Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

The latest Intel drivers fix this. I have the UP2414Q and, even though it's MST, windows considers it to be a single 3840x2160 monitor when running 60Hz though the mDP, so therefore no issues with full-screen video, strange zoom settings, multiple task bars, rotating the monitor 90 degrees etc.

 

Docking on this model doesn't seem to be that complicated. Just as Bokeh said, all you really need is the power cable, DisplayPort, and USB. I can use a USB to Ethernet adapter on the USB hub, and audio out should be obtainable through the DisplayPort cable. The dock is nice to reduce wear and tear on the laptop's built in ports, but honestly if one really wears out then Dell should be able to fix it under the warranty, which we should all have for this model anyways.

 

does anyone know the part number for the qhd screen, would it be user replaceable, is it only glossy touchscreen or is there a matte version. I only ask because I can get a good deal through my work for the m4800 or m3800 but it's the lower resolution model.

 

6RGW0 looks like the correct part for the M3800. It should be easily upgradeable as long as it is a single unit so you don't have to deal with dust getting between the lcd and touchscreen. The touchscreen is not optional on the M3800 so you will want to get a M4800 if you need a matte display.

Why do you want the QHD? The FHD display is just as nice and gives you the same real estate as the QHD while not having any scaling issues.

 

I would personally rather have the QHD screen. The FHD does have a few advantages and avoiding some of the scaling issues would be nice. However, I really like being able to throw up a full page PDF and read the whole thing. I like that I can always put up a half screen web page and have no issue reading it. I used to feel like XGA was the minimum usable resolution for a modern computer. For example, any web page should fit in an XGA window without horizontal scrolling. Now, that isn't a hard and fast rule. I know ebay doesn't fit in 1024 pixels wide even by default. However, most pages do. But consider that 1920/2=910. When I was using a 1920x1200 screen I found many web pages that didn't quite fit on a half screen. So you had to zoom out which could result in very blocky text etc. With the QHD screen a half screen is 1600 pixels. I've never found a normal web page that didn't fit in 1600 pixels. With the QHD you can zoom in or out and still have a fully readable page. That is a nice bonus that I actually use quite a bit.
While QHD isn't without issues I personally like it better than FHD.

 

I wouldn’t say FHD doesn’t have scaling issues. Depending on one’s Windows setup, it may only have different scaling issues than QHD+.
I’m using FHD with Windows set to 144 ppi (or 150% scaling), and this setup surely does have its ‘issues’.

 

I don't understand: What keeps you from reading that PDF on an FHD screen?

 

It's true that even FHD is subject to scaling issues, but if scaling issues exist, they tend to get worse as the scale factor increases, and a given user will always want a higher scale factor when dealing with a QHD display compared to an FHD display of the same size, so scaling issues will never be as bad on FHD compared to QHD. And of course for users who can handle FHD on a 15" display with no scaling at all, this particular downside of QHD becomes even more significant.

The only answer that makes sense based on his post would be that for him, text at full-page zoom on a display of this size is too grainy with just FHD resolution, whereas the increased sharpness of QHD makes the text legible. Of course this is assuming scale factors in each case that keep the physical size of the text on the display constant between the two scenarios so that sharpness is the only variable.

 

JP got it. With my M4400 (1920x1200) I found that the PDFs I often look at (two column, dense text) are too grainy when you try to display them full screen. Basically with the FHD screen I run out of pixels before the text is otherwise too small to read. This is especially true in PDFs with serif fonts or that were scanned copies. With the QHD screen I find that most of the time the text is too small to read from a comfortable distance before the lack of resolution makes it too grainy. JP was right in assuming the text height in inches was about the same each time. Also, remember I'm actually thinking about a 1200p screen, not a 1080p. The extra vertical resolution is used when you are displaying two letter format pages side by side due to the 16:10 aspect ratio fitting a pair of pages better than the 16:9 screen.

Anyway, the only place where I feel let down by the QHD screen is actually Solidworks. The extra pixels work the GPU and thus some of the speed increase from my M4400 is lost due to the extra work load. Also, in SW many lines are "1 pixel" wide (with aliasing). The various sketch icons are also unscaled. That makes some things very small on this screen. So it is a bit ironic that the primary reason why I have a CAD machine is actually a strike against the QHD screen.

 

Interesting. I've not noticed the extra pixels slowing my M4800 down, but that has a K2100 rather than the 1100.


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