Dell uncloaks trio of muscular mobile workstations Dell has introduced a trio of new Precision Mobile Workstations, with the 17-inch top-of-the-line models offering such goodies as Intel Core i7 Extreme processors, 32GB of 1866MHz RAM, Nvidia 3D Vision Pro technology, a raft of graphics-chippery choices hooked up via third-generation PCIe x16, and four storage bays that support …
From the photos, they look like 16:10 format. Anything less than 17"@1900X1200 is not good enough on it's own for pro use. The extra 20% vertical pixels make a world of difference. Plugging in a secondary monitor as a minimum requirement just defeats the purpose.
And might I say, it's about time too!
I wish Lenovo were still in this market. I'd love to update my 3yr old W700. Still, 3Ghz+8gb ram+raid 0 remains quite useful on the move, and nothing looks better to walk into a meeting with it, if only for the 'gosh thats a big one' double-entendre opportunities.
agreed, completely over the 1080 high screen meme. developers take note...
those of us who make entertainment/vfx content actually buy high end mobile workstations to make content on them on the go, not just watch it. if that's all we wanted to do, there's plenty of cheap options for much less. doubly crap is that resolution can't even fit all the UI side content in maya or even a full page word doc.
so i'm glad we've got over the shiny screen rubbish phase at the pro level (cept apple of course), now can we have 1920x1280 back please. sticking with my W500 on the move until then.
Easy...
Project not operating as customer expected because:
* Sales rat sold the impossible
* Manager agreed to unfeasable delivery time
* Developer had to cobble together the best they could in half the time required, usually with a vacant spec. document and requirements that will change up to the delivery date.
End result? Developer is sent to customer site, laptop in hand, and has to bodge and prod everything until it works. This tends to need a laptop, and a good one at that else even a manager can spot that the developer is a little hamstrung on a 1080x768 pixel screen laptop with 2GB or RAM.
What? No 1920x1280 video? How about 1980x1200?
I guess that I will not be buying one of these, either. Maybe Asus will detect the money in my bank account that is currently awaiting a portable product having reasonable performance and adequate resolution for development work.
Is this some bizarre by-product of the new economic environment? Companies like Dell have decided to make products that customers like myself decline to purchase, thus coercing me to keep my funds in an investment account?
People will need less and less hardware spec on the client (PC) side as all of the processing is moving to the server in a thin-client model. Client devices/PC are basically just there to show the end user what the server has processed, generally via a web-browser.
> People will need less and less hardware spec on the client (PC) side as all of the processing is moving to the server in a thin-client model.
Except, you know....the people that this laptop range is designed for? You don't buy these units to check your webmail and talk to nanna on skype while watching The Voice on tellie, you buy these to get WORK done.
That's just the thing - these laptops shiny toys will be used by management types to check their webmail, watch porntube and skype the missus from a hotel room while they're away on business.
The only "work" done will be regurgitating powerpoint presentations to other management types.
"The only "work" done will be regurgitating powerpoint presentations to other management types."
Pick any position you like, Java developer, financial analyst, you name it. Why would they need this spec on the client side? They all work for companies that have servers and use the servers for serious computing power. People conflate the idea of needing computing power with needing computing power on the laptop/PC.
Alright, if you are getting work done, presumably you work for a company with servers. Are you running SAP or Oracle EBS or any other major enterprise application natively on the desktop? No, it is run on the server through a browser. If you are a developer, are you running any development images natively on the desktop? No, it would make no sense as they will eventually be deployed on a server. What are people doing, outside of the occasional video editor or Autodesk user (which is also moving toward a server with client access), are you doing on a laptop/PC which requires huge amounts of spec on the PC? No one has been able to give me one example. As Sun put it years ago, the network is the computer. The screen in front of you is just that, a screen to show you what the server is computing.
"Except, you know....the people that this laptop range is designed for? You don't buy these units to check your webmail and talk to nanna on skype while watching The Voice on tellie, you buy these to get WORK done."
This is just a complete misunderstanding of the way distributed computing works. How many applications do you use that run natively, not pulling from a server, on your laptop/PC? Probably just Office.
Doesn't work that way with Autocad. Autocad doesn't distribute, therefore I'm needing one core per seat, as fast and responsive as can be delivered, with several hundred/thousand pounds worth of graphic card to show it all off. Thin client is JNGE.
The pretty-picture and sample files look good and in all probabilty work quite well in a 'cloudy' format. Just don't try loading up any real working files and then expect not to cry.
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