Mark Gowin;538 wrote: The Dell M4600 you spec’d out sounds awesome. However, I would probably consider a 13″ Macbook Air (very small) for on the road image review and new loaded desktop with large display for image processing and editing. I see value in your thinking to get a fast laptop with 100% RGB display so you can process images while on the road and, frankly, I am not sure which way I would go given a $3,000 budget.
Well, I didn’t listen to my own advice. I recently bought a loaded Lenovo W520 which has a 95% RGB high res screen with an X-Rite color calibrator built into the palm rest.
In all honesty, I tried to follow my own advice. I actually bought a MacBook Air, but then returned it when I couldn’t come up with a suitable reasonably priced Mac OS i7 quad core desktop computer. The Mac Mini would have been acceptable except it isn’t configurable in an i7 quad core with a dedicated graphics card. I looked hard at the iMac line, but ultimately decided it wasn’t work the >$2k for me to get into the i7 quad core since I already have 2 – 24″ screens and a 27″ NEC wide gamut screen. In addition, I didn’t want to wait for the new Ivy Bridge processor Macs to come out next year.
Finally, I didn’t want to continue with the mixed OS approach (Mac OS laptop / Windows desktop) that I had been using the last several years. Those considerations lead me to a Windows OS laptop. I can add a 3.4 ghz quad core i7 desktop for under $800 later if I find the need for more processing power.
I hoping the transition to a Windows laptop goes well.