Dell Precision M6700 Owner's Review

Must every little thing that doesn't suit your personal fancy be an epic failure?

We already covered the reason why a VGA port is a good idea for a business laptop. Dell's product design team did not set out to satisfy your aesthetic preferences above all else. Rather, they set out to design a nice-looking notebook that provided for the needs of professionals. Pros use VGA ports all the time. That might change in a few years, but not now. Pros use DVI less, so it makes more sense to require the adapter for DVI, not VGA. You've confused "failure" with "addressing the needs of the target market".

Dell should continue to listen to the pros that need these workstations. If you're not part of that market, then no, they probably aren't listening to you.

 

Yes the HDMI port is 1.4 and the DisplayPort port is 1.2, so they are future ready. As you might guess I don't just flip a coin to figureout what ports we put into the systems. We spend a great deal of time researching, discussing, speaking to customers, etc.. and then we lock it in. I know that I will never make everyone happy but the goal is to have the majority of them happy. I'm always open to answering questions.
Tks
Dell-Mano_G

 

DVI -

The DVI interface is limited to 1920x1200 @ 60hz in single link mode. It is limited to 8 bit color. It also takes up more physical space on a machine relative to any other video connector.

When DVI was introduced in 1999, it was wonderful. No more ghosting or scan lines from badly shielded cables. You could do 1600x1200 resolutions and have it them look really nice.

Then you also have the industry abandoning DVI -

"In December 2010, Intel, AMD, and several computer and display manufacturers announced they would stop supporting DVI-I, VGA and LVDS-technologies from 2013/2015, and instead speed up adoption of DisplayPort and HDMI.[8] They also stated: "Legacy interfaces such as VGA, DVI and LVDS have not kept pace, and newer standards such as DisplayPort and HDMI clearly provide the best connectivity options moving forward. In our opinion, DisplayPort 1.2 is the future interface for PC monitors, along with HDMI 1.4a for TV connectivity."

The DVI interface was great. But there are better options now. Options that can be adapted to DVI.

Apple -

In our office we use an Epson EX7200 projector when we need to make presentations. It accepts, composite video, S-Video, VGA, and HDMI. We keep 2 Apple dongles in our projector bag for our Macs to make sure we are covered.

As long as Apple wants to put one port on a machine, we will keep buying dongles.

Disclaimer About the Upcoming Info -

No one has to listen to what I say. What I say is usually based on my views and opinions. Those views and opinions are based on personal experience, talking with others, and researching technologies to make decisions on products and technologies where I am unable to directly use them. But in the end, what I say is based on the judgements that I make - so they are opinions.

My opinion is that as someone that has presented in a few hotel conference rooms, the VGA port is a wonderful thing. Even the newer and nicer integrated AV podiums will usually just have a VGA input on them. If someone does not have to give presentations or use a projector, the VGA may never get used.

Here is my logic:

DisplayPort and HDMI can both convert to DVI, but not VGA. Both DP and HDMI do things better than the other. HDMI is better with consumer devices and content protection schemes. DP is better with color fidelity and the number of monitors you can now daisy chain through one connection. They are both needed if possible.

The only way to get VGA is to put in a native port, or a DVI port and use a dongle to get VGA.

If the DVI interface is 1) stagnant and 2) inferior to the other 2 digital interfaces, then professionals will seek out the best digital interfaces. But not including a DVI port means that there is no VGA.

Since the DVI interface is more likely to be used legacy desktop monitors than out in the field, it would make more sense to put the adapter on the stationary monitor.

If the VGA port is still more likely to be encountered as the analog video connection of choice for remote site use, then you provide it as long as there is a need from the customer.

Since the HDMI interface is being quickly and widely adopted for flat panels and projectors, you make sure to keep the HDMI spec as current as possible.

Summing up,
DP and HDMI are far better connection options.
DVI and VGA are both going away completely in the next 1-3 years.
VGA has a large legacy install base for presentations, so it has to still be supported.
Since VGA is more likely to be encountered when traveling, the dongle goes to DVI.

The magic mix to meet the most number of use scenarios is - DisplayPort, HDMI, VGA.

Going forward, HDMI is most likely to be the mobile presentation format that replaces VGA. It is just so widely used. We know that VGA and DVI may have seen their last chipsets, so something has to replace them soon.

I just hope that DisplayPort is also kept around. It does some things much better than HDMI.

In Conclusion -

Feel free not to listen to me. I can keep this line of logic going all day.

 

No need for a caveat. The deal is apparent by the title. Not to mention the quality of your posts speak for itself.

 

Seconded. Another excellent post, Bokeh. Your opinions are extremely valuable to me (and I'm sure to the rest of the community). Keep up the good work.

 

Are there Nvidia drivers (non-Dell supplied) for the K5000M? I can't seem to find them.

 

No, NVIDIA has not released drivers yet. The K5000M will probably be supported in their next laptop driver refresh, which could be coming at any time (they usually release roughly once a quarter).

 

Any requests?

 

You can modify the files to make the Nvidia 304 unified drivers work, but they had some minor issues. I am just sticking with the stock ones for now.

Currently in a hallway off of a packed concert hall live streaming to just over 300 people. Not a huge event, but the largest we have done with the M6700. This is the final test before a stream to several thousand in a couple of weeks.

Until Dell or Nvidia put out new drivers that are completely stable and test out to be stable, I am sticking with the ones out now. Funny to think a video card driver could get 300+ angry emails sent my way.

 

It is not really a caveat. It is making sure that people know that what I say could be flawed or biased.

Then I spend many lines of text making sure people understand that everything I say is based on research and careful consideration. I may be wrong on occasion, but I always correct bad info and try to be very honest.

I guess what I was really trying to say is that you don't have to listen to me, but here are 10 good reasons why you should.