i have a samsung qx410. at the time, it had the same internals of the the macbook pro (processor, ram, video card, etc) but for about half the price. i upgraded the ram from 4gb to 8gb, and i've been using it for some photoshop, illustrator, after effects and a lot of premier. it's held up fine, but i'm starting to bottleneck with the high bitrate footage from my gh2 now. i'm slowly pricing out a workstation build, but that's not going to be for a few months.

i would look at some of the samsung series 5 or 7 laptops. hp and dell have actually been putting out some nice premium laptops as well. i think anything recent with a multi-core processor and 8gb+ of ram should be sufficient.

some things you may want to consider:

external monitor(s). the extra screen real estate is totally worth it. i run 2 external displays in addition to my laptop display. for video, since it's almost always put out to the web, i have 3 screens to gauge roughly what it's going to look like on some different monitors. my main monitor is an asus proart ips display, which has been great.

storage space vs ssd speed. ssd's are great and it makes a fast computer faster. but unless you have a ton of money, big capacity (1tb+) is expensive. i currently have 3 external hd's and running out of room (on the drives and my desk). consider usb 3.0 for faster transfer speeds. my laptop doesn't have it, but my external drives are for when i upgrade. you can also find 2.5" hd caddies to replace your optical drive (which i need to do)

I'm about ready to switch, only thing worse than the Spyder, is the Spyder technical support... :(

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Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing. — Macbeth

oh if we're on the topic of excess :)

http://web.eurocom.com/EC/ec_model_config1(1,221,0)

This is the most powerful laptop I've seen, I sussed this out after my co-worker got the w530. You can get a full 6 core xeon processor in this thing along with 4 drive bays.

On the topic of colour calibrators, I've had a spyder once before, I also didn't like it. I've got the huey now and well... it seems "ok" no worst than the spyder but a heck of a lot cheaper and smaller.

Which is exactly why I have a Dell XPS 15 Full HD: Review Dell XPS 15 Notebook (i5-2410M & GT 540M) - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Personally, I'd choose on screen then go quad core, 8G mem and SSD.

I don't do that much editing on it (use a workstation with 2x Dell U2410s), but it seems pretty accurate after calibration (it's a tad vivid out of the box). I use an eye-1 Display 2. Have a read of this: FAQ: Which meter is right for me? It put me off buying a Spider meter.

Would have replied to the original post but I didn't see it.

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