Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Just received a call from the support rep who I spoke with before about my order (placed the order 11/14, delayed until 01/06/14). She told me that now the delay has to do with the "hinge assembly" and that they expect to receive that part on 01/06/14. I asked her if she expects my order to be further delayed because of this and she said she couldn't say because it is possible the part will come in sooner, in which case it is possible I would receive my system on 01/06. I highly doubt that. I was willing to stick it out, but if they delay my system one more time, I think I will cancel.

 

This entire launch sounds like a huge cluster #@*! by Dell. Not inspiring much confidence. But all that said, it's still probably one step ahead of Lenovo, which announced it's new w540 mobile workstation the first week in September, yet can't get the thing launched until 2014, thus not capitalizing on any of the buzz created at the launch announcement. Smooth move Lenovo.

 

I've seen cars entirely restored faster than that.

The most likely scenario is that Dell being in the financial position that it is in, didn't want to lose the Christmas shopping season given how important the holidays are to companies' bottom lines, so they made the sales first and worry about delivering later fully understanding that they might lose a few people. But think of it this way...what if they had waited to introduce the unit in January when all parts are available...likely would have seen most consumers and businesses having already made their purchases around Christmas leaving Dell out to dry. You might recall what happened to Blackberry after they delayed the launch of the much anticipated Z10. If you miss the holiday season its tough to make it back up, and Dell is no financial position to let something like that happen. Dell as a gesture of goodwill really should provide something to anyone and everyone who has seen their orders delayed such as a gift certificate which will keep you locked in to spending it on a Dell product but at the same time reflect their bungling of this. Haven't heard of anyone receiving something like that, but would probably be a good marketing idea.

Its also worth mentioning that CES starts in the first week in January and although most products there will not be available for later on in 2014, if your order IS delayed again, wonder how open you would be to holding on to your current system if something of real high quality makes an appearance at CES 2014. If my unit is infact delayed to such an extent i have no problems cancelling and seeing what's available at CES 2014 and possibly holding on to my unit for a while longer. Lets remember this is a computer...not a high end exotic supercar that is being manufactured by hand. The Lenovo X3 is to be released in the first quarter of 2014 from what I see on the site and if they improve on the X1 I would certainly be open to purchasing that as an alternative given the fact that I will be using the machine for financial modelling, and financial engineering.

 

Can't speak for anyone else, but if something better comes out at CES, I'm cancelling.

Given that holiday ordering is mostly consumer (eg XPS 15/9530) and corporate/business machine ordering tends to be on a less calendar-driven schedule, I wonder whether they might be prioritizing XPS orders? While a lot of folks here will tend to think "but this is the BUSINESS machine," the pricing is basically the same between the two so Dell isn't making much more money if any on the M3800.

(Maybe less, if Nvidia charges more for the K1100M than for the 750M)

 

There's ALWAYS better stuff coming out at CES, but the fact that something is shown at CES doesn't mean it will be available particularly soon -- or ever, in some cases.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Dell has been prioritizing XPS orders trying to get as many out in time for Christmas as possible, since that's usually a more important milestone for consumers than businesses. And NVIDIA undoubtedly charges more for the Quadro than the GeForce; just look at the cost differential between equivalent desktop cards. There's no way the retail market for desktop cards would sustain vendors arbitrarily marking up Quadros significantly more than GeForces even if the vendors got both chips at the same price from NVIDIA, so it stands to reason that there's a similar price structure in place for the laptop chips. Quadros cost more because they tend to be used in moneymaking industries (especially the higher-end units) that can afford to pay the higher prices, effectively subsidizing the entertainment and gaming market that buys GeForce cards since the silicon itself is virtually identical.

Still, NVIDIA likely incurs higher indirect costs with the Quadro line due to the extra effort of working with ISVs for certification, testing, driver and feature development for specific apps, etc. Sure NVIDIA works with gaming studios on the GeForce side as well, and there's some overhead there, but that's not nearly as rigorous as ISV certification processes since people in the aforementioned moneymaking industries won't tolerate "sorry about that horrible graphical problem, we'll fix it soon in an upcoming driver release" the way gamers are sometimes forced to with new releases.

 

ordered 11.24 , scheduled delivery 12.09 but got pushed to 12.19.
And yesterday my 3800 did arrive! Coming from a Dell XPS m1330 the first impressions after a few hours of use are mixed.
Love the display, and like the chassis/construction.
But it seem to heat up a bit too much, (but have also been rendering previews in lightroom and other cpu intensive stuff, so load is quite high) I'm using the computer a lot sitting on my lap and the air intakes gets somewhat covered. Really hope this wont be a problem - when the fans throttles up they are pretty loud.

I hate the touchpad! Got a bit better adjusting the Dell settings, but will try the Synaptics and hope they improve furter. All of the sudden it zooms even if Im using only one finger on the pad?? And sometimes it seem to have some hysteresis when starting to move the cursor - kind of lags behind. The Logitech pad I use at the desktop is much much better, and even the 5 year old pad on the m1330 feels better. Might improve when I get used to it or with the new drivers, hopefully.

The front metal edge is quite sharp! It actually hurts on my wrists and leaves marks after just minutes of writing!

 

I am still waiting for my M3800 as it has been delayed for over a month.

However, check this out for a comparison among M3800, rMBP 2013, and MBP 2012.

http://www.principledtechnologies.com/Dell/Precision_M3800_MacBook_Pro_1113.pdf

Dell Precision M3800 workstation vs. Apple MacBook Pros - YouTube

 

Yet another date change; now 1/15. Feh, although it sounds like that is par for the course for when I ordered (about a week after launch.)

 

I received the replacement 512 Gb mSata drive yesterday (less than 24 hours after contacting support).

Replacement drive resolved my problem. Restored the drive image I had created after loading all my applications and data (2 days before drive failed) and my system is now running great back to the state it was before the drive failed.

Hopefully this drive lasts more than a week.

 

I received the replacement 512 Gb mSata drive yesterday (less than 24 hours after contacting support).

Replacement drive resolved my problem. Restored the drive image I had created after loading all my applications and data (2 days before drive failed) and my system is now running great back to the state it was before the drive failed.

Hopefully this drive lasts more than a week.