Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Working and traveling with the M3800. Just back from doing video and photo work in Puerto Rico. Will be jumping back into the thread after a week away.

 

That's probably because Dell has suspended all the shipments. Most of us who have ordered the m3800 on the first day are still patiently waiting for order status updates, wondering in which year the system will ship...
Those few lucky ones who managed to get their systems are probably busy using them.

 

Good to hear from you and best of luck on your work...
I hope you can give us some news soon on how your unit has been performing so far....
There are a lot of us waiting patiently to receive our unit and are anxious to hear about its performance...

Thanks in advance...

 

Unless you're curious specifically about how Windows 7 or the Quadro GPU performs compared to the GeForce on the XPS, there are MANY pages of impressions in the XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge thread now.

 

Well, whether or not those are the lucky ones remains to be seen. If Dell halted shipments because they identified some issue with the hardware, they may not be.

 

Thanks JP,
I have been following both threads since the beginning...
I guess since Bokeh was the initial user that got the M3800, I was just curious on its behavior so far and also as you said about the performance of the Quadro GPU.
There are plenty of positive reports on the XPS 15, but not too many have received their M3800. So I guess any news helps those who have not received their units yet...

 

Although no one here knows for sure, most of the reports indicate that the delay is caused by the QHD+ displays supply shortage and has nothing to do with any other problems. At least that is what our Dell reps keep telling us.

 

Just got my "Dear John" phone call from Dell today, Dec. 18, the 'estimated delivery date" for my 3800. Earliest (note, "earliest") ship date is now January 15th. Can't say I was surprised seeing all the delays on here with other users. And it's not like I had the ability to select some exotic set of options that push delivery out. They gave virtually no options to order this. And they can't ship them?

I have been buying Dell for almost 20 years, I think this is an all-time low. Lack of config options on the internet, there is no high performance config option, (300 or 6800), and they don't seem to be able to ship laptops.

 

I purchased and returned the XPS 15. The hardware's probably pretty good under the hood but the user experience is still lacking just like for every other high-end laptop I've tried. I've gone to the Sony store, Windows Store, Costco, Fry's and looked at just about every other Windows laptop that isn't bulky and provides great performance. Ultimately, they've all disappointed me and I ended up getting a maxed out MBP 15-in. I'm very happy with it for the two weeks I owned it.

I explained more here.

 

Mine was a pre-production unit, so I had to make sure the ones that went into production were the same. I had permission from Dell to post about the machine.

So far, my experiences have been positive.

I have had driver issues, but nothing major. The touchpad worked great for weeks, then I switched over to the Symantec generic drivers after reading the XPS thread and I started seeing the touchpad disappear coming out of sleep. I completely removed the drivers and went back to the Dell ones and all is normal.

The K1100M is fast enough for most applications and medium-high level gaming. Civ 5 plays very well at 3200x1800 with details set to High. High def video looks great on the screen.

The machine still impresses me with how tough it is. Really solid. Strong hinge and no flex in the lid. The M3800 that I am using has taken several unlucky physical hits and every time it has been fine.

The size works really well in coach seating on JetBlue.

I use the USB charging ports more than I use my iPad or phone chargers because the M3800 seems to charge them faster.

I don't like how quickly fingerprints show up on the touchpad and keyboard. I have to clean it every day. The touchpad works well when you use the pad of your finger, but if you flip your finger over, the fingernail will not work. This led to me having to be careful with touchpad right clicking. I also wish it had a numberpad, a physical wi-fi switch, and vol/mute buttons.

I don't have the whine issue that some people hear. Even in countries with less than ideal AC power, I have not had any issues.

The machine has at least 10,000 miles of travel and many weeks of work on it now. I am happy to say that my experience has been uneventful.