UHD, 2x2.5", 17", mobile processor on the way?

I'm researching my next laptop. I've had a Dell Precision M6500 for the past 6 years (running openSUSE Linux), and while I've been very happy with it, it's getting a bit slow with processing lots of images. I started a thread ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-replacement-for-dell-precision-m6500.807560/) with what I'm looking for; what it boils down to is this (in priority order):

1. >=1200 vertical resolution. FHD doesn't cut it. This is a must. More discussion at the link above.
   
2. High end mobile processor. I've determined that that basically means i7-6920HQ/i7-7820HK or so (more discussion on the referenced thread). I don't want a desktop processor that consumes a lot more power for relatively little additional benefit, and I want the improvement over my current i7-920XM to be significant enough to last me for the next 8 years or thereabouts. Since most of the processors these days are BGA and hence soldered down, upgrading the CPU isn't likely to be very practical, so I want to go fast now, within reason (the top end Xeons are a bit faster and a lot more expensive).
   
3. Two 2.5" drive bays. I currently have three disks in my laptop (using the optical bay as a third hard drive) plus an mSATA boot/root/homedir totaling 5 (well, 5.25) TB. I'm not seeing any sign of >2TB 7mm or 9.5mm drives coming out, despite 5TB 15mm drives. Having to keep my images and video on an external drive would be a major nuisance; I'd consider living with it if everything else were right. I can live with 4TB of spinning rust, a 500GB mSATA or nVME root disk (I doubt nVME would offer all that much advantage, with only 8 CPU threads), and later add another mSATA or nVME device when prices come down. I figure with multi-layers and all that that M.2 devices will eventually go higher capacity than rustoleums anyway, and if rotating media do get larger, I can upgrade easily enough. So this one's a bit softer.
4. 17" display. My previous two laptops have been 17" high end Dells with 1920x1200 screens, and I've come to like it. I don't mind being a pack mule when I have to be, and I like the screen real estate. But I've had 15" displays before (Dell Inspiron 8000 and 8200, when those were the high end units) and I lived with them just fine. I have good enough eyesight with just the right amount of nearsightedness to take advantage of very high resolution, but I still like to get as much on the screen as I can when I'm editing text (programming, spreadsheets, what have you). It's a tough call between this and #3 for the higher priority, but I think I'd go with the two drive bays over this if I had to.

Long-term serviceability (given the long lifetime I expect for my next laptop) is a general requirement rather than a specific feature, and I'm not afraid of opening it up.

Dell looks like they're trying to make my life miserable. The 17" Precision line was limited to 1920x1080 (other than the 6500) up until they replaced the 6800 with the 7710...at which point they dropped the second drive bay and the optical drive all at once! The 15" 4800, meanwhile, does offer 3200x1800, but...it's a 15" screen, and while the 4940XM is fast enough, it's still older, and higher end 4800's haven't come down in price as much as I'd expect.

There are very few laptops that satisfy all of these criteria. The Lenovo P71 does (the P70 is marginal on #2, and not a lot cheaper even used than the P71), but I'm a tad concerned about long-term maintainability/self-serviceability of said machines, and they're not cheap. The Clevo P650HS-G makes the cut on everything but #4; a slightly smaller machine does have some advantages for portability too. Clevo looks like a good outfit to do business with, for all of the reasons stated in the FAQ. So I'm certainly leaning somewhat toward the P650, but...

This looks like a glaring gap in Clevo's product line. They have a variety of 17" models, but all of them either use desktop processors (and are hence considerably heavier and more power hungry) or don't offer high resolution screens or really fast mobile processors. So buying a P670HS-G and retrofitting a UHD screen (if that can even be done) wouldn't quite make it anyway, since I'd still be stuck with a slower processor than I really want.

So, the question is, does anyone know whether Clevo is working on something like this? This is not an urgent upgrade, but it's something I do want to do at some point.

 

hey i left from a m6500 to an m7710 and power wise huge gap, and a 4k screen, also universal mxm (gpu slot) (From those odd looking gpu's but definitely keep cool). m7710 missing two HDD bays to M.2 slots and i have alot 2.5inch drives laying around. And i considered a lenovo p series but yea, they are quite expensive. I woulda upgraded long time ago but they was still using FHD screen instead of 1440/2160p but they finally came around.

But your best bet is the lenovo or a clevo, but hp zbook17 g series have 2 hDD drives and 4k with modern mobile high cpu's, but more expensive then the precision.

imo clevos are too plastic and generic looking, i guess all about performance and keeping cost down, but they still expensive

 

Generic looking doesn't bother me (it's a plus, as far as I'm concerned).

The HP machines are really expensive. I got a quote for $3400 or so for a configuration that was about $2500 from Lenovo. That's definitely off the radar.

There are a lot of 7710's on eBay for surprisingly low prices. I guess there's a reason why...