Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Apple has had plenty of problems with docking/undocking and maintaining calibration.

Don't disable the persistence app. That is what lets you dock and undock from an external monitor smoothly. You shouldn't need to disable any of the intel apps.

Have you tried downloading the xrite displayprofile loader? That's a surefire way to switch your profiles manually. Are you sure that the colormunki is actually even saving the profile it creates? On another forum it was recommended to run the ColorMunki photo app in Windows 7 compatability mode, and make sure it's run as administrator.

Once I disabled splendid color, my profile loads on start up. The last time xrite updated the driver for my colormunki was in 2009.


Edit: I saw you're running Win7. I'm on Win8 and things may have improved in this regard, but definitely give the displayprofile loader a try and running the calibrator as admin.

 

As fallow up re replacing HD, the manuals are clear but do you actually need remove the battery or just disconnect it?

 

Can you elaborate a little about this? I was looking to power the Dell u2412 24" monitor.

 

From what I was told above you as I may be OK as its 1920 x 1200 and jphughan
has pointed out
"2048x1152 requires more bandwidth than 1920x1200, so the latter will definitely work. 2048x1152 is from the spec of the DisplayLink chipset it's using, and if you look at reviews of other equivalent products (such as the Targus USB 3.0 with Dual Video Docking Station), you'll find a) the same 2048x1152 spec, and b) customer reviews that confirm 1920x1200 works".
Its the higher definition or actual HD monitors that will have problems

 

If you're just swapping an HD, I'd be surprised if you actually NEEDED to do either one. I've swapped hard drives without disconnecting batteries before, so unless the battery somehow gets in the way of removing the cage that the drive is mounted into, I wouldn't bother with the battery at all.

You'll be fine as John_7 mentioned. But you wouldn't for example be able to run a 2560x1440 display off of the dock connectors.

 

Having just made the change last night:
1) Disconnecting the battery is very easy; it did require using a tool for me but might be doable by hand if you have more finger nail. I didn't have to remove it to do the HDD->SSD swap, but if things fit even a very little tighter in yours you might. It's a very easy 4 screws if you do.
2) The fiddliest part is reconnecting the motherboard end of the HDD cable; at least in mine, it did not have a lot of tactile feedback to tell if it was really seated OK. I hope I didn't mash it too hard; it's fine, but I'd definitely worry if it's sturdy if I had to do a lot of drive swaps.

This would NOT be a good machine for what I used to have to do for international work travel -- I had a "clean", encrypted drive for travel outside the US, and would swap it in. Very easy with Latitudes.

Given the fiddliness of the motherboard end of the SATA cable, I would treat this as regular internal work and always disconnect the battery, rather than treating the HDD as hot-swappable. Yes, I realize the system is off, but having fried a few motherboards by assuming off was really off in my younger and dumber days, I try to be very conservative about such things.

--

Overall very pleased with the machine, although I don't have it set up enough for "real work" yet today -- will be installing things again after work tonight, and should have some feedback on how IntelliJ does with HiDPI in a few days.

 

So I'm experiencing a problem with my USB Keyboard & Mouse (they are connected through the same USB port via a USB Extender thingie). About once per hour, they disconnect for several seconds, then automatically re-connect. I hear the sounds that windows makes when devices disconnect and connect during these events.
Anyone else seeing this behavior?

 

Haven't seen anything like that, and I always have at least 2 ports on my laptop used, one of which is going to my display that includes a built-in USB hub to which other devices are connected, and one of those devices has its OWN hub built-in with at least one device connected to it at any given time. All told at any given time I have 7-10 USB devices connected, and none of them have ever disappeared and reappeared randomly like that.

This is probably obvious, but have you tried connecting the keyboard and mouse without the "extender thingie"? Also, I'm unclear about what that is. Does the extender take one USB port and provide two (one of the keyboard and one for the mouse), in which case it would be a hub, or do you have a wireless keyboard and mouse setup that has a single receiver for the two devices and thus connects them via a single USB port?

 

Hi, everyone. I'm new to the forum, and am hoping someone can offer some helpful input. I'm about to buy a new laptop and was pleased to come across the new M3800 from Dell (as well as the new XPS 15). I'm curious to know what people think of the QHD+ display. I've heard some say it is overkill & just too many pixels on a 15" screen. I looked at a couple of Lenovo and maybe Asus and Samsung laptops at BestBuy and was blown away by how much clearer the QHD+ screens were than FHD displays, even on 13.3" screens. My eyes are getting worse, so crisper text definitely helps. On the flip side, it sounds like some programs don't yet play well with QHD+ displays. In terms of media apps, I'll be using mainly Lightroom and some lower-tier video editing tools (e.g.Adobe Premiere Elements). With MacBook Pro Retina being somewhat of the standard for visual media professionals, it seems crazy to get a machine like the M3800 or XPS 15 without a QHD+ display, but I'd love the wisdom from those who already have these.

So... any thoughts on the FHD vs. QHD+ question?

Also, I just noticed that of the 4 configurations being offered on Dell's site right now, the cheaper two only offer the 61Wh battery vs. the 91Wh battery on the other two more expensive configurations. What kind of battery life are people getting out of each of these batteries? Any idea if the 91Wh battery weighs significantly more than the smaller battery? I really like the second cheapest config with the 256GB SSD + 500GB hybrid drive, but am wondering if I'll miss out on battery life.

One last question. It seems the XPS 15 is really similar to the M3800. Unfortunately, the mid-tier configs only offer 1TB 5400rpm drives, which I fear will be too slow for video work. The base config only has a 256GB drive, and I need more. If I bump up to the nicest XPS 15 config, it prices higher than M3800. Is there a reason Dell is offering two models that are so close in specs & price? Since the prices are so comparable, is there any reason to go with the XPS 15 instead of the M3800?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

Yeah; lacking an IPS or similar option on the FHD, you want the QHD+. You might consider the XPS 15, since you don't mention any professional 3D use.

You may be able to get a build-to-order configuration if you want the 91Whr and the 256gb SSD mini-card, but the 91Whr batter doesn't fit if there's a 2.5" drive installed.

FWIW, it's pretty easy to swap out the 1TB drive for something faster, or to leave the 1TB drive in and add a 240-256gb mSATA card. Both add to the cost, though, and come with the smaller battery

Right now, the top (512gb mSATA+9Cell) configuration of the XPS 15 is $150 cheaper than the same (3rd) configuration of the M3800. If you don't need the professional 3D chip, I'd save the $150. The middle config (6 cell, 1TB + 32gb cache or 6 cell, 500GB SSHD + 256gb SSD) is $300 cheaper for the XPS, but you'll pay a good part of that difference to get a separate SSD to replace the 32gb cache drive ... and not get the Dell warranty on the SSD. I'd call that one a wash, and whether you have a strong preference for a particular SSD model (Dell uses both Lite-on and Hynix on the 256gb size) or whether you'd rather have the warranty all in one place might be a good way to decide between the two.

As for why Dell is offering both models, this is a case of the XPS being upgraded slightly to make a new "professional" model, while the XPS is a logical evolution of the prior XPS 15 models. If the M3800 doesn't sell well, I'd expect it to disappear in next year's line-up, but if it does sell well, we'll probably see an M3900 which is differentiated a bit more from the consumer models. Purely my speculation.