Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

It's worth removing (or disconnecting) the battery for longer-term storage; any machine with that doesn't have a hard disconnect for the power switch will slowly drain the battery. Much easier with some machines than others, but at least with these it's just some torx screws, and nothing glued.

 

This whole screen resolution thing, and windows operating system choice, is putting a hiccup in my purchase. I use a 24" Dell u2412 external monitor, and use the laptop screen as a second monitor. I am also mobile 15% of the time. I would be fine with the lower end screen pre-configured model (I think?), but not the hard drive option you are stuck with, so I am looking at the nicer screen and 500gb ssd option choice.

I run Autocad and photoshop/lightroom mainly. Anyone try Autocad at max resolution? Anyone try Autocad with windows 8.1? I am confused on how resolution works on both monitors at once, if it's worth going to windows 8.1 for the ability to set each screen differently, if cad even works with 8.1 (which in cad forums seems up in the air and ZERO word from Autodesk on the subject), if you get any touch screen ability with windows 7, and why the 4 configuration choices are so awful? I use this for work and don't have an IT department, so I am not dying to have this thing unusable until either I become self taught IT proficient, or suicidal. I want to open it up, load it up, and work, for the most part. Yes, I can load drivers, but I don't want to spend days scouring the net for the right fixes, or need to be 'in the know' to make it all work the best it can. I just don't have the time. But yes, I do want this computer as it's the only one that fits the bill for a light CAD workstation. Any thoughts?

 

Touch screen works on Windows 7, but since very little of the UI is actually optimized for it in terms of layout, size of elements, etc, I question its actual utility. Even on Win8 touch is still more of a gimmick than an actual productivity feature, though that will change now that touchscreens are becoming more widespread since developers will start thinking about better ways to make use of them.

The configuration choices aren't "awful"; they just don't satisfy every single individual's needs/wants. Fyi you could always just swap the hard drive out with an aftermarket SSD; the spinning hard drive doesn't cost much, so you're not writing off much value there, and you could even stick it into an enclosure and put it to use as a compact external hard drive. And the low-spec RAM config is 1x8GB rather than 2x4GB, so if you wanted 16GB you'd just have to purchase another stick, not replace an existing pair. You wouldn't be able to get the larger battery, though, unless ordered it aftermarket (which WOULD have you writing off a fair amount of value in the smaller battery) and used an mSATA SSD. There's also the option of requesting a custom configuration through a Premier page if you have access to one, or through a phone rep, success with the latter of which seems to be luck of the draw. But if you want it badly enough, it may be worth trying a few times.

Questions specifically about AutoCAD and HiDPI would probably be better answered in AutoCAD forums, but the fact is that HiDPI is so new on Windows that you're unlikely to find much info at all. HiDPI is still very much in the pioneer/cutting edge/early adopter phase for Windows, and just like any other technology, that phase comes with potential headaches, extra effort, and putting up with workarounds. Enthusiasts are often willing to accept that in order to be among the first to use cool new technology, but it sounds like you're the type who just wants things to work with minimal fuss even if it means not having the latest and greatest, so think carefully about whether you want that display.

As for how Windows 8.1 handles simultaneous use of HiDPI and "regular DPI" displays, it uses essentially the same strategy that Macs do. The only difference is that Windows will only optimize performance for the display you designate as primary; there is no option like on Mac OS to optimize for a non-primary display, which you might want to do for example when presenting to make the projector display as crisp as possible while keeping the taskbar, desktop icons, etc on your built-in panel. So that leaves you with two possible scenarios:

#1: If you designate your external panel as primary, elements will use regular 100% scaling on that display, which means things will look perfect on that panel -- no scale factor means no scaling artifacts. However, in order to keep objects as close to the same approximate physical size as possible on the built-in panel, elements on that panel will be essentially rendered at 100% scaling and then literally zoomed in; imagine taking a photo and simply doubling its size. As you can imagine, taking an element rendered for regular DPI and blowing it up on a HiDPI panel with minimal if any sharpening doesn't look great. But then again neither do microscopic screen elements. Which brings me to Scenario #2...

#2: If you designate the built-in panel as primary, Windows will use 200% scaling (by default), which means that text on the built-in panel will be razor sharp in apps that support it properly, and apps will be hit and miss in terms of scaling. When you drag things over to your regular DPI external panel, elements will simply be zoomed OUT in order to shrink them down properly. This actually looks much better than the zooming in behavior described in Scenario #1 (since you're starting with a higher-resolution element and shrinking it), but elements on the external panel still won't look as good in this setup as they would if Windows were actually optimizing for it in the first place. I would say that Scenario #2 is the best overall compromise as long as you can live with having your built-in panel as primary (which I can't due to my desk setup, so I just use my two external displays and keep the built-in panel off), but either one means that the non-primary display won't look as good as it would if Windows were optimizing for it.

