Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

It's really a shame that Dell wasn't able to include a RJ45 port.
The USB 2.0 to RJ45 adapter which was available at release date is a bad joke... Wireless is way faster than this piece of *****.
Now there is an USB 3.0 solution available but that did take quite long...

I would have preferred a proprietary port which would allow to use RJ45 without any additional chips required.
Someone else thinking that way?

By the way: Has the Bios really that old-fashioned look? That confused me a bit, since bios used to look much more modern on Dell systems (at least since the Latitude E6400 which is very old by now)

 

The Express is indeed fine for most people. I went with the Pro version myself because I wanted to calibrate multiple displays hooked to the same computers. Also, the Pro and the Elite have the exact same hardware, it's the software that differs.

I'm pretty sure it's an AMI BIOS, the other Dell business units use a Phoenix BIOS, hence the difference in looks.

EDIT: I used my spyder among other things to bring the display on my Q584 back in line, it was skewed towards yellowish whites and it made a world of difference. If you use a second monitor hooked to your M3800 often, you may want to splurge for the pro. Having monitors with different color reproduction was getting on my nerves.

 

The reason the USB 2.0 adapter lingered on is because it supports PXE booting, which is often a requirement for enterprises because it allows systems to be imaged without having to boot them from USB or optical media. PXE booting off of a NIC requires that the BIOS support that specific NIC, and as far as I know, PXE over WiFi isn't possible. So it seems Dell just didn't have a USB 3.0 NIC that supported PXE by the time this system launched.

I personally can't stand proprietary connectors because the dongles for them are always overpriced, the dongles are useless on any other system (unlike USB Ethernet adapters), and if you don't have the dongle at all, you have a useless connector on your system. I suppose you can argue that having a proprietary connector is better than having no connector at all, but it doesn't bother me much. Also keep in mind that everything you want to add can increase the size and weight of the system, so designers have to draw the line somewhere. If you open up the system and look at the motherboard, there isn't a lot of space where another connector could've been added. Anyway, I found a nice StarTech USB 3.0 to Gigabit adapter that includes a passthrough USB port, so I don't actually lose a port when I have it connected.

 

As I understand it the QHD M3800 ships with scaling set at 200%.

I currently use a 1920x1080 14” laptop running Win 8.1 Pro with scaling set to 150%, and everything looks good at that scaling level with my eyesight.

Adjusting for the larger 15.6” screen on the M3800, I estimate I would need to set scaling to approx. 225% to get the same text size on the M3800 as I do on my 14” laptop.

I know there are issues with applications that don’t scale, but for the applications that DO scale is there any problem with running at 225% scaling, or is there some “magic” to the 200% scaling (being exactly 2x)?

PS: I do not have the option of buying the FHD M3800 as I want the 512GB SSD & 91Whr battery specification and that is only available with the 3200x1800 screen.

 

That's not correct. At least from where I sit, I can order any of the two screens with any other configuration, by choosing the "Build your own" option. If you don't see this option online, you should still be able to talk to a representative, and get exactly what you want.

 

Thanks – point noted, although on the UK website at least I can only get i7-4702 Processor on the Custom Build vs. i7-4712 on the Pre-configured model, and the Custom build is more expensive.

I have read with interest your prior comments on FHD vs. QHD, especially enjoying your words to the effect of “I don’t live in the future” re: future-proofing with the QHD.

However, I would still like an answer to my previous question of whether there are any problems running at 225% scaling (vs. default of 200%) on the 3200x1800 screen for applications that do scale correctly.

I am leaning towards the QHD model and I estimate the 225% scaling should match the text size of my 14” 1920x1080 running at 150% scaling, which works well for my eyesight. And yes, there is an element of future-proofing in my thinking re: QHD, as well as what I understand is better panel technology.

 

225 % should be pretty useless. I find that even 200 % is pretty useless, you loose all that screen estate.

150 % works pretty well though, text and UI elements should be readable and at the same time you get much space to work on. I use 100 % zoom level, and sometimes even 150%.

Regards

 

I use 150% on my M4800 with the matte non touch version of the screen.

Occasionally I am forced to use it at 100 due to RDP, which is fine, but tiny. I have had others with worse eyesight find it unusable though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Thanks vayu64 and alexhawker. I think I will struggle to use 3200x1800 at 150% as I currently use 150% scaling on a 14” 1920x1080. Must be my 40 year old eyes.

Am I understanding this correct? From a screen real estate perspective, the 3200x1800 at 200% I assume is the same as a 1600x900 panel?

At 1600x900 the screen real estate would be more than I currently have of 1280x720 (1920x1080 at 150%)?

 

As I said a bit earlier in this thread, 200% is "magical" in that virtual pixels will map exactly 1:2 onto physical pixels both horizontally and vertically, which means that technically it will be sharper than any other setting (except for 100%, of course, but that would be absurd to use full-time). However, the pixel density on this panel is so high that I can't imagine that making a difference. I use 125% to get slightly better than 1080p-equivalent real estate and I don't have any problems with blurriness. The only other catch I can think of to using 225% is that the largest setting you can select while using per-display scaling is 200%, so in order to set 225% you would give that up. That of course means that if you plugged in a non-4K external display, things would be ridiculously huge there because it too would use 225% scaling -- and even if you don't plan to use external displays concurrently with your built-in panel, you'd have to manually adjust your scale factor and logging off and back on every time you wanted to switch between the two, which could become very inconvenient depending on how often you'll do that in a day.

And your math is correct, by the way. 1920x1080p @ 150% scaling on a 14" panel is ~105 virtual pixels per inch. To get that on a 3200x1800 15" display you would need 232%. However (and I truly don't mean to be rude here), if you would require such high scaling with your eyesight, I'm wondering whether the additional sharpness of QHD+ over FHD would be sufficiently apparent to you to justify going QHD+. Given the additional cost and the hassles it brings (some applications not scaling well, having to log off and back on to change your scale factor, inability to use per-display scaling, etc.) you may prefer to stick with FHD -- especially since the M3800 has a Fully Customizable option which would allow you to get everything else you wanted without having to accept the QHD+ panel as well. I recently helped a family friend buy an iPad Mini. He asked whether he should get the Retina version, and I told him to see what he thought when he compared the two side by side at the Apple Store. He couldn't see any difference in sharpness, so he saved $100 and got the regular version. The difference is plain as day to me on the iPad and on this machine, but obviously that's not true of everyone.