Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

It looks like the m3800/XPS 15 use the same power connector as the XPS 13 ultrabook. If that turns out to be true Dell already makes a power dongle that converts the standard power supply connectors to the new smaller power connectors to solve the problem.

Dell DC Power Dongle for Dell XPS 12/ XPS 13/ XPS 13 MLK

 

Am I totally crazy if I'm thinking about this instead of a Razer Blade 14 for a similar use case? I want something thin, portable, that I can game a little on and that has a little bit of oomph. I have a work-station at home for video editing, but at a similar price point, there is something attractive about being able to do video work that isn't as intensive on the go.

Also. This display looks soooo much better.

 

[EDITED] Nvm, I misunderstood the question.

 

You'd probably do better with the new XPS 15. It's the same machine, but with a consumer graphics card that is likely to work better in games. You can also purchase it right now.

 

You could run it at 200% (1600x900) and be no worse off than the Razer with respect to resolution if you want to game.

 

Razer went with ultra low latency instead of display quality. I have seen the 14 and the display is not great unless you are gaming. The IGZO panel is much higher quality.

Most of the time I forget that the M3800 even has a touchscreen. There are no ghost clicks or issues with it. For all practical purposes, you could forget that it has one.

When I have used the touchscreen, it worked well.

Windows 8.1 is much better at scaling. It is one of the important new features.

If the M3800 has the same display options as the XPS15, you should be able to get a 1080p screen with the same color, contrast, and brightness that the 1800p screen has. If you want to run Windows 7 at 1920x1080, you can (probably) still have the same display quality.

10 T5 torx screws + 2 Phillips head screws to remove the bottom cover.

You will need to be careful with the battery power connector, but it should not be a problem for someone with computer repair training to swap the battery out.

The whole process would take about 10 minutes.

Aruba at work. Netgear at home. No problems with either of them.

Mr Handy in bold italic, Bokeh in normal text -

1) GPU clock showed as 706mhz in GPU-Z, same as the prior collected data for the K1100M. So unless Dell is significantly underclocking the Geforce 750M in the XPS 15 version, that one should be a good bit faster for gaming (the reference implmentation collected 941mhz.)

MSI Afterburner or Nvidia Inspector will close most of the gap between the K1100M and 750M if you need it. Based on max power specs, I would not be surprised if the K1100 was capable of running at 755M speeds - but that is pure speculation.

2) The BIOS is an AMI-derived BIOS from Dell's consumer-line machines, not the Phoenix-derived BIOS from the other Latitude/Precisions machines. Other than the lack of a Optimus-disable option, I didn't see anything obvious missing, but all I got was a very quick look. This worries me a bit.

I noticed the same thing. The only way to disable Optimus is to disable the HD4600 in the device manager. Seems to work just as well.

3) The power connector is not the same as the rest of the Latitude/Precision lines, and it will not interchange power adapters with those. No word from our rep about whether an auto/air adapter is or will be available. Minor disappointment, since I have a lot of Latitude equipment around and a little bit of older Precision.

The M3800 here came with a dongle that allows me to use it with any other Latitude/Precision adapter. Even the really old ones. Quality looks good. Trying not to snicker when I comment on dongle quality.

4) Since there were questions about the wifi card, the test model I looked at had some kind of Intel 802.11ac card (7260?) -- not a point I was looking at in depth so did not mark down the exact model.

7260 is correct. Since it is the M2 connector, any replacement will need to be that form factor.

Not sure if Dell will sell it with Windows 7, but Win 8.x Pro comes with downgrade rights so if you are comfortable installing 7 yourself there is no reason it should not work. At least for the one I looked at today, the only issue might be touch screen and touch pad drivers; everything else in the machine besides the screen (both super-high resolution and touch) is bog-standard. I didn't remember to check the touchpad to see if it was just a newer synaptics.

Synaptics


Not sure if this is a useful comparison to you, but the new 130W brick was on a quick glance about the same size as the newest-generation Latitude 90W brick. Significantly smaller than the older 130W.


Will get a picture of it posted today.

 

I am pretty torn between the XPS 15, m3800, and Apple Retina 15.4. I had decided on the Apple until I read about the Thermal throttling and the anemic power adaptor, where you can't technically be on AC and using the laptop at the same time. Then I see this one looks user serviceable (a big + over most of the soldered ram ones these days). It appears as though Ram is user upgradeable? Even the drive is User upgradeable? So I could theoretically buy slightly lesser specs and then upgrade some down the road?

Does anyone know if the XPS 15 has mostly the same internal configuration? I would assume so. I am interested in some light gaming on it, but battery life is my #1 concern, write programs for a living, and have to have Linux VMs.

 

Bokeh, could you please post the specs of the video adapter in the m3800 when used with an external monitor? Maximum resolution? Color depth, etc.
Thanks!

 

RAM can be upgraded (it uses standard modules). You should think about buying the lowest spec and upgrading it yourself, whether you're going to do it immediately or later on, it's usually cheaper to upgrade yourself than to spec it higher at Dell.

There's a standard mSATA drive that could be swapped out with a larger drive down the road -- ≈500 GB is the max for now, but larger drives will be available later on. If you get the smaller battery you can also install a standard 2.5" hard drive or SSD.

 

In what way? What's different?

Ah, very interesting. I don't really see the point of the ultra-high resolution screen anyway (literally; my eyes are not getting any younger... ), so that's good to know.