Dell M3800: Will they update again this year?

wireless docking sounds great if it works consistently. I wonder how that would work when trying to turn on/off the unit without having to raise the lid. I would use my next mobile workstation most of the time with lid closed and use only external monitors most of the time. A way to power on without first opening the lid would be nice and is how I use the dock I have with my m6500. Wireless would satisfy most I think if it is capable and works well consistently. Also would be nice if wireless docking is capable of multiple displays or 4k, etc.

*does the wireless dock do away with the actual physical docking station? Or does it mean the laptop just doesn't have to physically be wired to a dock station? In other words, can the wireless docking of the laptop "dock" directly with the peripherals/monitor/etc without a docking station? That would require the peripherals to be compatible with wireless docking, correct?

 

IIRC, Wireless docking is done with a station and operates on the 60 GHz band making it a rather short range proposition, albeit with decent bandwidth.

 

I have 2 D5000 wireless docks, and they work pretty well, but probably not up to what you'd want.

You can't turn the computer on without opening (unless you've set it up to wake on LAN from a magic packet). There's no power and therefore no connection to the dock until after you get into Windows.

Tijo is right about the frequency, so you need line of sight basically. It's ok with some movement, but expect a drop or two if you're constantly moving the laptop around the room.

 

Intel showed an updated broadwell version of the XPS 15" with a 4K thin bezel display a few days ago. Given that the XPS and m3800 are the basically same laptop with different GPU's it's probably quite likely there will be an update to the m3800 in the near future.

 

A lot of engineering samples never make production. Will be interesting to see whether that is a production machine that's waiting for Windows 10, or an engineering sample, and the production machine comes out a half-generation newer with Skylake when those CPUs drop.

 

There seems to be no m3900 in the horizon. Instead, we shall be having a Dell Precision 5510 to replace it sometime in Q4 2015