I would have held out for a Dell Precision M6500. You can get it with 3 HDs so you can optimize it for PhotoShop (HD1: OS & programs, HD2: Scratch disk, HD3: Data). It has a discrete graphics card, and you can get it with an i7 quad CPU, USB 3.0, and up to 16 GB RAM. And you can use the E-Port Plus docking station so you can have two displays. My strategy with Dell is to build my dream system and familiarize myself with all of the options. I then wait for a "close-enough" refurbished unit to come up on their Outlet site. That's how I got two of my previous laptops from Dell.

Harry--The Precision M6500 sounds like quite a powerhouse. But I'd have to guess that loaded up like that the battery & weight would be pretty extreme as well.

I looked at an i7 for my laptop for example and decided I wanted the lower power of the i5 for my usage (a lot of long airplane flights included) despite the lower performance (but I did decide I wanted the i5 over the yet further down the foodchain i3).

I do wish I had USB3 however, but couldn't find it in a 14" system and I wanted 14" for size.--David

One of the questions I have regarding upgrading my laptop has to do with profiling the monitor for my color correction editing. My present profiling software/hardware combination requires the graphic processor to handle LUT. I purchased a specific processor card for my workstation in the studio but am at a layman's loss on how to deal with color profiling on a laptop.

Could someone offer some me some basic advice on doing color profiling and editing on a laptop in so far as how to determine whether or not the system will work for my needs or not.

Also, what type of screen display (glossy, flat, Bright View, etc) works best for color editing and what and why are you using the laptop system you have.

I want to make the move to a laptop office and showroom. Money is an object in this decision. My funds are limited and I need to sell equipment to make any new purchases.

Rick--Perhaps I've just been lucky but all my recent laptops have had LUTs that the software I use (Colorvision Spyder3 currently) was able to program. For Photoshop power though you'll want a laptop with what they call "discrete graphics" which basically means a graphics card typically with an ATI or nVidia mobile chipset. It'll use more power of course (maybe 6-20 watts more). Some systems let you switch the discrete chipset off to power-saving, and the very newest chipsets are starting to do that on the fly.

On screens, I have been getting the super-glossy ones because slideshows look so great. BUT they are much harder to see in bright light and I don't think they are as color accurate (that's just a perception, I don't have facts to back it up).

My laptop display is definitely not as color accurate as my nice HP "Pro" monitor, but that's to be expected since the entire laptop cost about what I paid for the monitor.

That said remember that most good laptops today can do a great job of driving an external monitor so your viewing choices should include thinking about external flat panels (I think David Ramey does that) if you're setting up customer stations or are in the office.

Hope that helps.--David

David, Thanks for the info. Another question please: Do you feel comfortable making a large print for a paying client using only your laptop from input of CF card to the final ready-for-print file?

Rick--Not entirely. If it is a subject/setting I'm pretty familiar with (specific team+venue+lighting, for example) then I might do it, but if I'm not really confident I'll try to wait until I can look at the image on one of my larger & higher quality monitors.

That said, I could plug one of the nice monitors into my laptop as a second monitor and accomplish the same thing (if I wanted to work only from a laptop).

Some of this isn't the fault of the laptop. I tend to be using it in odd lighting so even if it is accurate the conditions around it change much more than in my studio (where I use my desktops).

If I had a larger laptop I could probably get a better screen also, but in the portable (14" in my case) laptop size it seems like there is a limit to how good an LCD panel you can get since the vendors assume mobility is more important presumably.

On the road, the laptop is for doing the initial image sorting, renaming, tagging, etc.

At home base, I have two choices: dock my laptop to use two calibrated monitors and have it networked to the printer server, or transfer the images to the workstation with its own setup.

In short, even though my laptop has a discrete Nvidia card, I'd never use it by itself for any final printing.