Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

I've had my m3800 for about 2.5 months now (delivered right on time in mid-December) and other than the mSata SSD failing about 1 week after delivery, the system has been great with no issues. Dell shipped a replacement mSata overnight and I was restored within a day since I had imaged the system on delivery and immediately after loading all my applications and data.

I ordered Win7 with the smaller batter with 512 Gb mStata and no 2nd drive so I could add a 2nd drive myself. I had some trouble getting the drive sled and cable from Dell Parts since the system was so new it took a few days for them to find the part numbers and then the delivery was delayed for availability. However I recently added a 1 Tb Samsung EVO SSD for the 2nd drive and haven't had any issues. No noticeable coil whine or touch pad issues.

Used for about 6 weeks on Win 7 and then upgraded to Win 8.1 and have still had no issues.

Fantastic system and battery life seems better under Win 8.1.

 

Case is aluminum on top and carbon fiber on the bottom. Guts are magnesium. Screen is covered by Gorilla Glass.

I am not seeing any bending when I open the lid. Will try to get it to flex later on when I get back to my office.

Difficult to open is subjective, but one handed opening could be difficult. Two handed opening is not.

I disagree on the easily breakable parts. I have been using the M3800 for 4 months and it continues to be tougher than I expected it to be. I have posted pics of damage from a 3 foot fall onto concrete which resulted in a couple of scratches, but nothing major.

 

Hey Bokeh, I am pretty sure those comments were about the T440s and not the m3800. Someone had asked for their opinion on their previous machine.

 

@Bokeh
I believe those points were supposed to be downsides for the Lenovo T440s (not M3800).

 

Doh... Should have read more closely.

 

Yes, I knew about both and they were both reasons why I was seriously considering the M4800 instead. I probably would have ended up getting the 4800 if it offered a touch screen. So in the end I think I still made the right choice for the money that was spent. Having the SSD+spiny drive was a BIG plus for me because I wouldn't accept less than 500GB of space and 500 GB drives are VERY pricy. Dual drive, smaller systems aren't that common as far as I can tell.

Still I wish Dell did a better job with the keyboard layout. My 11.6" Thinkpad x120e has a better keyboard layout (not better feel) despite being quite small. Dell isn't the only one who seems to ignore typist who like full keyboards. I've been keeping an eye out for some material I can put on the screen to cut the glare a bit. It's hard when you need the glass for a good touch screen.

BTW, the alternatives I considered were the M4800 (2nd choice and the direct replacement for my M4400), the TP W540 (not out yet when I ordered in December) and the HP Zbook 14 and 15 (more retrospectively as I was helping a coworker shop). The W540 seems to be similar to the M4800 in power, size etc and I've had good luck with Dell so why switch. Also the 540 has a lower resolution screen (still high res). Also, another coworker has had some issues with his 520. Finally, the keyboards aren't what they used to be and the Dell keyboards are quite good. The 15" Zbook falls into the same trap as the W540 without any of that leftover Thinkpad glow. The 14 was a tempting little beast. 1080 screen, dedicated graphics and dual drives in a 14" package. But by the time you equip it to be similar to the M3800 it cost as much as the 3800. Yes, it is smaller but the GPU isn't as good and the screen is significantly lower in resolution. If the choice were say M4800 vs Z14 I might have gone with the Z14 due to the big size savings. The 3800 seems to hit the right balance between size and power for me. The M4400 was on the heavy side and the M4800 was even bigger. The M3800 seems to not be much harder to carry around vs a 14" ultrabook. Thanks to it's light weight my x120e doesn't get used as much.

MBPs were never on my list. Not an Apple fan and my software doesn't run on OSX. Contrary to what some claim Macs are not better PCs... and they don't have a touch screen.

 

I've never noticed it. Perhaps there are too many other noisy things around here? Perhaps after listening to the fan of my M4400 this thing is really quiet even at full load.

 

Personally, I still can't bring myself to order the M3800, and the clock for this FY's budget cycle is ticking. There's a number of minor issues that irk me. Things like that atrocious keyboard font, and the fact that I have to get a touchscreen I don't want and will never use, or that stupid 16:9 screen format. But, I can get used to that keyboard I guess, I can just disconnect the touchscreen connector, and if I want 16:10 I need to buy a Mac, which is pretty much out of the question for a host of reasons. But, like I said, those are relatively minor. It's a Dell, after all, so there's always going to be compromises, in aesthetics in particular...

However, the one major let-down of this machine is that there's no dock (and don't tell me about that USB3 "dock"; that's not a dock). See, the idea is to have one laptop to rule them all, that I can take to meetings, conferences, and on travel, but when I'm in my office I can just plop it down and turn it into a desktop system, with a real monitor (16:10, of course, and maybe even high-DPI). That's not possible with the M3800, at all. By now I am even considering getting a Lenovo X1 instead, since that offers a real dock. In fact, that Lenovo offers almost everything I want, except it's not even in the same league, performance-wise. So why-oh-why couldn't they provide a real docking solution for the darn thing? Sure, maybe there was no space on the bottom to fit a standard E-Dock connector, but a solution like the one the Lenovo uses should have been feasible. A "Mobile Workstation" needs a real dock in my opinion, period, and the M3800 doesn't have one. Shame.

 

New BETA drivers for 8.1 64bit out -

NVIDIA DRIVERS Quadro Notebook Driver 334.95

Quadro Notebook Driver 334.95

Version: 334.95
Release Date: 2014.2.20
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 8.1 64-bit, Windows 8 64-bit
Language: English (US)
File Size: 211.00 MB

 

@Bokeh: Ye, I was referring to the Lenovo T440s.

@Pirx: Isn't the Dell D3000 an alternative for you as a Dock? It supports all USB 3.0 Notebooks - all you have to do is plug in a USB 3.0 cord into your M3800, when arriving at your workdesk. Might be something for you. Also, there are some Lenovo USB 3.0 Docks aswell, which work on a variety of Notebooks, costing considerably less.

@All: I've found something very interesting about the coil whine issue: when putting the K1100M under Load (I've used Blender 3D's CUDA Renderer), the coil whine gets louder. It's a high pitch noise. When I disconnect the power cord, the high pitch noise disappears. I know this sound from my Desktop PC some years ago - it was related to my Nvidia GTX275. I don't know the english word for it, but in german Forums, we called it "Spulenfiepen". There are electronic components (in german it's "Spulen"), which have to be glued on the PCB, so they don't make this noise. If they aren't glued, they swing. According to the load, they can swing more or less and do these noises. The fix would be fairly easy (just glueing), once the component is identified - however, this would probably void your Warranty and I don't recommend you to do that. I'm not 100% sure, if this is really the problem, but could be (also, because this seems to be Nvidia-related, again).