The other possibility of course is to run the built-in panel at 1600x900 when you're also using an external panel and then keep everything at 100% scaling, which is the simplest solution but which of course eliminates the benefit of a HiDPI panel while it's used that way. This would also be the only way that using a version of Windows older than 8.1 could be workable, because otherwise there just isn't one scale factor that will work well on both the built-in panel and a regular external panel.

OR you could step up to the NEW 24" Dell display that just launched with a 3840x2400 resolution and run everything at 200% scaling.

Seriously though, based on what you've said, I would either a) buy a second external display to use at your desk and not use the built-in panel at all while at your desk, or b) skip the HiDPI display, either by purchasing the low-end config and an aftermarket SSD (and RAM?), or by ordering a custom build. The HiDPI panel is phenomenal, but not all apps work well with it even on its own, and interoperation with regular DPI panels entails (and will always entail) compromising the quality of one display or the other, just like the Mac side. There just isn't a reasonable way to optimize for both types of displays simultaneously for reasons I've mentioned already in other posts. It would simply involve too much effort from app developers, especially considering that this is a temporary problem because once desktop HiDPI displays become more common, this interoperation issue will disappear.

 

Being in a similar situation, option b) would be my choice: The minimal (if any) benefits of the HiDPI display are far outweighed by the numerous issues it creates, for my usage.

I do note that, at least for my Premier account, I can freely configure the M3800 in any way I want, so for example, I can max out everything else, but still get the lower-resolution display. While this may not be the case for others, I heard that if you order by phone, you may get more flexible choices as well.

 

Thanks so much for the info and time you put in to write it. It seems like I am stuck having to rework the 3800 any way I go, either I have to scrap the hard drive, reinstall a new ssd and reinstall the entire operating system (which I probably above my pay grade), or mess around with all kinds of scaling work arounds. Is there an option to just run both screens at the 1920 x 1080 resolution of the cheaper screen choice on the more expensive one (or is that 1600 x 900 you mentioned essentially doing that), and wait it out until the apps catch up to the new tech? That sounds easier and truthfully for my work, I would think that is plenty resolution.

I tried to sign up for Dell premier, but I guess I am not a big enough company, as they never contacted me to complete the process, and I don't have any other access to them, so I am stuck with either the lowest end specs in every category, or the highest, per Dells choices. I have no other way to custom configure. I have tried 10 different times to contact them by phone and email to work some type of custom configuration and have been shot down every time, so it may be a myth that you can do this by phone.

 

You can run the built-in panel at 1920x1080 if you like; I just mentioned 1600x900 because it's exactly half the native pixel resolution in each dimension, so it should look better than 1920x1080 because the scaling onto the actual pixels in the panel will be more precise -- but of course you sacrifice real estate for that. Then again, the pixel density is high enough that 1920x1080 actually looks pretty good on this panel too, so that may be just fine for your needs and setup.

 

Which department are you trying to reach in sales, and are you a US customer or outside the US? If US-based, make sure you're calling during business hours (8AM-5PM, central time, per their web page.)

There is also a help number on the front of the premier page, and a chat link on the premier signup page.

 

For anyone not also following the XPS 15 Haswell thread, Dell released a firmware update that claims to be for the touchSCREEN, but there are several reports that it improves the performance of the touchPAD as well. I don't personally use either one often enough to be a reliable source of feedback, but several people are very happy with the touchpad after the update, and perhaps this firmware update also fixes the issue with the touchscreen occasionally going to sleep and not waking back up, alleviating the need to disable device sleep for it in Device Manager.

Under the Firmware category here: Drivers & Downloads | Dell US

 

I started the sign up process and you get to a point where it says a representative will call you to complete the sign up process. Then if you hit the chat button but aren't a current premier member, it sends you to the regular Chat area to speak with someone they hired for the holiday rush to take orders. This thread told me that unless I am basically some multi-national operation, Dell isn't interested in having my small firm as a premier client anyway. So I dropped any notion of joining that.

 

been squatting this thread for awhile, my M3800 is finally sitting beside me doing a fresh install of Win8 at the moment and I'm so darn excited! Looking forward to CAD, video editing with AfterEffects, and some low/medium-setting gaming as well, will report back on how it does (fairly new to AfterEffects though).

About the touchpad, I read that discoloration was a factor and someone brought up that it was the oil from your hands that was causing the smudging. On that note I tried out using a microfiber cloth on the touchpad since I usually use those when my phone gets greasy, and it seems to be helping?