Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

I figured I'd share my final findings with you as well. After doing a ton of testing to work out as many of the touchpad quirks as I can, I have finally found some settings that are pretty darn good, except for one caveat.

1. I ended up going back to the latest generic Synaptics drives on their website (v17.0.19 as of right now) and these are the ones that I am sticking with.
2. I then went into the Synaptics drivers > SmartSense and shrunk the pointing and tapping zones so that they do not register my left thumb at all.

Here comes the caveat:
1. I had to disable tapping, so now I can only use physical touchpad clicks for navigation.

What I found (as Regnad Kcin stated as well) is that with tapping enabled the touchpad can sometimes have difficulty discerning between a click and a mouse movement, so sometimes a touch-to-click (or even a physical click) can cause the pointer to jump/move in another direction/be inaccurate for no reason. With tapping disabled I am not really seeing this issue at all, and the touchpad is performing rock solidly. I can even rest my left thumb on the touchpad and still navigate with no issues (although this does very infrequently register as a 2-finger scroll).

It sucks that this seems to be the only way to fix the issue, as everything else seems to be working pretty well. It's basically a "pick your poison" type of deal. I am REALLY used to using touch for most of my clicks, but I guess I will have to get used to not using touch in order to greatly improve my touchpad experience.

Hope this helps anyone who was having touchpad issues. I also hope that Synaptics gets their drivers straightened out, because with some tweaks they are very close to having a pretty good all-around touchpad experience.

 

Feel free to check (and update as deemed relevant) the Linux section of the XPS 15/M3800 wiki (http://xps-15.wikia.com/wiki/Linux), or to ask us any questions about the computer. There are some full-time Linux users around.

 

It really is too bad that one thing, tap to click, has issues because otherwise this is a really good clickpad (almost makes me not hate clickpads). The really sad part is I can't see how this is something that people have been doing well for almost a decade, including on some rather lousy click pads but now Dell gets in wrong on this one.

 

I agree 1000%. It actually makes me more upset, because after some tweaks this touchpad is WAY better than I though it could be. If Synaptics can get this tapping/false mouse movement issue sorted out then the m3800 touchpad could be a really good experience.

It's amazing that we can send people to the damn moon, but can't get touchpad issues sorted out on Windows PCs. I really don't understand why Dell didn't make the m3800 refresh with the Precision touchpad, as I have heard good things about the Precision touchpad on the new XPS 13.

I just don't get these companies sometimes.

 

Hi everyone! I want to buy the new version 4K'Dell M3800. I read about a static noise issue called "coil whine". Anyone know if that problem is solved with the new M3800 4K? Thank you!

 

From what I understand, yes, coil whine has been fixed for the new models of Precision M3800s, and Dell is even swapping motherboards on the "later" models of M3800s as well to fix coil whine issues.

 

Can you post me the source where you read this..?thanks

 

Read/search through this thread. It has been documented here quite a few times.

 

The Dell 3800 (2015) order has now been cancelled for the third time. This is really unbelievable I have been trying now to buy the 2015 Dell M3800 for about 6 weeks and every single time the orders are getting changed / cancelled etc and I cannot find anyone to help. I give up. I see that the new Razer Blade is now up with the Dell M3800 and will purchase that instead. I am totally blown away by just how bad Dell sales and order support is, really stunned beyond words. They are simply not honest and I don't believe they even have this machine.

 

Wow. Mine still says it will ship on Monday. I'm from Austin, TX, so I feel like supporting the local company but yeah this is pathetic. These aren't cheap machines either...
How were you able to actually cancel the "cancelled" order? From the sound of it, you may have a lovely re-order come Monday.