E6520 use with Photoshop???

I store my images on an external HD, now using USB 2.0 but am looking into an eSATA drive for this new machine, just not sure which one yet.
I keep my catalogue on the internal HD and am looking forward to the speed of this thing.
I take for granted the importing of RAW files and then importing them into LR’s library, both on the external HD taking time.
So I just go fix another Martini while that is going on!!!
Thanks Again
Mark

 

I am considering getting a E6520 but need enlightening on some parts of the spec that are unclear, and saw your interesting 4 April post re. E6520 use with Photoshop"LG panel in the E6520 is higher than I was expecting..."

I also require a good quality lcd panel for photo/film editing.

My 4yr old 14" notebook has a AUO1247 1440x900 panel, which I was told would be excellent for photo and film work. However, it had such poor contrast that all shadowed areas had no detail even at max brightness and narrow viewing angle means 2 people cannot view screen at same time.

I concluded that although I needed 900 v. resolution, 14" made text too small/tiring to read for long periods, and therefore a 1600x900 in 15" was better, as FHD would result in text too small again.

Read conflicting reports on who makes the best panels, and in reviews, conflicting reports on same website, about same panel fitted to different brands of Notebooks ! The review site I normally use for indepth reviews is notebookcheck.net - unlike many reviewers, they at least bother to tell you WHICH panel is fitted to review sample, and take objective measurements of brightness, black level, contrast, plus often a subjective opinion of colour quality.
Their only review of E6x20 so far, is the E6420 - (German only, until they translate) using a Samsung SEC544B (think they erroniously quoted a 17" panel). The point is, although an "upgraded" 1600x900 panel, it has extremely bad contrast of 127:1 and also poor viewing angles - worse than on many 'budget' models they reviewed. They review many screens with Contrast of 500+ and stated in their review of a Envy 15 "contrast ratio is only mediocre: 225:1 is not really good for a multimedia notebook of the luxury class" - which makes the E6420 screen worse than "mediocre".

I read on the one hand you can determine WHICH make of panel will be supplied in a Dell order, but also that Dell switch panel suppliers frequently, so the make cannot be predicted. Have you any intel on that ?

Without some decent reviews on the quality of the E5420 with a comparison of the 1600x900 vs 1920x1080 panels Dell use, I am hesitant to chance it.

Also trying to find out the availability and specification of the internal mini-card slots. The Dell spec just says "1 Full and 2 Half Mini Card Slots". I am assuming these 3 slots are PCIe mini-card spec, on the basis that the Intel Centrino WiFi mini-card option for E6x20 are PCIe. Do you know if this is correct ? If so, I am also assuming that if I order with a 3G, BT3, WiFi - then to reserve a slot to take a SSD minicard (I want to use an Intel 310 mSATA minicard specd at 200MB/s - but am guessing the Dell slots are NOT mSATA compliant, so will have to use a slower PCIe SSD minicard) and need to specify the Intel 6230 - which is a combo WiFi+BT3 mini-card, as I guess the default Dell config is to waste a slot with a BT only card.

Might it be possible for you to check WHICH mini-card types you have, and in which slots they are fitted ?

My Notebook needs to be a mobile 'desktop replacement', yet needs to operate reliably in locations with ambient temperatures upto 34 C. My current Notebook is restricted in environment, triggering the HDD temperature warning at ambient temperatures of only 30 C, so I had wanted to next Notebook to use one of the new 'LV' 25W TDP Core2011 CPU's (NO discrete GPU) to keep internal temperatures LOWER. However, there is no news of Dell or anyone making that available, as LV or ULV would require the motherboard to use the smaller BGA1023 cpu socket.

Have you done any temperature evaluation of your E6520, recording CPU, HDD and any other temperatures wrt ambient ?

Thankyou for your post and any answers you are able to give on the above.

 

The purchaser can specify the type of panel (ie the resolution and sometimes whether it is matte or glossy, depending to the offered options). However, it is not possible to specify the make of the panel. In addition, if you get what you think is a bad panel and can ask Dell support to replace it, neither you nor the support people can specify the make of panel to be used as a replacement.

John

 

Thanks for your input. As the differing makes of each lcd size appear to be of differing quality, I guess that requires reviews of all the makes used for the E6520 in order to ascertain the worst case - but unlikely to happen.

Is Bokeh or any other E6530 owner able to advise on the remaining 2 points, re. type & availability of the 3 minicard slots, and record of temparature wrt ambient ?

 

What does wrt ambient mean?

 

wrt = 'With Respect To' - a common abreviation in engineering text.
ambient temperature = temperature of the surrounding air.

Reason I added "... wrt to ambient" is most reviews that publish temperature of internal parts of notebooks, omit to say what the external surrounding air temperature is, and as that closely affects the internal temperatures, it is important to state it. As stated in my initial post, I need to use a notebook in areas where surrounding air temperature often reaches 34 C - which makes the need for a small internal temperature rise important, as published research on HDD early failure indicates HDD temperature exceeding 50 C rapidly accelerates failure.
Reviewers may often test notebooks in air-conditioned offices where the temperature could be anything from 20 to 26 C - still a sizeable spread, that would affect their measurement results of internal temperatures.

 

Very interesting!!! I assume the standard FHD panel for the new Precision M4600 is also this one...

All delta values beyond 2 should be perfect for photo editing if travelling. Know similar values from Mac Book Pros which look excellent...

Thanks for complete info!!

Best, Walter