Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

I have a Philips display where I experience the problem of flickering black every so often, but that's when connected to my PS3. It's extremely annoying, to the point I stopped using the PS3. My Xbox 360 connected to the same display using the same HDMI cable has no issues. I figured the culprit was some incompatibility between the display and the PS3.

Anyway, just thought I'd share that data point. I happen to have the XPS-15 (basically the same as M3800 except for the GPU and NFC), but I've always connected it via DisplayPort so never had a problem there. If I ever get around to it, maybe I'll test it through HDMI to see if I can replicate the problem.

 

Yeah, that would be awesome if you could get around to testing that using HDMI. I have a Dell monitor and a Dell laptop, so I would have to think that incompatibility is not an issue there. I know when I first got this laptop I had TONS of issues connecting any kind of device to it using USB. After doing everything under the sun and searching for a few weeks, I FINALLY figured out that I had to use at least 28/24 AWG USB cables or else the devices would not connect properly, or they would constantly connect and disconnect. I am wondering if this HDMI issue is something similar, as this M3800 seems to be a very quirky computer.

 

I won't be home until Tuesday (it's Saturday now), but I'll make a note to test it.

I also have problems with USB continually reconnecting, but only for hard drives and phones. Flash drives are OK. I thought it had to do with amount of power draw. There's another thread somewhere with more discussion. Doesn't affect me much because I rarely connect anything but flash drives nowadays. I'll keep in mind wire gauge next time if I ever encounter the problem again.

Like others noted above, I also have the problem where the display sometimes remains blank after waking from sleep or hibernation. Another sleep-wake cycle brings the display back. That really bothered me, until I discovered I could simply close then re-open the lid to bring back the display. Since that discovery, it's been a non-issue.

This laptop (XPS-15 in my case) definitely has its quirks, but fortunately nothing that I can't live with.

Speaking of quirks, I wish this laptop had LEDs for HDD activity. In the past, I was used to being able to hear HDD activity, but now that I have only SSDs, I can't easily tell whether the drives are busy.

 

After 2 years how is everyone's opinion of this laptop? Is it still a good option, I like the screen and thinness is the 3200x1800 better than the 4k. I'm not going to do scaling so 3200x1800 UHD might be better. And how is heat under the laptop?

 

how do I tell if the notebook is the 2013 version of the 2015 version? Is the 4702hq the old one and the 4712hq the newer one?

 

I haven't had any major issues with it - the only issue I have is the constant USB disconnect with my phone, but I got a hub to workaround the issue, so it isn't a real pain anymore. There are definitely quirks about it as you can see on this thread, but overall it's been pretty solid for me over the past 2 years. I personally prefer the 3200x1800 as it uses less power than the 4k, so better battery life. I set mine at 125% scaling, which is tolerable without sacrificing screen real estate. At 4K, I would probably need to go 150%, or set resolution at 1080p, but then you lose a lot of real estate.

The 2013 version has 4 USB ports and no thunderbolt (displayport only), vs 2015 has only 3 USB ports with thunderbolt. The 2013 version started with 4702hq, but eventually moved up to the 4712hq version once it was available. The 2015 only has the 4712hq version. Easiest way to tell by looking is whether it only has 3 USB ports.

 

Thanks this will come in handy

 

Just following up: I tested external display connected via HDMI. No black flickering problem.

 

Thanks for that man. Sounds like I may have an issue with the HDMI on my CPU then. I never tried getting a different cable, as I tried two already and still had issues. Maybe I will try a cable eventually, but this sure looks like the HDMI port is going bad on my PC.

Thanks again for the info.

 

Hmm...I wonder if that means the HDMI port on my PS3 is bad then, since it exhibits the same problem you're having with your laptop? I don't think I ever tested it on another display. Sorry, drifting off-topic...