Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Mine M3800 will arrive to me in Denmark tomorrow, ordered 18/11, shipped 26/11, deliverey tomorrow (got the tracking details from Schenker today).

 

Haven't seen weight figures on the M4800, but if it's the same weight and chassis as the M4700 we have at my work, it's going to be a 2.5lb difference (and that is with the K1000M; not sure if the K2000M has heavier cooling) and the M4700 was basically twice as thick.

Footprint was almost exactly the same.

Anything you buy today that isn't an ultrabook is going to beat that CPU -- even an i3 -- and any of the quad core i7s (even the i7-2720M/-2760M back in the M4600) will run rings around a Core 2 Duo

GPU is harder, as that's still a bigger/faster GPU than you're going to get in the E6x30 Latitude line (not sure about the ATI/AMDs in the latest), but if you're cost constrained you might look at some of the outlet/refurb M4700s/M6700s... (not sure about the M4600 as the Quadro 1000M won't be much of an improvement if any .)

Unless you order a custom configuration (easiest if you have Premier access but folks have indicated it's doable ; I could have saved $100 by getting 8gb, but I didn't have a matched pair of PC3-12800L to put in and didn't want the head/battery life hit of 1.5V memory... and once I had to buy a matched pair there's the $100 I saved gone again.

 

Wow, sorry to hear about this. And don't be sorry to say you're on Windows 8.1. I tried to use Windows 8 twice before and could never use it for more than an hour, but Windows 8.1 changed it entirely and I now actually prefer it to 7 when using this laptop because of the better HiDPI support, touch support, and a few other small things. This tutorial was also enormously helpful in getting me comfortable with Windows 8/8.1 rather than hating it: Getting around your PC - Microsoft Windows.

As for the network connectivity issues, I can't imagine a LAN dongle being so new would cause incompatibility problems. Ethernet is old as dirt (even Gigabit Ethernet has been around forever), so I just don't see it. The only thing I can think of is your router possibly having linespeed and duplex negotiation issues with this card -- do you have any other Gigabit Ethernet devices you can test with that router? Or maybe try your dongle on another machine, or your dongle+laptop with someone else's router? Either way, check the advanced properties for the LAN adapter in Device Manager and see if you can adjust those. Also, try updating the BIOS if it's not updated already, and also try the dongle in the sole USB 2.0 port on your laptop; of course that would create a bottleneck if you're on a Gigabit link, but it would be a worthwhile data point. And then finally what about your router firmware?

It's odd that you're also seeing poor WLAN performance. I have a hard time believing that that's a coincidence, but I'm also not sure what common factor could cause both of them either.... My only long shot guess would be severe electrical problems on the PCI Express bus, but that would affect practically everything else in the system as well. Maybe not the Intel graphics since they're built into the CPU, but definitely the NVIDIA graphics, not to mention any other USB device you use that requires any amount of bandwidth. How do USB hard drives or flash drives perform?

 

Unless you order a custom configuration (easiest if you have Premier access but folks have indicated it's doable ; I could have saved $100 by getting 8gb, but I didn't have a matched pair of PC3-12800L to put in and didn't want the head/battery life hit of 1.5V memory... and once I had to buy a matched pair there's the $100 I saved gone again.[/QUOTE]

I did go with the 8GB RAM because the quote I got was more than $300 more expensive with 16GB set up. Had them give me 2 quotes for my custom order...the only difference between the 2 custom orders was the 8GB RAM vs 16GB RAM. I've got access to Corsair and Kingston RAMs at 50-75% off. So putting in my own RAM would be more cost effective. Hence my RAM questions. Hopefully I made the right choice but pretty sure I did. Cant explain though why Dell wanted such a big difference but whatever.

 

I'd be willing to bet that those comments are just left over from when precision consisted of the M4x00 and M6x00. There are only two memory slots on this machine according to everything I've seen.

 

I hope you get it on time, I got mine monday also in Denmark, lad mig høre om dine erfaringer, mine er gode indtil videre.

 

I'm happy all of you are getting your m3800... I would think mine would be here by now, but I just got a call from our rep that the order was put in wrong so they had to manually re-entered the order so now i'm looking at a 12/26 delivery date as opposed to 12/9.. :/ Originally ordered this thing on launch day 11/14.

 

Its true, Windows 8.1 is partially really convenient...I just think it´s like having two OSs working on the same machine but not really complemeting each other. Being in windows mode and opening a PDF from there brings you to he PDF viewer on Windows 8 mode where I don´t know yet, if even possible, how to close the viewer again. I will definitely take a look at that tutorial you posted - thanks!

Ok so I tried the following:
M3800 + Dongle to Router (FritzBox) = 2 Mbit/s
XPS 1645 + Dongle to Router (FritzBox) = 2 Mbit/s
XPS 1645 to Router (FritzBox) via LAN-port = 90 Mbit/s
M3800 + Dongle to Router (HitronTechnolgies) = 90 Mbit/s
XPS + Dongle to Router (HitronTechnologies) = 90 Mbit/s

So it must be the connection of the dongle with this special brand, as the technician also emphasized. Router is not older than 15 months, firmware up-to-date, works fine with every other machine (PC, MAC, smartpone) in the house. BIOS and all other drivers are up-to-date. So that´s solved: I just need a new router^^ But I don´t think this should happen anyway.

