Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

it could be that

it would be strange though, for the starter config to have an mSATA SSD and no HDD when most of the press info so far has indicated there will be an HDD option

anything's possible I guess their Alienware combos are pretty bizzare, they go up and down in storage and other options

 

I almost certainly would have preferred a lighter model, but for us returning isn't as easy

anyway the Precision is a month behind the XPS so most of us who couldn't wait any longer (literally) had no choice

we did believe them to be the same of course, but then I saw from the Dell employee that the Precision would start with i7, that would make me pretty pissed off because the quad version cost a lot here

 

^ This.

XPS15 Min Weight: 61Whr/MSATA/2.5" HDD
M3800 Min Weight: 61Whr/MSATA

Not really. The Precision line is all about customization as per the customers needs, because it's for professionals. Somewhere out there, is someone who wants an SSD, no HDD, so the quietest/lightest configuration. May as well give them the option, it doesn't make much difference since Dell is BTO/JIT.

 

With an easier way to swap components, that would be a really interesting idea!

 

Q) Is the M3800 able to drive 3 external displays with the dock?

The specs for the K1100M (NVIDIA Quadro K1100M - NotebookCheck.net Tech) states that it can drive 4 active displays. The laptop itself has two video outputs so would it be able to drive a third active external display with the dock (3 external + 1 internal)?

Right now, I am lugging around an M4600, but in 2014, I expect to be travelling more so I am thinking that the portability will be useful for me. However, I typically dock to 3x24" monitors @ 1920x1200 so I'm wondering if I will be able to keep the same setup.

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

 

Tsk. Risky posting piccies of a pre-prod. Not too many of them in the wild, that's for sure.

That said, it looks really nice.

 

It doesn't have a real dock, so it probably mean some kind of daisy-chaining via display-port?

 

The MiniDP on the M3800 should drive two 30" monitors or four 24" monitors with the single DisplayPort cable.

The HDMI will drive a single monitor up to 30".

The USB 3 dock will drive two panels with resolutions up to 2048 x 1152.

 

The USB3 dock is displayport, so it is completely separate from the screens that you can drive with the discrete ports if I am not mistaken. So in theory, with the dock, you can drive up to 5 panels, 3 from the dedicated ports ( the display port would have to do daisy chaining with 1.2 to get the 2 from it) 1 from the HDMI and then 2 from the dock.

 

I'm debating between the XPS 15 and M3800, as I'm sure others out there are as well. It looks like the chassis is identical and any discrepancies in weight or size is just a matter of configuration. The only significant difference I can see thus far is the GPU.

I run Solidworks but it looks like the 750M could still be a good choice compared with the K1100M? I know quadro is optimized for CAD but the K1000M GPU is not as powerful as the 750M?

Any other differences between the two laptops? Sound maybe?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Omer