Thinkpad hindsight

Hmmm, not sure where trendiness comes into it....for myself, I don't get too many compliments on my Compal Hel80....people look at me like I bought it on discount at Sam's Club or Ace Hardware as they have never heard of Compal when I tell them what it is....
And that holds true for many photographers...with tens of thousands invested in equipment, the serious amateur has long ago left behind fanboy arguments, and cares only for the utility of their equipment.

 

I'm not sure why you're putting 17" and portable in the same sentence. If you want portability, a 15.4" can be had with the same resolution.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-9320-9876

I'm not a photographer, but this guy writing this comparison seems to be and he ranks the W700 screen quality as being higher than the new MBP 15". Not sure about the 17".

What do you value then? Lenovo seems to have tried to put a lot of features catered to graphics professionals, but then you say none of those are of value. True, a W700 is powerful enough to suit a CAD or 3D animator (up to a point) but beyond a bright glossy display (but not necessarily the correct colors) and battery life, a MBP just looks nice..

Can you listen to yourself?
Built in color calibrator ... not useful
More powerful processor ... not useful
More storage capabilities ... not useful
More power video card ... not useful
Built in digitizer ... not useful/mentioned

Even the better quality MBP display compared to the W700 is called into question.

And honestly, my stereotypical impression of photographers or graphic editors is that they're image conscious. They're not engineers who could care less about how their laptops look. So yes, a sleek block of aluminum is going to look nicer than a matte black brick of a laptop.

If Lenovo watered down the W700, I'm sure plenty of people would be complaining about that as well. Who would want a behemoth of a laptop that had midrange specs? The W700 is a flagship product and the price reflects that. It's not for everyone. There's still the W500 and the T series which are capable machines in their own right.

 

Lol! Then you clearly don't have a finger on the pulse of the Mac market.

No offense.

 

Look, here's how it lays out, for ME, at least...

There may be photo and graphics professionals, who are so in demand that they are never home in the studio, and the laptop is the mainstream machine for them. The W-700 as spec'd may be the machine for them...I have my doubts. Photo and graphics pros now take for granted a 30" wide gamut display. Color calibration is an everyday consideration. The two go hand in hand, and the 30" NEC I am ordering next week will come with it's own custom calibration and profiling spectrotometer and software (SpectraVision II). You just won't find Graphics or Photo pros doing final proofs, CMYK conversions, on a laptop, ANY laptop, and sending prepress files out to a client, much less a printer.
That said, the built in spectro on the W-700 is belt and suspenders...say you are on the road, and trying to select some shots you want to send to staff to work up and pass on to the client. Your in some weird lighting situation and you don't trust the colors you are seeing on the laptop - did you blow the color correction during the shoot? Profile the lappy, and you know what you are seeing is what you will get in your output. Once in a while, handy, but you should have profiled on a regular basis back in the office.

So....l

Built-in calibrator - potentially useful, but not essential
More powerful processor - Quad core over Core2Duo 9400? Really?
More storage capabilities? I guess RAID 1 with 500GB HD's would be good, forget RAID 0 for vital files where there is no backup
More powerful video card - the new "3D" enhanced features in CS4 operate just fine in my Hel80...and that's a Nividia GO 7600 - more than that is just a waste of battery
Built in digitizer - great, but so is a Wacom Bamboo.

Portability - the MBP 17" is only 1 1/2" wider, 1/3" thinner, same depth, same WEIGHT as my Hel80. Slam Dunk.

And style/image conciousness? Look, Medium Format Digital is now up to 60 megapixels, that's the new Phase One P-65...that's a $40,000 digital back, and no, it doesn't include the camera body....or a lens. So don't think people who are in the industry are impressed by a lousy laptop.

I am very familar w/ Rob Galbraith's site, years ago I was a forum member, before he sold it and re-purposed the site. You guys ought to check out the CF/SD database he maintains. The display report you refer to is comparing the W-700 to the standard MBP 15" screen, not this new wide gamut display.

Look, I'm not trying to convince anyone here. Just another point of view.

 

I completely see the valid use and want of a Mac. The problem is the real professionals are pretty much a minority to trend. A lot of people get held up in that and write off macs in general. Good to hear from a real user/potential user.