The best non-16:9 laptop?

Removal of the second 2.5" bay and the optical bay. I have three 2.5" drives plus an mSATA in my 6500.

 

I see what you mean. 7710 traded out basically two of the M6x00's three 2.5" bays for the two m.2 NVMe SSD slots in it's place. That does greatly limit capacity unless spending $$$$ for T2B M.2 NVMe SSDs instead of much much less expensive high density SATA drives.

 

It also got rid of the optical bay. So there are now three total storage bays rather than four.

2TB SSD's are simply absurd for what I want, namely image/video processing. That work involves some amount of streaming I/O, but little or no random I/O and in any event it's processor-intensive (which is the main reason I'm investigating an upgrade in the first place; my M6500 otherwise performs admirably). But it is very storage-intensive.

 

Took delivery of the 8740W today. So far, I really like it. Very sharp display with good color and black levels, and even in its basic configuration (560M/4GB/120GB SSD/M7820) it performs quite well with Windows 7. Feels very solidly built, and the keyboard, while not quite up to par with an older ThinkPad, is certainly much better than consumer-grade laptops.

 

Great for those who do Work, and can live with a passively cooled ULV CPU and who do not need a discrete GPU. Expensive due to being of Milspec quality. Durable, reliable as an anvil.

 

You can use it as a bulletproof vest too if you like. A bit too heavy. Remind me of a 8 pound bowling ball.

 

And it's heavy because it is a full rugged. Use a laptop outdoors, use one under extreme conditions, or have motor control issues (i.e. spastic me), or other severe use cases, you can also justify a ToughBook. I own a CF-30 full rugged myself, and also own a Business Tough CF-C1 (my ultralight road machine). They're great for gimpy people, law enforcement personnel, broadcast engineers, ambulance drivers, firemen, oil field workers, the military, automotive mechanics, and others who need dependable and TOUGH! I'm a ToughBook user and darned proud of it! They stand up to gimpy me just fine!

 

@EternalTireKicker - Congrats on the purchase! The performance is not mind-blowing, but not that slow either. As @t456 suggested and already done by @Lwerewolf just in a different machine, you can always put the desired display in a newer machine Here's @Lwerewolf 's post about fitting 8740w's DC into 8770w. Too bad that the picture is down, but I can ask him to reupload it. Some clarification - no cabling modification was required, it was straight plug'n'play (unlike @t456 's suggestion, where heavy wiring mods would be required). The casing on the other hand...

 

...assuming that he can find a 16:10 dreamcolor panel ;(

 

My HP 2760P has a 16:10 screen. It rocks since 2013 !