Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

I believe usb 3.1 is only good for up to 25W, so not enough for a full fledged computer (full voltage CPU plus a dedicated GPU), but plenty for thin and lights, chrome books, tablets, phones, etc.


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The USB Power Delivery spec provides for up to 100W with appropriate cables. Summary page with links to more detailed information: USB.org - USB Power Delivery.

 

Sweet, thanks for the info.! I guess 100W should be good for most machines, but will still be too little for the machines I described (I.e. Those currently using a 180W or 240W power brick).


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Sure, and for those cases I imagine Dell will do one of two things. They could provide a traditional docking station and make docking station connectors available only on those products, in which case at least now they'd only have to worry about design compatibility with a much smaller range of products, and the chassis real estate pinch of a large docking connector won't be as significant in products of that size anyway. Or maybe they'll just say that those systems need to use a USB docking station along with a separate AC adapter, much as current USB docking stations work. Of course the latter wouldn't be quite as convenient, but connecting and disconnecting two cables to "dock/undock" is hardly the end of the world.

Either way, I'm also betting that 180-240W mobile workstations aren't long for this world either. It's very clear that the market is shifting towards thinner and lighter even if it means sacrificing performance -- and as a result, R&D is going into reducing the performance sacrifice that going thin and light entails, a la the M3800. Hell, even the Surface Pro 3 delivers astounding performance for its size if you don't need GPU horsepower. Anyway, 17" and thick 15" laptops have become unicorns lately in my experience because people just don't want to lug them, and I say that as someone who owned 2 two-inch thick, 9-11 lb such systems myself. But even if these workhorses stick around longer than I'm expecting, power efficiency is always on the rise, and of course the USB Power Delivery spec may be expanded to provide more juice, so we may get to a point where even mobile workstations can be USB-powered.

 

Still, there's something nice about dropping your PC down and picking it up without having to unplug anything. I had a docking station for my Vaio Z13, and I really miss that convenience.

 

I had a dock for my M20. I wasn't overly fond of it. Part of the issue was I never had 2 desktop displays and the M20 screen was too small to read if it wasn't front and center. I also didn't like that Xp could be buggy about docking and undocking. With my M3800 the issue would be where do I get a high DPI desk monitor for a reasonable price. I wouldn't want to give up resolution just to use a desktop screen.

 

Depending on what you consider a reasonable price, Dell just launched the P2415Q, which is a 24" IPS UHD display for $599 -- and yes, it will do that resolution at 60 Hz. There's also the P2715Q which has the same resolution and costs $699 if you'd prefer to trade away some pixel density for extra display size. I haven't looked in great detail into what differentiates the P2415Q from the previous and still more expensive UP2414Q ($869); I do see that the latter has a slightly better color gamut, but unless your work demands absolute color fidelity, if that's the main difference then it's probably not worth the premium.

 

Now I just have to get the boss to buy two of them...

 

Ha! Well you'd have to get a very recent USB docking station to drive the second one. DisplayPort even in MST mode will only drive a single 4K display @ 60 Hz, and the HDMI port will only go to 30 Hz. And in fact in MST mode, a 4K display like these would present itself to the system as two 1920x2160 displays, so to make Windows treat them as a single display you'll need to tinker with your video drivers to enable spanning. I know AMD and NVIDIA drivers can do this, but I'm not sure about the Intel drivers yet. And if your drivers can't do that, you'll end up with weird issues like full screen video or maximized application windows only maximizing to half of the display. All of this will go away when DP 1.3 and HDMI 2.0 become widely available, but of course that won't help this particular system.

 

If I may chip in, I believe that with equipment defects, it makes sense to consider the likelihood that an attempt at repair/replacement will improve your situation dramatically versus the likelihood of going through the hassle in vain, or ending up yet worse. The world is not perfect. Nor is ever your gear.