Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Why is your C: drive partition so small?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

To those, who were unable to use the USB-to-Ethernet adapter on Linux: the chipset's code seems to be in the kernel already. Unfortunately, the VID / PID hasn't been added. Next weekend, I will have some time for this and will try to make it work, test the result and if everything works, submit the patch. I'll keep you updated.

 

Well, I have no complaints about the screen... a bit of glare but deep colors. This astronomy image was procesed on the machine in laptop mode with no monitor:

 

I did a clean install. Windows 8.1 + Office 2013 + VMware. that's all I need for my work and I need all the space I can get for my virtual machines.

 

Gotcha, thanks for explaining. I mostly asked out of curiosity.

 

I knew this was an issue but just pointing out that Dell/Adobe are very specific in their promo materials
"Adobe works closely with Dell to test and validate Dell Precision workstations to ensure optimal software performance and reliability for our broadcast and video customers," said Bill Roberts, director of video product management at Adobe. "As a result, Dell’s workstations provide increased speed, power and graphics advantages so video pros have everything they need to run Adobe Creative Suite software and work more efficiently."
"Select Dell Precision workstations are specifically optimized and certified for the following Adobe® applications: Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop"

m3800 out for 6 months. HiDPI out for 3 years. No fix in site. 100% Adobe issue but they constantly blame Windows and delete critical posts on their forums. What a disaster as there is no alternative (other than lowering resolution to the same as my almost 4 y/o laptop). Which mean an external monitor is necessary for any video editing.

Not happy with this trend as lenovo went the same direction. Drawing with fingers not the same with a mouse. Many times need to hold down the button while manipulating the cursor and this does not work so well anymore since the button is also the trackpad. If anyone comes up with a way to deactivate lower portion of trackpad please share.

Crazy how this is hidden so well now. I could not find this without your guidance.

Installed classic shell and better. Adobe issues are what are killing me as expected to pay $50/mo for software that does not work as advertised on my ~$3200 Adobe certified workstation.

 

Go with ODE, although I'm not even sure there's a difference. I bet if you chose most or even all of those, you'd find that they either all went to the same driver or some of them went nowhere. I think many of those options still exist from times when there were custom driver builds for older Quadro cards or older versions of certain applications.

 

Totally hear you. I'm not a software developer, so I can't comment on how legitimate Adobe's gripes with Microsoft's HiDPI APIs in Win8.1 are, but it's frustrating to say the least, especially for people making their living using those applications.

As for the trackpad, I don't think it's intended to be used for drawing, just gestures like swipe and pinch zoom, but I too have noticed that functions that require holding a mouse button down and moving the cursor (like dragging files around) are much trickier on this trackpad. I too would prefer dedicated buttons, but thank the ubiquity of smartphones and the general transition to "more mobile than laptop" computing for the change. I suppose as multi-touch gets more traction and devs find better uses for it, the benefits may outweigh the drawbacks, but until then I'm peeved myself. My Precision M6300 actually had a dedicated middle-click button, which I LOVED because middle-clicking a link in a browser opens it in a new tab. I've never seen systems other than certain Precisions that had that, and I loved it. Mapping middle-click to simultaneously clicking left and right just isn't the same.

Yeah, Bluetooth really did get buried for some reason. While many of the settings configurable in Metro remain configurable in "traditional" locations (e.g. Control Panel), there are now some settings that can only be managed in Metro, and not just settings that pertain to Metro applications, so I'd peruse the "Change PC Settings" options at your leisure. For better or for worse, I think the trend of moving settings into that interface is only going to increase with future versions of Windows, so you may as well get started now.

I was tempted to install Start8 or similar applications, but I decided I'd try Windows 8.1 on its own for a while, and I ended up not needing it. I've found I just don't miss the regular Start menu anymore. The new Start Screen is just Pinned Start Menu items from Win7 (improved here by the increased real estate IMHO, plus active tiles, the ability to group icons, and even label the groups), and the "All Apps" area is just like the old Start menu. In Win7 the main thing I used the Start menu for was Search, which I do by just tapping the WinKey and then immediately typing my search phrase -- works the same on Win8. For everything else I needed from the Win7 Start menu, I either pinned it to the Start Screen (which allows for far more tiles than the Pinned area from Win7 ever did), or I discovered that it was already in the awesome list of tools found by right-clicking the Start button. That list was obviously tailor made for power users, right down to the various MMC snap-ins and both standard and elevated Command Prompts. Anyway, all that to say that I'd encourage you to try to use the new stuff. You may find that it works better than the old stuff with a very minimal adjustment period, in which case you can reduce the number of extra background applications running on your system.

 

A few days ago at Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 event an Adobe representative was showing an upcoming version of Photoshop CC optimized for 200 dpi and Touch. It was a very impressive demonstration. No release date was announced, but Surface Pro 3 goes on sale in less than a month. Hopefully the new Adobe Photoshop CC will not be too far behind.

(Correction: Photoshop, not Acrobat!)

 

The middle click to open a new tab from a link (or close a tab without having to aim specifically for the little x) is something I do all day, almost unconsciously. Additionally, after previously having a consumer notebook and doing CAD on it (occasionally trying to show someone a model without a USB mouse), I love having the dedicated middle button on my M4800. I almost never use it since I am better about always having a mouse with me at work, but it's nice to have when browsing on the couch.