Dell laptop for LR, PS?

[PeterAit]

My wife has gotten seriously into bird photography and wants to upgrade her current "business" laptop to something more suited -- faster -- for photo processing. She wants to stay with Dell as we both have had excellent luck with their laptops over many years. I don't do photo processing on my laptop so I can't help her. Ideas?

[armand]

Realistically I think there is only one option, the XPS 15, probably max specs.

[dpirazzi]

I would agree with armand, having used an xps 15 for the last few years. Assuming you will use it with an external monitor for critical color work, I would skip the 4k screen in favor of the 1080p, better performance and battery life.

[alatreille]

I'll second this.  I have the 9570 with the i9 and 32gigs or ram.  It's a great machine and i connect it to an NEC for colour critical work.  Battery life is okay if you manage it, but I always need to charge it during a long day of photography.

I would agree with armand, having used an xps 15 for the last few years. Assuming you will use it with an external monitor for critical color work, I would skip the 4k screen in favor of the 1080p, better performance and battery life.

[DP]

Realistically I think there is only one option, the XPS 15, probably max specs.

AlienWare is Dell and AlienWare notebooks are better spec'd than any XPS

[armand]

AlienWare is Dell and AlienWare notebooks are better spec'd than any XPS

Did you even bother looking how the Alienware (or the G laptops for that matter) are "better spec'd"?
You pay mostly for extra fps which desn't correlate very well with the photography performance. Only the top of the line Alien has better processors at a lot of extra cost (money, weight, battery life, etc).

PS. Not to mention the serious leap of faith going from a business laptop to a gaming one, looks wise

[mecrox]

I'll second this.  I have the 9570 with the i9 and 32gigs or ram.  It's a great machine and i connect it to an NEC for colour critical work.  Battery life is okay if you manage it, but I always need to charge it during a long day of photography.

This model is high on my list to replace my now ancient PC. I already have an XPS 13” as a working notebook not specifically for photography and it’s been excellent so far. But have you found that the i9 processor tends to get too hot and then throttles down with a hit on performance? I’ve seen this claim made, and it sounds a bummer, but I have no idea whether it is really true.

I’ve looked at some of the Precision line of notebooks instead of the XPS line because some models are thicker and may allow better cooling but alas they tend also to be much more expensive, though one can see why - lots of expandability, corporate features, etc.