Which of these Precision configurations should I buy?

I'm looking at the M4600 and M6600. I've configured one of each and can't decide which to buy. Has anybody even received one of these yet? Any comments on build quality? Battery life? I really can't decide; 15" for carrying convenience and RGBLED or 17" for better specs and touchscreen. Would I really use the touchscreen or is it more of a gimmick? I'm pretty sure both have 2 HDD bays and 4 ram slots, as they're both configurable as such, correct?

M4600: $2186
I7-2820QM
FirePro M5950 w/ 1GB GDDR5
15.6" IPS RGB-LED 1920x1080 LCD
tray load DVD drive
bluetooth
webcam
intel 6300 wireless card
2GB ram (will upgrade w/aftermarket myself)
250GB 7200rpm HDD (will upgrade w/aftermarket myself)

M6600: $2291
I7-2820QM
FirePro M8900 w/ 2GB GDDR5
17.3" 1920x1080 LCD with multitouch touchscreen
tray load DVD drive
bluetooth
webcam
intel 6300 wireless card
4GB ram (will upgrade w/aftermarket myself)
320GB 7200rpm HDD (will upgrade w/aftermarket myself)

 

No. Only the m6600 has the second hard drive bay.

I am in the same boat. Currently leaning toward the m4600 for better portability and the IPS display, but I am waiting to see the first reviews. No one seems to have these notebooks yet. Dell is taking orders, but hasn't started shipping yet.

 

Aha. On the configuration page they have a screen for "Second Hard Drive" with options for all of the standard drives, so I figured it had 2 bays, but when I try to configure with 2 drives I get an error message saying that one of them has to be the 128GB mini card.

So only 1 HDD bay leaves me leaning towards the M6600 now...

 

Wait but the M4600 is configurable with 2nd HDD

 

I am also looking at one of these
why not choose a better graphic card?

 

It is configurable with the Secondary Storage if and only if you select the SSD minicard as your Primary Storage. So you can't configure two HDDs.

 

I am planning to go with NVIDIA, for 25% better battery life (thanks to Optimus), if nothing else.

 

that is a let-down

 

There is always an option to replace the DVD drive with another HDD, but even that can be problematic in these Precisions, as apparently they no longer use E-modular bays!

Of course you can always use external disks. Don't forget that unlike Latitudes Precisions have USB3!

 

I don't really need it for what I do. I'd really like one of the nvidias for the optimus switcheable graphics, but I'm configuring this for work and I think it's going to be difficult enough to convince my business partners I need a $2200 laptop, let alone one for $2600 or more. The Nvidias just cost too much. Especially since I was managing with a studio XPS 16 up until last week when it got stolen.

I do need a workstation gpu, though, to enable all of the functions of the Solidworks software I use, and the FirePro M8900 actually looks pretty good. I was able to hack the drivers on the XPS16 to make it think it had a workstation card, but can't do that on the current XPS line.

What do you think about the usefulness of a touchscreen on a 17" laptop?