Thinking of a Mac laptop, but which one?

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

I've never needed a dock.  Might be nice but never really thought about it.  Most of what I do is just plug in a USB or two and the power cord.  Most of my stuff is on a USB hub or wireless.

I dunno - once I live the dock life I won't go back. 

Wanna take the laptop to the livingroom to show the wife unit something?  One button.  Head off on a weekend trip and want to book a hotel in Ireland while you are sucking beers around a campfire?  One button.  Like all your cords neat and organized all the time,  don't want to mess up your desk?  One button.  Want a hardwired ethernet connection, two monitors, and right now I have 6 things (garmin watch charger, USB cord for headphones and cycle computer, mouse dongle, real keyboard, printer, vinyl cutter) plugged in to my USB?  One button.  

Dock was $50 from Ebay, works tip top.  Best of both worlds and really appeals to my desire for simplicity and multi-tasking devices.  

Update:  Bought one.

I had decided to go with the NewEgg Acer, but I'm leaving for a month vacation on monday and they couldn't get it to me in time.  I stopped in to Best Buy to see what they had, and they were just putting an open-box return back on the shelf.

Asus GU501GM.

Full-on, nerd/gaming stuff.  The SSD is a bit small at 128gb, but I can upgrade it if I need to.  I think 128gb will be enough for the media storage for now and I can put applications and other things on the 1TB HDD.

I went ahead and bit the bullet knowing they have a 2-week return policy.  I can play with it the next couple days before I leave and decide if it will do the trick for me.

... but I think it is basically exactly what I need.  Open box for $999.

Boom!  Nicely done.

I feel like I just bought a Corvette.  This thing is wicked.

If needed (and if I set it this way) it will blast two cooling fans and let the processors overclock to 4.2ghz.  The speakers are incredible. (for a laptop).  I'll be using headphones or monitors, but the speakers really startled me... as in, made me jump because they buzzed my legs when the setup assistant's voice came on.

I think I found my new drug:  high-end computing equipment.  No more of getting just what is adequate.  I'm hooked.

93gsxturbo said:

I dunno - once I live the dock life I won't go back. 

Wanna take the laptop to the livingroom to show the wife unit something?  One button.  Head off on a weekend trip and want to book a hotel in Ireland while you are sucking beers around a campfire?  One button.  Like all your cords neat and organized all the time,  don't want to mess up your desk?  One button.  Want a hardwired ethernet connection, two monitors, and right now I have 6 things (garmin watch charger, USB cord for headphones and cycle computer, mouse dongle, real keyboard, printer, vinyl cutter) plugged in to my USB?  One button.  

Dock was $50 from Ebay, works tip top.  Best of both worlds and really appeals to my desire for simplicity and multi-tasking devices.  

I do like the idea of the simplicity of a dock, but honestly if I'm going mobile, it's either because I am just taking it somewhere to do something fun, or I'm going mobile to get some work done... in which case I will be taking all of the stuff with me.

For instance, for home studio stuff, I will have everything I need on the laptop itself for video, so no need for accessories.  If I'm going to record some outdoor audio, I would need to disconnect the interface, mic, and other things from the dock so I could take them along anyway.

I kinda feel like my "dock" is a USB hub.

But yes, I can totally see the benefits of a dock.

On a side note:

Snagged a Mavic Air drone for shooting 4k
Have an existing Nikon D3200 for shooting 1080p
Also have a Sony HD camcorder that does 1080p at questionable quality levels.
Then the other day I grabbed a Scarlett audio-USB interface, a Marshall studio condenser mic, a few Sennheiser e835 cardioid mics, and cables
Already have an Alvarez acoustic with a pickup

So my next thread will probably be about keyboards   I'll probably snag the cheapest Yamaha I can find.

And then in a few months, a thread with my first production embedded