Dell Precision M3800 - 2013!

Hey Bokeh, an excellent review! Thank for that.

I am really tempted by the 4700, but only put off by the size. Can you comment on how substantially bigger the 4700 is compared to a Latitude 6510?

Thanks. (I am googling around as we speak)

 

Or you can go with something like this:
Energizer® XP18000 Portable Charger for Laptops | External Battery | Portable Charger

Be sure to wait for the actual real life tests, though I wouldn't expect wonders from thin laptops (which limit the battery size) equipped with Haswell; most of the laptop reviews I've seen seem to show marginal improvements at best while actually doing something useful (e.g. like surfing via wi-fi). Maybe the 14nm Haswells will help.

 

Yeah, you do have to be careful, I use mine at about 40% brightness (which is still pretty darn bright), it's all on SSDs which helps a little and I get between 4 to 5 hours with the firepro depending on what I do. The ones with optimus don't have a GPU sucking the battery dry which helps a lot with the battery life. I'd bet Dell has done some pretty intensive power optimization too. The moment you start stressing a Precision, you'll drain the battery in an hour or so though. Power consumption has decreased at idle states with each core i generation as far as I can tell. Another reason that laptops can have poor battery life is due to all the other controllers that may not be optimized for power consumption. Each of those don't use that much power, but it adds up.

 

EDIT: Double post due to some ISP cache issues apparently.

 

Actually, for MS Word and such, I'd expect it to be impressive if the implementation is right, look at the new macbook air. When you're going to start crunching numbers, render stuff, etc, then yeah, battery life will be pretty much the same. What I expect to see though is manufacturers screw things up by taking advantage of the power savings to make laptops smaller, thinner with smaller batteries. We'll end up with products with similar battery life because of that.

 

Looking at an E6500 and M4700 right now. Thickness and weight are about the same. The M4700 is about 1/2 inch wider. Front to back is exactly the same.

Build quality on the M4700 is far ahead ahead of the E6500. Not even in the same ballpark.

 

Thanks a lot for that quick comparison! I think the increased width might be due to 16:10 on the E6500 vs 16:9 on the M4700/E6510. Which may mean the E6510 is probably the same width.

I'm *this* close to pulling the trigger on the M4700 but the M3800 launch keeps me from buying.

 

You mean the M4800, right? Besides the quirkiness on the configurations available the M4800 is more tempting at this point than the M4700. Also waiting for details on the M3800 before deciding to purchase a M4800 now or wait for the M3800 availability.

 

I would choose the M4800 over the M4700 unless cost was a major issue. The QHD+ screen available on the M4800 is really nice. Better than the 1920x1080 screen on the M4700 in every way. I posted some info on the QHD+ panel on the M6800/Haswell thread.

 

Yes, I'm torn between the two. A good screen is the single most important aspect to me, but I was deciding between M4700 + external display vs M4800 (QHD+).

Either way, I think the M3800 will serve me well as I do value a little bit of portability at the cost of power.