What do I think of the 6400?

Ever since I blogged about the new Dell 6400 notebook, a constant stream of emails have come in and the blog posting itself, over 40k views! With its popularity and  since it’s been a couple of months I thought I should post an update.

The first thing you might notice is the notebook has a new color, a shade off firehouse red. This is the new limited edition M6400 Covet. (my original prototype was been replaced) This is the fastest, fully loaded version of the 6400 and does it fly! I’m running Vista 64bit which sounds darn scary but I have to admit I’m pretty impressed with it so far. The combo of the 6400 and 64bit for speed is deadly and as I’ve told many, darn addictive!

The 6400 has the Adobe Master Collection loaded on it. The increase in program speed you can see, as in, you launch Photoshop and no sooner than you click on it to launch it and it’s up and going. Seriously, that fast! There is a down side to running 64bit. Not ever program is tooled for 64bit, for example my favorite pluggins, Nik, they run just 32bit. Interesting that when you load Photoshop CS4, a 64 bit and 32bit version are installed so you can work. Of course this brings up the biggest downside to running 64bit. It sucks up hard drive space. Good thing the 6400 has two internal hard drives so I’m running 640GB total.

This latest generation of Dell notebooks with their new display is by far their sweetest, so sweet I’ve place an order for a 4400 which I have to wait a couple weeks to receive. To me, the investment in this speed means I spend less time at the computer and more time behind the camera which is always my goal.