WLAN issue: Technician will come on friday or monday and exhange the WLAN module, which might be a difficult procedure since the 2 antennas for the module are integrated into the display ;-)
Currently I am sitting almost right in front of the router, spotify is barely able to play without pause between songs, wikipedia can´t load properly....it´s a nightmare for a brandnew computer espeically since the LAN doesn´t work either.
USB issue: the computer needs minutes to recognize my external USB 3 harddrive which my XPS 1645 only needs seconds for. Data rates are - with newly installe drivers - scratching the 50 Mb/s....so your guess could make sense. Couldn´t really test the GPU and CPU yet because I was mostly busy being on the phone for hours and trying to fix things myself. I can´t understand why Dell would produce and deliver such a product. 2200 € with VAT is not that little and I should expect the whole thing to work from start. If I wasn´t so much in love with the display and the design I definitely would have returned it already and might have even considered a MBP.

Do you already have the M3800? Do your problems compare to mine then?

Also I kind of expected the battery to hold a little longer than only 2.5 hours,. I thought I read reviews or so mentioning more than 5 hours with the 6 cell battery. How´s your battery life?

 

Yeah, the common file types opening in Metro apps is hugely annoying. The way to fix that as you encounter them is to right-click the file, choose Open With, and select "Choose Default Program". Then choose something else. If you want to proactively fix lots of them, go to Control Panel > Default Programs > Associate a file with a program. I then sort the list by the app (rightmost column) and change any Metro app I see to the regular app I want to use for any file types I actually have. For me, that was common audio and video file types (opened by Music and Video, respectively, by default) and certain document types opened by Reader. Unfortunately you can't change the association for multiple file types simultaneously and the entire list reloads any time you change one association, so it can be a bit tedious, but it's worth it.

To close a Metro app, either use the regular Alt-F4 keyboard shortcut that works in any app, or swipe/drag your cursor from top to bottom. That and other useful stuff is covered in that link and makes the OS feel much more like a cohesive experience rather than two separate interfaces. It's still not perfect, but knowing your way around Metro (particularly how to get out of it and close its background apps) makes a world of difference.

Interesting that a dongle would have an incompatibility with a certain router. If you want a cheaper but arguably less elegant/convenient alternative, buy a small Gigabit wired-only switch, especially if you could use extra wired ports anyway. Otherwise, if you're buying a new router, the best one out at the moment is the ASUS RT-AC68U (not the AC66U). If you only care about N wireless, the RT-N66U is also excellent (not the N65, N55, or N56 -- I know, talk about dyslexia-inducing model naming). Either way, just update to the latest firmware, especially on the AC68 which is more recent. ASUS is great about providing frequent firmware updates long into a product's lifecycle, unlike other companies that provide minimal updates and stop development the moment a newer model is out (Netgear and to a lesser extent Linksys/Cisco).

If the tech is only replacing the WLAN module without changing the antennas, it will be easy. If the antennas are being replaced as well, yes that'll be a bit more involved. I wasn't even sure this display could be disassembled.

For the hard drive, I've found that the first time you connect a device to the system, it will take a while while it "Adds new hardware", but after that it's fine (some devices seem to repeat that task if I connect them to a different port for some reason). However, with a hard drive another thing you could do is disable AutoPlay, because when it's enabled Windows will scan the entire drive seeing what type of content is on there in case you want to "play" something from that hard drive right away. AutoPlay is a bit of a security risk and annoyance anyway, in my opinion. Just go to Control Panel > Autoplay and check the top box that says turn it off for everything.

I have an XPS 15, not an M3800. I haven't seen any of these issues myself. The only ones I've had that have been reported elsewhere are trackpad discoloration (happens on pretty much any trackpad and will probably even out with use anyway) and the high-pitched intermittent whine noise, but I've heard that on pretty much every laptop I've ever used as well, so I don't consider that an issue per se.

I haven't played with the battery much, but I did make sure to disable Bluetooth and NFC since I never use either one. I then dialed brightness down to 60% max since 100 is just too bright for me (and 60 has been found to be the most accurate by professional calibrators), and I played with the Power Options a bit. When I WAS on the battery during regular tasks, the Windows time estimates based on remaining life suggested about 9-10 hours of battery life from 100%, but like I said I didn't actually keep using it on the battery that long to confirm.

 

I definitely need to go a little deeper to the Win 8.1 short-cuts and things but not until the WLAN is fixed.
Wow, 9-10 hours estimated....but you have the 9 cell battery right? I mean even if Bluetooth turned off, display at lowest with Dell Power Safe and nothing else running I wont get more than 3.5 hours with WLAN. But so far I havent had time to check/uncheck everything there is ;-)

Thanks for your advice!