Laptop thoughts?

How big of an anvil do you want to carry? Do you want an i7 with a 15.5 or 17" screen and 3.5+ Kg? Or an ultrabook with an i5 and a 15" or smaller screen that is in the under 2 Kg weight class?

For me I prefer light weight, an i5 is plenty even for imaging and a 15" screen is plenty big. The one must have is a back lit keyboard, I never realized it before but now I cannot live without it.

If you want to limit yourself to something with a single hard drive slot, I would highly recommend getting a hybrid drive. My laptop has a Seagate hybrid drive with 1TB of rotational HDD and 8GB of MLC/NAND and I very much like the performance vs a regular hard drive.

I think one of the most important aspects with a laptop is if the screen and keyboard suits you. Performance these days I think is less of an issue.

I recently replaced my 500GB drive for a SSD - faster boot, but not very significant when compiling (mainly VS2010). 6GB is normally OK. Extra data storage, an external 2TB USB drive, or two.

What is really miss when travelling is my Windows 8 with three screens - any solutions to that?.

What is really miss when travelling is my Windows 8 with three screens - any solutions to that?.

A laptop with 2 pico projectors…

I can but dream….

What is really miss when travelling is my Windows 8 with three screens - any solutions to that?.

Yep.

http//www.amazon.com/AOC-E1649FWU-USB-Powered-Portable-Monitor/dp/B005SEZR0G

Dell Precision M3800 looks to be a decent one. Dual storage + touch screen.

What is really miss when travelling is my Windows 8 with three screens - any solutions to that?.

Yep.

http//www.amazon.com/AOC-E1649FWU-USB-Powered-Portable-Monitor/dp/B005SEZR0G

Tempting - but I am not sure about in Delta Airlines 'cattle class'

Still thinking about this - for flexibility I am considering a windows surface pro 3 (not had hands on one yet) - anyone had a play? any thoughts?

Don't need blistering power or shed loads of storage - I can use an external drive if required for test images/databases.

Still thinking about this - for flexibility I am considering a windows surface pro 3 (not had hands on one yet) - anyone had a play? any thoughts?

Ironically, if your going that way I would recommend the Surface Pro 2. Basically it runs faster than the 3 because the 3 is much thinner which causes higher temperatures and slightly slower by comparison (the i5 version scored 208 in cinebench vs 250 for the Surface pro 2). I'm not sure if the i7 version would make up for this.

If portability is your main concern, the this seems to be a good choice. If however you don't lugging a 17inch laptop, then something with an i5 /i7 processor and 8GB of RAM is a winner. If you don't need storage get one with an SSD (256GB prob best) , if you need the storage get a dual hdd laptop. To save on space slightly you can get one with a mini PCI-e slot which are much smaller than the HDD bays.

These might suit you if your not keen on the Surface Pro idea
http//shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/?menu-id=t_series