So I've been sitting here for the last 15 minutes trying to pick my jaw up off the floor.  For the last couple months, I have been shopping around for a new laptop.  Currently, I do all of my work on an HP Pavilion dv8000 which is about 3 years old which has a AMD Turion64 processor and a whopping 1.0GB of RAM.  Although my HP has been a great machine, in recent months it has slowed to a near crawl but does still function.  With my recent acquisition of Adobe CS4 Master Collection, I'm finding an increased desire to run multiple applications without having to sit through the multiple mini-lockups while my system switches windows.  Of late, I find myself constantly having to manage my system through my taskmanager in order to free 100K blocks of memory here and there while developing.

With that diatribe spoken, I am still in awe of Dell's M6400 Precision system.  The M6400 supports both dual and quad-core processors... that's right QUAD core laptop.  The processor supported is the Intel® Core™ 2 Quad QX9300 (2.53GHz, 12M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB).  The buyer also has the option to select either a 32bit or 64bit Windows OS.  Right there.... we're talking a BEAST that is jaw-dropping.  I would be really interested in knowing if I could heat my house on the residual heat produced by this machine.  I noticed that, although the M6400 is llisted in the Dell laptop category, it is hardly something I would recommend setting in your lap without wearing something heat retardant.  Just kidding.  Also available with the M6400 is the option for up to 16GB of RAM running at 1066MHz.  Again... I didn't think I would see something with this much power for another 5 years or so.  The M6400 comes standard  the NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M offering 512MB of discreet video power.  For an additional $400, you can upgrade this to the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M boasting 1GB.  This laptop also allows for dual hard drives in either solid state or magnetic or a combination of both.

I must say that Dell has raised the bar with the M6400.  My only "meh" moment is that the regular M6400 does not have an option for an integrated webcam whereas the M6400 "Covet" does.  The Covet has a sweet orange case and comes standard with the 1GB video card.  Now, it is still a little pricy for most people outside of Pixar and theoretical physicists with all of the power options, however the base price with the dual-core processor is around $2200.  Somewhere in the early $4K range for the quad-core with 4GB RAM.  After the most recent round of hardware upgrades offered by the manufacturers, price comparisons between Apple's updated MacBook Pro and the Dell M6400 are not far apart.

So would most people "need" a quad-core laptop?  Probablly not right now, but then again, 10 years ago most people didn't "need" cellphones either.