Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Congrats! Look forward to your review!

 

what discount?... the only one I have seen are $50 off for the xps 15...and unless it's a different model, it looks like the high end xps 15 is $300 cheaper from Costco.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

Hey im new to here and am interested in getting the m3800. I was wondering if anybody knows of a youtube review video of it ? as i always like to watch a review before I buy something , especially at the price . Thanks to anyone who reads this and replies

 

Search "XPS 15 Haswell" on YouTube for videos. Same machine in terms of what you'd see in a video review.

 

I am personally not aware of LVDS being able to drive 3200x1800 so the only probable fact is that the QHD+ display is connected to an eDP port, either from the CPU, the GPU or both via a MUX, but I don't have a system board to check either way.
Since the M4800 apparently did not include an eDP MUX to at least allow switchable graphics (or it isn't exposed in the BIOS yet) and the M3800 seems like it is more based on a consumer design with tight packaging requirements, you are probably right that it is only using the Optimus Copy Engine software interposer.
But there were some earlier confusing statements (sorry I do not have links but others here may recall) that the M3800 was using an 'Optimus-like' solution implying that something was different about the implementation, which can mean anything including changes to the Optimus Routing Layer and hardware eDP MUX capability.
Take a look at the board and tell us what's on there.

I personally would prefer a MUX option to allow selectable direct dGPU access to the panel, but that is probably too much to ask of the M3800.

 

Yesterday, I used my m3800 whole night, it's great. Compared with my the other XPS 15 9530, at least it has no noise and the touchscreen never die. As we know both of the configurations and most of the drivers are the same expect GPU, I have no idea why m3800 seems have better build quality
Will continue compare them.

 

Are you saying that you have both M3800 and XPS 15 9530 at hand and XPS 15 9530 has noise and touchscreen non-responsive problems while M3800 does not?

 

Yes, indeed...I am not an expert of laptop. This is the superficial phenomenon I noticed so far.

 

Have you noticed any other differences between the two computers so far?

 

Keep in mind that if you only have one sample of each laptop, drawing conclusions about build quality of one over the other is flawed. There are people with XPS 15s who are problem-free (myself included) and very few people have M3800s yet, so just because one M3800 is better than one XPS 15 doesn't mean there's a design difference. And even if there is a difference, it's entirely possible that it's due to Dell having already received revised versions of problematic parts and incorporated them into both models based on customer feedback, but since the XPS has been out longer there are more units with original rev parts, whereas the M3800 might have started production with newer stuff. But IF that's the case, warranty replacements on the XPS would get the newer parts too, as of course would new units manufactured more recently.

Like I said, I got to see both side-by-side and talk to a Dell product engineer who was on this project and he confirmed that they were identical except for GPU.