Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

If that's the case then I see absolutely no reason not to spend the extra $70.00 and get the 4k screen.

It will be well worth it in the long run.

 

I would emphasise that the new display (more details here) is 3840 x 2160 so an exact multiplier of 1920 x 1080 so interpolation is not required if the logical resolution is set to FHD.

John

 

True, but Bokeh specifically stated 1920 x 1080 on the 4k screen shows less blurriness than 1600 x 900 on the QHD+ screen.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

That's true, but that doesn't mean that the scaling in the GPU or display (not sure where it happens for the built-in panel) necessarily does a simple 1-to-4 pixel mapping the way you suggest. If you open an image in Photoshop and enlarge it by exactly 2x in each dimension, you won't get exact pixel doubling every time, particularly because there are multiple sampling options for the resizing.

But like I said, apparently it's not an issue in actual usage, so either it's doing basic pixel doubling or the PPI on this display is high enough to mask any blurriness. I actually run my QHD+ panel at 150% scaling on its native resolution and find it to be perfectly acceptable for the additional real estate even though I have no chance of pixel doubling like someone who uses 200% scaling at native resolution would.

 

Also remember that 1600x900 will end up rendering things on the 15.6" screen larger than 1920x1080. If you are used to looking at 1080p on a 15.6" screen, the 4K screen at 1080p is basically the same resolution and look. The difference is that the screen on the thunderbolt M3800 looks much better than any 1080p TN screen that I have seen on the 15.6" M4X00 or Latitudes. Color, contrast, viewing angles, and pixel sizes are all better.

 

No coil whine.

The touchpad looks the same, but seemed to respond differently. Not sure if it was hardware, firmware, drivers, or just that it was a fresh machine.

 

Yes, absolutely, the lack of a proper docking solution is, in my opinion, the single largest failure of this otherwise very nice machine. Having a real dock (that doesn't compromise functionality of any attached peripherals in any way, and allows you just drop in the laptop, push a button and go) would have been a killer feature. I don't understand why Dell did not go for that. Well, sure, in a way I do: If they wanted to get more sales out of the XPS 15 with minimal effort, then this was the way to go. I still think there's an attractive market in the part of the professional world that is waiting for a "real" Precision workstation in this form factor rather than just a re-badged gaming laptop. I would have no problem adding, say, a hundred bucks to the price of one of these, if I could get a real docking connector.

 

I'm happy to report that the new driver refreshes meant for the newer thunderbolt m3800 have had some happy consequences for my older m3800:

1) First and foremost, the new Dell touchpad drivers (version 17.0.15.85) have solved almost every issue I was having with the touchpad. 2-finger right-click and scrolling is almost perfect and registers almost everytime. I say "almost" because the touchpad on the Macbook is still more reliable, but now my m3800 comes pretty darn close. If you installed the generic drivers from the Synaptics site and forced Windows to install via "disable driver signing trick," I highly recommend you give these new Dell driver a shot. I am a very happy camper with them.

2) With the new QuickSet version, the keyboard backlight low setting now actually works. It's just reversed from what I was used to on my Studio XPS 16. The cycle is: OFF -> HIGH -> LOW -> Back to OFF. And "low" is now noticeably dimmer than "high" (just give it a chance to fade to low). Previously, there was no difference.

 

I'm eager to try the new touchpad drivers. I can't understand why this is the only computer I've ever had issues with false "tap to click" clicks. That's a big deal to me since I don't like clicking through the touch pad. Really, touchpads in general are lousy compared to having real buttons.... even touchpads as good as Apple's.

Anyway, I would be interested to see how well the 4k screen does at 1080. I find that the older screen doesn't really look better at half resolution (1600x900) than it does at some other resolutions. Sadly it blurs instead of quads the pixels. That might also be true of the 4k screen but at least the blur will be small.

 

Did you read the posts from Bokeh above? He specifically discussed this question.