I travel quite a bit and currently have a 2.5yr old 15" Acer Laptop that I take with me on my travels. I pre-dominently use it for some quick editing and photo storage when I am travelling, and do all of my main editing on a 6yr old PC.
What spec of Dell laptop would be similar to a 15" Mac Book pro?
I am looking to compare the difference in price between the two.
Whatever I decide will have an impact on my plans for replacing my PC, as it will then either be a replacement PC or a 27" iMAC.
The Latitude E6500 or Precision M4400 are a similar spec to a mac book pro. Get either one with Windows 7 64-bit and a lot of RAM, and you should be set. The Latitude and Precision lines are a cut above the other Dells in build quality; I have a Latitude D630, and it has held up very well for over two years now.
I have a highly-rated Dell XPS laptop. Got rave reviews in all the mags and sites. It has a miserable screen that is not suitable for photo editing. You can just about forget performance specs on a laptop in exchange for a good screen.
And I haven't seen, or heard of, a Dell with a good screen yet. You need a screen that doesn't change color and/brightness as your viewing position moves. On mine the contrast changes dramatically when I'm just a little off axis ;-(
Specs aren't everything, the screen is. Go look at the screen in a store before buying. I didn't and wish I had.
Studio XPS with RGB LED screen. Mine is a 16 inch. I'm not sure the 15 inch offers the RGB LED upgrade. Screen is beautiful although a bit bright. Resolution is 1720x1080 so plenty of detail.