Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Off-topic.
So what options is there except for the macbook pro, and the M4800, and the lenovo W540? I.e. is there any portable workstation with high quality IPS-panel, and high quality keyboard and trackpad?

 

Oh, all right. Thank you very much for the prompt reply! I might be on the look for a US keyboard replacement then.

Thank you!

 

Define "workstation" -- if you need ISV-certified drivers, the MacBook Pro doesn't qualify. If you don't, there are probably some options in the entertainment/gaming-laptop space (dunno; I don't tend to follow those.)

As for professional machines, there's the M6800 and HP sells "DreamColor" ultrawide viewing angle panels on the 8570W and 8770W, which are priced to imply they're IPS. The Toshiba W50 claims to have an IPS screen.

That's pretty much it for major brand workstations with ISV-certified drivers that I'm aware of.

If you don't need as big a GPU, take a look at the Lenovo T540p. Nice system, and even with the nearly $400 for the 3K IPS screen, it's going to be a more affordable system than the others mentioned here. No ISV drivers, and the Geforce 730M (or Integrated GPU -- surprisingly, they will sell the HiDPI screen with integrated only) is pretty anemic, but for something that doesn't need a lot of GPU power like (non-game/non-3D) software development it's a great choice.

 

Anybody else still has MASSIVE problems with the internet connection through WLAN? DELL already exchanged my WLAN card and it´s only gotten a little better. Right next to my M3800 I tried my Venue 8 Pro and it loads so much faster and has never had connectivity problems...is there a fix for that issue on the M3800? A PM would be nice

 

You have to use the last driver from Intel site.

 

Regarding missing NFC in the M3800, is it possible to get an usb-NFC-device?

 

Yes, the accelerometer should default to enabled if it detects at least one spinning hard drive. But again, you can confirm in Control Panel > Free Fall Data Protection.

That's odd about NFC. I remember originally thinking that the XPS got NFC rather than TPM and the M3800 was the other way around, then I learned the XPS has both, so I figured the M3800 would as well. Sorry for the confusion there. I suppose if you worked with Dell Spare Parts you could probably buy the NFC card and antenna if you wanted it, though.

Probably that people who want high-end panels will spring for QHD+, but I agree it's odd they're using a lower-end 1080p panel even on the low end considering some Inspirons have been getting really nice 1080p panels recently.

I don't see why not, but I haven't checked to see whether any such adapters exist at the moment. As I mentioned above though, you should also be able to retrofit NFC on the M3800 by ordering the right part(s) through Dell. That will likely be more expensive, but it would also avoid a dongle and keep a USB port open.

 

Why can't Dell just tell us if it's an IPS panel? Marketing shell game?

 

Generally if they don't say it's IPS, it isn't, because IPS is a big selling point. Then again I've read (but have not confirmed) that some Inspirons are now shipping with IPS panels even though they're not explicitly labeled as such. But seeing as someone else recently posted the exact model of the FHD panel a couple pages ago (AU Optronics B156HW01), it shouldn't be too hard to do some digging to confirm one way or the other.

 

The AU panel listed referred to is TN... Definitely.

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