our M4300's over the last year or so, but to be fair they get thrown around on site a bit, they all replaced with no quibble
Standard is 3 years next day 😉
Going Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit whatever I go with.
It's a heap of money so i would have hoped 3 years was standard!!
OS wise i only ask as i have seen quotes from Dell with XP Pro 32bit OS and 12GB RAM on them before as the online spec system lets you make that choice sometimes.
Between those two I would take the M6400 - its a rock solid tank of a machine (I used to support these directly at work).
The support on the M6400 will be far better as well - you *need* to pay the extra for 3 years warranty at the cost level of this machine, perhaps even get the full 5 years and if you can upgrade to pro-support. XPS support can be patchy...
Also it will take two hard drives - and do raid 0 or 1.
The battery life on the M6400 is not stunning - however its specification is insane.
I cannot praise the M6400 enough. Seriously.
(emailed you as well rob)
Have you considered a Toshiba?
I have been hearing 2 hours from the battery being mentioned, which is okayish. I can usually find a power source somewhere 😉
It will be great on the ferry to and from Ireland - I can get the photograph editing started on the 8 hour crossing from Fleetwood to Larne 😉
Tyger - not seen a Toshiba that is up to the same spec, and there is no configuration option on buying them.
Lenovo were being considered too, but the inbuilt screen didn't seem as good (the W series are interesting with inbuilt colour calibration, slide out additional 10.6" displays and inbuilt Wacom graphics tablets...)
The M6400 is not lightweight for traveling by the way expect to be carrying about 4kg of laptop plus AC adapter.
Lenovo were being considered too, but the inbuilt screen didn't seem as good (the W series are interesting with inbuilt colour calibration, slide out additional 10.6" displays and inbuilt Wacom graphics tablets...)
I have never seen one (I work for a competitor) but those things look amazing - even the concept sounds superb. Could you see one in real life to assess the screen? It might do what you want?
Alas, in rural Cumbria there is no chance!!!!!
They are interesting looking machines though - but a wide colour gammut is probably more useful to the way I work than an additional screen (I did run 2 x 28" monitors for a bit, but got bored with the whole thing in the end! Rather have some desk space back again!)
RobS - I'd check over these forums (I was reading 'em yesterday 'cos I'm looking for an i7 laptop with decent gfx):
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19306277/19605802.aspx
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=437800&page=227
It sounds like it's a similar spec to the XPS you're describing.
Roughly how it goes is: machine stutters when on psu, 'cos it detects (90w) psu and throttles back to reduce it's power requirement (actually is fine on battery !). Needs both a larger (120-130W) psu and a bios fix (tho' there appears to be some unofficial workarounds to turn off throttling and buy a bigger psu). Sounds like Dell are being a bit crap about sorting the issue..
Can you hang fire for a week or two?
Intel launch their next range of CPUs in Vegas tomorrow (IIRC), so there will be a whole raft of new laptop models coming out on the back of that. Laptop CPUs have been codenamed Arrandale.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/185857/intels_2010_arrandale_laptop_cpus_core_i5540m_impressions.html
Performance increases might not be staggering but if you're not in a hurry, I'd wait a bit to buy the latest & greatest (before it's superceeded in a 6 to 12 months).
Mapping software? You could run that on the Mac using Parallels/VMWare or bootcamp and XP.
Docking stations. I find them a real pain. I much prefer just bringing my MacBookPro in range of the bluetooth keyboard & mouse, clicking the PSU on and working. When I have to dock my work PC (Toshiba or Lenovo) onto or off the docking station it just reminds me how 1990s docking stations seem.