Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

FYI, in addition to allowing 200% scaling, Windows 8.1 offers new APIs to developers related to DPI:

Windows 8.1 DPI Scaling Enhancements

 

Just ordered mine M3800..512 GB SSD (orig. price $2499), with Dell Small Business coupon "JDB25CQ9TJH$9M" (expires 12/01/2013), got $100 off....estimated delivery 12/23/2013..can't wait...

 

Uhmm, 200% scaling (or any other scaling, for that matter) has always been available in Windows. All you have to do is choose "Custom scaling".

 

I just ordered 512 Gb option for US$2499.

 

A few newbie questions before I pull the trigger.

Why is the precision so much lighter than the xps? More plastic?

How do major apps like photoshop, cubase, etc scale with the ultra high Rez screen? Are they tiny fonts? How do they look when scaled up in windows?

Ty,
Aqua

 

There are no difference between M3800 and XPS15 except GPU, (indeed it's the same chip) chassis is the same, most like they are produced in the same line and the only difference is BIOS or GPU firmware.

 

It's not lighter, that's just a print discrepancy. The two weights could refer to the weights of different configurations (notice all specs are shown as the exact same weight which surely couldn't be the case), or the specs could have been taken based on different engineering revisions before or after a design change increased or decreased weight. No idea what the true weight is though, haven't put mine on a scale. There are other spec discrepancies like the larger battery being shown as 9-cell 91WHr in one model and 6-cell 91WHr in the other. I alerted a Dell colleague to these issues and a few others but haven't checked to see what the status of corrections is.

Scaling is hit and miss. Your experience will depend highly on the particular apps you use. Photoshop doesn't scale at the moment so the tool icons are tiny. Your best bet on these questions is to Google for information about the particular apps you're interested in. There are several threads about this in the Adobe forums for their apps. As for me, I'm pretty happy with the scaling performance of the apps I use EXCEPT for RDP, which is unusable with the panel at native resolution because the scaling you're using doesn't get applied to the session you RDP into.

 

Similarly configured systems are likely to weigh the same. No one knows for sure why the M3800 marketing materials quote the lower weight.
A reasonable speculation is that the 4.15 lbs corresponds to the weight of the lightest possible configuration with the smaller battery and with mSATA drive (no hard drive).
I don't know who would be interested in such a configuration, but since the m3800 can be custom-configured to such specs (for Premier customers anyway), this extreme configuration does technically exist and can be ordered.

 

Just back from vacation. Expecting a fully configured M3800 at my desk. Not so good news: Shipment delayed to 15. Dec 2013..

Well, that sure sux b@ll$...

(ordered 15.11.2013)

 

Ouch, too bad. I'm in Norway as well. Ordered last week, but my delivery date is still estimated to 3. Dec. I should probably not get too excited then...